From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== At the start of the game, fighting a garter snake The player's character is summoned to the chambers of an old priest called Merlis, who informs him that he is the son of the greatest warrior of Apshai, and that it is written in the prophecy that only he can reclaim the fabled Temple of Apshai and rid the land of its monsters and curses. This game covers the Gateway to Apshai, which they have to clear in order to reach the Temple of Apshai. ===== Beginning on a cold October night in 1854 in a dark passageway, the book's narrator tracks an innocent man whom he does not know and stabs him to death. The protagonist/narrator, Edward Glyver, then takes the reader back, recounting as a confession his tale of deceit, love, and revenge. Glyver reveals the torment he has suffered at the hands of his rival, the poet-criminal Phoebus Rainsford Daunt, and why in pursuit of revenge Glyver (now masquerading as Edward Glapthorn), a book lover and scholar, has turned to murder. The story moves between the foggy London streets and the enchanting country manor house Evenwood where Daunt spent his formative years, a place with which Glyver finds he has a special connection. The Glass of Time, the follow-up novel to The Meaning of Night, further examines the consequences of Edward Glyver's crime, in a setting twenty years after The Meaning of Night. ===== Millionaire animal lover and overall spoiled rich girl Trudy (Rene Russo) adds Buddy, a gorilla, to her family. Buddy finds life in the city very difficult to deal with. Although Trudy raises him as her own son in her mansion (which also houses a few comical chimpanzees, a kitten, a horse, a cheeky talking green parrot, her prize-winning champion pack of briards, a raccoon, and a flock of geese), he becomes hard to control due to his strength. A particularly bad experience in the Chicago World's fair makes things even harder for Buddy. After he goes on an aggressive rampage and nearly destroys Trudy's home, Buddy is taken to an ape sanctuary to live among his own kind in peace. ===== While the Japanese First Air Fleet sails toward Hawaii personnel at the varied bases as well as civilians go about their lives. Primary protagonists are hard scrabble and bigoted Army MP Colonel Jason Forrest and his clashes with his bitter wife Midge, his well-to-do XO Captain Calvin Lankford, and briefly with local news writer Holly Nagata and punkish MP Sergeant Otto Chain. On the Navy side are Lieutenant Douglas North and his father (Commander Michael North) and mother and also his reacquaintence with former classmate Holly Nagata, a friendship she successfully makes a romantic relationship (right to seducing Doug in her car; though unstated in the miniseries their lovemaking results in pregnancy). Everyone’s lives are torn asunder when the Japanese attack strikes the island. ===== Pearl Caraldo (Rhea Perlman), a middle-aged widow, is the loading dock manager for University Electronics but who wants to achieve a higher level of education. She is accepted as a night student at the prestigious Swindon University. By contrast, her 20-year-old son Joey (Dash Mihok), a single father with no apparent ambition, is disappointed that his mother is no longer readily available as a live-in babysitter for his infant daughter. Also less than thrilled is Pearl's sister-in-law Annie (Carol Kane), who is concerned that with her greater educational attainment, Pearl will become another "one of them intellectuals." A professor of a required course, Stephen Pynchon (Malcolm McDowell), further complicates matters by his belief that higher education is for a cultured elite, not working-class people like Pearl, and sets out to embarrass and belittle her whenever possible in hopes that she will withdraw from the university. ===== From If You Give a Mouse a Cookie A boy gives a cookie to a mouse. The mouse asks for a glass of milk. He then requests a straw (to drink the milk), a mirror (to avoid a milk mustache), nail scissors (to trim his hair in the mirror), and a broom (to sweep up his hair trimmings). Next he wants to take a nap, have a story read to him, draw a picture, and hang the drawing on the refrigerator. Looking at the refrigerator makes him thirsty, so the mouse asks for a glass of milk. The circle is complete when he wants a cookie to go with it. ===== A narrator is relating what is an atom and how atomic energy can be harnessed by man to produce "limitless" energy. Dr. Atom (a caricature with an atom for a head) then explains the similarities between the solar system and atomic structure. He then goes on to relate how the atom is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. After this, the narrator explains how there are more than 90 elements with many possible isotopes for each. The history of atomic energy is then over viewed beginning with the discovery of artificial transmutation. This then led to the discovery of nuclear fission and eventually nuclear weapons and nuclear energy using the chain reaction of radioactive material. The Oakridge uranium factory is then discussed as well as the first nuclear reactor and the first uses of plutonium. The future of fantastical nuclear power plants is then explained. The short ends on the uses of radio isotopes in medicine and agriculture. The film includes a blue "nuclear giant" character, very similar to Dr. Manhattan from the graphic novel Watchmen. ===== The story centers around a Christmas wish made by a young Haruma Kawagoe, who was eagerly anticipating having a baby sister, after his mother suffered a miscarriage followed by a hysterectomy. Several years later, when Haruma is a college student, a woman on a flying motorbike claiming to be Santa Claus delivers his wish, a younger sister. When he remarks that he made his wish a long time ago, "Santa" replies that making a little sister takes a lot more time than just making an android, takes his signature for delivery, and departs. Haruma now has a little sister, who comes with her own instruction manual — a manual for how to be a little sister, that is. When she asks him to name her, he calls her Choko, which refers to the Japanese word for "manual". ===== When the head of a shipping company is murdered in his office the identity of the killer seems obvious. The killer is the son of the owner of a rival shipping company; the reason is the Romeo and Juliet romance between the killer and the murdered man's daughter. They wanted to get married. The murdered man refused to give them his permission. The murdered man's daughter asks Mr. Wong to investigate. She hopes that Wong will be able to prove that her fiancé didn't kill her father. The killing took place a few days after the Wentworth Castle, one of the company's liners, caught fire and sank with the loss of more than 400 lives. Once again, Wong is given important information by the leader of a powerful tong (Chinese secret society) that leads him to other suspects. The tong leader tells Wong that a member of the tong was smuggling a great amount of tong money into the United States aboard the Wentworth Castle. The smuggler is known to have survived the sinking but disappeared with the tong's money. Wong uses modern (for 1940) technology to recover seemingly "lost" evidence. He uncovers multiple conspiracies within the shipping company and succeeds in proving that the fiancé is not the murderer. ===== Will Keane (Richard Gere) is a successful 48-year-old restaurateur and womanizer who is the subject of a recent New York magazine cover story. Charlotte Fielding (Winona Ryder) is a free-spirited, 22-year-old woman brought to Will's upscale restaurant by her grandmother and friends to celebrate her birthday. Will notices her immediately and her grandmother, an old friend of his, introduces them. Will admires the hats she made for the occasion and is surprised to learn that Charlotte is the daughter of one of his old girlfriends, Katy, who died in a car accident. The next day, Will calls and asks Charlotte to make a hat for his date to an upcoming benefit dinner. A few days later, she delivers the hat to his apartment. Stood up by his date, he invites her to accompany him to the formal benefit. There they dance, get to know each other and later end up back at his apartment where they have sex. The next morning, while having breakfast on his terrace, Will explains that their relationship has no future. She acknowledges this, revealing she is dying from a heart condition. Later, Will tells his friend, John Volpe (Anthony LaPaglia), about his interest in Charlotte. The next day, Will calls on Charlotte and they go out together. They talk about their age difference and her illness. As they walk through the beautiful fall foliage in Central Park, Charlotte recites lines from the poem "God's World" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. As they talk, she notices him checking his watch, and she takes it from his wrist, saying she'll return it when he forgets that she has it. At his restaurant, they continue to get to know each other while preparing a meal for his staff. Watching her among his friends, he begins to fall in love. Back at his apartment, Charlotte experiences severe heart pain. At the hospital, Will learns from the doctor that she is suffering from neuroblastoma, a rare illness in adults, which in her case produced a tumor near her heart. She has perhaps a year to live. In the coming days, their relationship grows and she learns more about him. When she asks why he is so interested in food, Will responds, "Food is the only beautiful thing that truly nourishes." At a Halloween party, Charlotte, dressed as Emily Dickinson, entertains children by reciting lines from one of Dickinson's poems and bringing the words to life with butterflies on her fingers: "Two butterflies went out at noon and waltzed above a stream, then stepped straight through the firmament and rested on a beam; and then together bore away upon a shining sea – though never yet, in any port, their coming mentioned be." Meanwhile, in another room, Will meets a former girlfriend and the two end up on the roof having sex. Later, Charlotte suspects that he was unfaithful, and after denying it, he acknowledges his actions. Charlotte breaks off their relationship. They are both deeply affected by the breakup. Meanwhile, Will receives a letter from Lisa Tyler (Vera Farmiga), the illegitimate daughter he's never met. He goes to the museum where she works and recognizes her from an old photo, but he is unable to approach her. A few nights later he arrives home and Lisa is waiting for him in the lobby; they talk for the first time. She is pregnant and has become sentimental about parenthood, wanting just to meet her own father. She tells him about a dream she's had, that he's been trying to find her all these years in order to say he was sorry for abandoning her. Will says quietly, "Yes I am." The next day, Will is walking through Central Park and steps over a fence onto a path, leaving behind some children playing beneath a tree. That night, Charlotte returns to her apartment and finds Will asleep in her chair. Angry at first, she tells him to leave, but he apologizes and pleads to be given another chance – to let him love her again. She cries as he holds her in his arms, and later that night they make love. In the morning, Charlotte recites to him lines from a poem: "The stars are soft as flowers, and as near; the hills are webs of shadow, slowly spun; no separate leaf or single blade is here – all blend to one." Later, while skating at Rockefeller Center, Charlotte suddenly collapses on the ice. At the hospital, Will learns that the tumor has progressed and that she may only have a few weeks to live. In the coming days, Will searches for a specialist who can perform the necessary heroic surgery to save her life. He turns to his daughter for help, and she finds a specialist who agrees to perform the surgery when the time comes. On Christmas morning, Charlotte wakes up and hears Will decorating the house and terrace. As she prepares to bring him his Christmas gift, Charlotte collapses. She is rushed to the hospital and the specialist is called. At the hospital, Will comes to her side and whispers to her lines from a poem: "Time cannot break the bird's wing from the bird. Bird and wing together go down, one feather. No thing that ever flew, not the lark, not you, can die as others do." Their hands separate as Charlotte is taken to the operating room. Will, his friends, Lisa, and Charlotte's grandmother wait during the long hours of surgery. Outside the hospital, seagulls fly off into the snowy skies over the city. Finally, the specialist emerges from surgery, and as he approaches it is clear from his expression that he could not save her. Back at his apartment, Will finds Charlotte's Christmas gift lying on the floor – a small box with the hat stem she designed for him. Opening the box, he finds the watch she took from him on their first date. He stands at his window weeping, holding the box closely to his chest. The following summer on a small boat on Central Park Lake, Will is holding his newborn grandson in his arms as his daughter Lisa looks on with a loving smile. Will notices a swan, and then a reflection in the water of a young woman walking over the Bow Bridge. Father, daughter, and grandson drift peacefully on the lake. ===== The protagonist is Guy Crouchback, heir of a declining aristocratic English Roman Catholic family. Guy has spent his thirties at the family villa in Italy shunning the world after the failure of his marriage and has decided to return to England at the very beginning of the Second World War, in the belief that the creeping evils of modernity, gradually apparent in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, have become all too clearly displayed as a real and embodied enemy. He attempts to join the Army, finally succeeding with the (fictitious) Royal Corps of Halberdiers, an old but not too fashionable regiment. He trains as an officer and is posted to various centres around Britain. One of the themes is recurring "flaps" or chaos -- embarking and disembarking from ships and railway carriages that go nowhere. Crouchback meets Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook, a fire eater (probably based on Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, a college friend of Waugh's father-in-law whom Waugh knew somewhat from his club) and Apthorpe, a very eccentric fellow officer; in an episode of high farce, the two have a battle of wits and military discipline over an Edwardian thunder-box (portable toilet) which Crouchback observes, amused and detached. Before being sent on active service, he attempts to seduce Virginia, secure in the knowledge that the Catholic Church still regards her as his wife; she refuses him. He and Ben Ritchie-Hook share an adventure during the Dakar Expedition in 1940. Apthorpe dies in Freetown, supposedly of a tropical disease; when it is discovered that Guy gave him a bottle of whisky when visiting him in hospital (there is an implication that Apthorpe's disease, unknown to Guy, was really alcoholic liver failure), Guy is sent home, having blotted his copybook. ===== Youngster Vicky Malhotra(Vivek Oberoi) lives with his mother (Navni Parihar). A lawyer shows up to speak with his mother about her late husband's old bungalow in the Uttarakhand hills. Vicky arrives at the bungalow and discovers a secret cache behind one of the photographs. And in the cache lies a replica of a map, made by his father who was once killed unlocking a mystery of treasure. Eventually, some of his father's murderers discover Vicky, and abduct him. In the meantime, Vicky's mother visits her husband's first wife (Suhasini Mulay). Her husband's son by this wife, Veer Malhotra (Sunny Deol), is a forest officer in Uttarakhand. Veer is Vicky's step-brother. Vicky's mother requests Veer's mother to seek Veer's assistance in finding Vicky and bringing him back. While thugs bring Vicky to Bali. As Bali is about to have Vicky executed, Veer drops in and rescues Vicky. Determined to obtain the map at any cost, Bali's men give chase to Veer and Vicky: the chase takes them through the dense jungles of Uttarakhand to the foothills of the Himalayas. They rescue Riya (Sameera Reddy) from a river rafting accident. Bali and his men capture Veer and Vicky, and slaughter the pygmies. Bali reveals that the map describes the location of a powerful device: the armour and earrings of the mythical warrior Karna (of the Mahabharata). This armour will make the wearer invincible and all powerful. Veer and Vicky escape. They arrive at the final destination, only to find that Bali has beaten them to it. Endowed with divine strength, the evil Bali easily overpowers them and prepares to kill them. Veer and Vicky exploit the flaw (that the armour needs sunlight for its powers, which are lost at sunset. Based on the mythological fact that the sun God is the father of Karna) to defeat Bali and restore the armour. They escape the temple just in time before it comes crashing down, thus sealing it off forever. ===== As a kid, Charlie Banks (Jesse Eisenberg) both admired and feared the charismatic and violent local tough Mick Leary (Jason Ritter); in high school, Charlie witnesses Mick beat up two jocks at a party, leaving the two victims near death. Despite Mick being the buddy of his best friend, Danny (Chris Marquette), Charlie reports Mick to the police. Three years later, Charlie and Danny are college freshmen who are in for a surprise when Mick shows up for a visit. Though claiming to be visiting for the weekend, Mick moves into the two friends' dorm and begins borrowing their clothing, attending their classes, reading their books, and flirting with a woman (Eva Amurri) on whom Charlie has a crush. Charlie begins to wonder if Mick has changed or if he is plotting a fiendish revenge against Charlie for turning him in to the police. ===== Jubilee is the semi- fictional story of Vyry Brown, based on the life of author Margaret Walker's great-grandmother, Margaret Duggans Ware Brown. Vyry Brown is a mixed-race slave — the unacknowledged daughter of her master — who is born on the Dutton plantation in Georgia. The novel follows her experiences from early childhood to adult life. The story of Vyry's life in the novel spans three major periods of American history: Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. ===== Arthur Rogers (Walthall) is an unemployed, drunkard husband and father who has no money for a Christmas celebration. A title describes the situation as "misery and want, the family's lot." Helen Rogers (Leonard), his wife, cries with their daughter over their poverty. Arthur leaves to go to the tavern. He asks the bartender (Sennett) to put an alcoholic drink on his tab, which he refuses. Two patrons buy drinks for Arthur and invite him to their table. He becomes intoxicated and returns home to a frightened wife and daughter (Egan). Arthur is described as "helpless, the father leaves the house of sorrow." He writes a letter: "Dear Helen, you will be better off without me. I leave for good. May God help you. Arthur." He slides the letter through the door before he departed. Helen picks up the letter to read his words. Arthur returns to the bar, where he drinks to the point of unconsciousness. The bartender literally picks him up and throws him outside. Helen and her daughter leave the house to go to an employment agency, but are turned away. They return to the house to find the son (Tansey) ate their only food: a small loaf of bread. His arm is also in an unexplained sling. An attorney stops at Helen's house to tell her of litigations that have cleared, and she is now the beneficiary of her late aunt's estate. She and the children are overjoyed. Helen is seen wearing a luxurious hat, as the attorneys direct her to her new home. It is furnished with lavish embellishments, but its only flaw is that it is without a chimney. On Christmas Eve, Helen tells the children that Santa Claus will come through the window. She drags the children to bed. They pray, and she kisses them before tucks them into bed. The children sneak out of bed to set a trap by the window. The purpose of the trap is unclear, but a logical conclusion is to make Santa trip and fall, causing a commotion, and thus witness him to prove his existence. Helen bought a Santa costume and happily considers to dress up to fool her children to believe that Santa is real. She quickly is saddened to realize that the costume should be worn by a male, namely her husband. She is unaware that her husband now makes his living as a burglar. He sees the mansion and trespasses through the window, unknowingly that it now belongs to his wife. Arthur is caught in the trap. Helen catches her husband's attempted burglary against her and their children. She is shocked, and he is ashamed. Arthur begs for her to take him back, and she agrees after a long consideration. Arthur plays Santa Claus for his children. ===== Tum is a young man who has been a monk living in a Buddhist temple in Thailand since he was 5 years old. But after hearing that his sister has been killed in an attack on a train by insurgents, he decides to leave the monastery and make his way to southern Thailand where his sister ran a beauty salon in a town called Betong in a district in Yala Province on the border with Malaysia. In looking to put his sister's affairs in order, Tum finds himself conflicted. Should he take over his sister's business? His sister has a daughter, by a Muslim man who lives on the Malaysian side of the border. Should Tum try to take a greater role in the raising of the child? But first, Tum must figure out how to zip up his trousers without hurting himself. It's only one of the many new things to the young man, who has worn a Buddhist monk's robes for most of his life. He also encounters romantic and sexual feelings when he develops a relationship with a neighbor lady, who was a friend of his sister. And, Tum must reconcile the feelings of hate and rage that sometimes come into his head when he thinks about Muslim people and the insurgents who were responsible for his sister's death. ===== In 1971, the hijacker, identified as "D.B. Cooper", jumps from an airliner by using the rear exit. He jumps on a clear day, parachuting into a forest in Washington State. The man is later identified as Jim Meade, an ex- Army man with big dreams. Meade escapes the manhunt using a Jeep he had previously hidden in the forest and concealing the money in the carcass of a deer. He eventually meets up with his estranged wife Hannah, who operates a river rafting company. Meanwhile, Meade is being hunted by Bill Gruen, an insurance investigator who was Meade's sergeant in the Army, and Meade's Army buddy, Remson, who remembered Meade talking about hijacking an aircraft. Gruen confronts the Meades at the rafting company, but they escape down the river. The Meades lead Gruen and Remson on a cross-country chase involving various stolen cars. Gruen is fired by his employer, but continues the chase to claim the money for himself. At the aircraft boneyard near Tucson, Arizona, the Meades acquire a hot-air balloon, but Gruen steals the money from Hannah. Meade chases him down with a barely functioning Boeing-Stearman PT-17 crop duster biplane. Meade runs Gruen off the road but crashes his aircraft. Recovering from the wrecks, Meade has Gruen's gun and for a few minutes, they discuss how Gruen knew that Meade was D. B. Cooper. Along with clues he had left, the previous encounters between the two men in the Army had convinced Gruen that only Meade could have pulled off the audacious hijacking. Meade leaves Gruen with a couple bundles of the cash, and walks away with the rest, to be picked up by Hannah. With Gruen abandoning the pursuit, it is up to Remson to try to recover the stolen money. When he reaches a crossroads the Meades have just passed, thinking he sees their truck parked nearby, Remson continues the chase. ===== Patsy Newquist is a 27-year-old interior designer who lives in a New York City rife with street crime, noise, obscene phone calls, power blackouts and unsolved homicides. When she sees a defenseless man being attacked by street thugs, she intervenes, but is surprised when the passive victim doesn't even bother to thank her. She ends up attracted to the man, Alfred Chamberlain, a photographer, but finds that he is emotionally vacant, barely able to feel pain or pleasure. He permits muggers to beat him up until they get tired and go away. Patsy is accustomed to molding men into doing her bidding. Alfred is different. When she brings him home to meet her parents and brother, he is almost non-verbal, except to tell her that he doesn't care for families. He learns that Patsy had another brother who was murdered for no known reason. Patsy's eccentric family is surprised when she announces their intention to wed, then amazed when their marriage ceremony conducted by the existential Rev. Dupas turns into a free-for-all. Determined to discover why her new husband is the way he is, Patsy coaxes Alfred into traveling to Chicago to visit his parents. He hasn't seen them since he was 17, but asks them to help with a questionnaire about his childhood at Patsy's request. Alfred ultimately agrees to try to become Patsy's kind of man, the kind willing to "fight back." The instant that happens, a sniper's bullet kills Patsy, again for no apparent reason. A blood-splattered Alfred goes to her parents' apartment, New Yorkers barely noticing his state. He descends into a silent stupor, Patsy's father even having to feed him. A ranting, disturbed police detective, Lt. Miles Practice, drops by, almost unable to function due to the number of unsolved murders in the city. After he leaves, Alfred goes for a walk in the park. He returns with a rifle, which he doesn't know how to load. Patsy's father shows him how. Then the two of them, along with Patsy's brother, take turns shooting strangers down on the street. Their mood brightens and they happily eat dinner at the table together. ===== When siblings Julian, Dick and Anne cannot go for their usual summer holiday to Polseath, they are invited to spend the summer with their Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin at their home Kirrin Cottage, in the coastal village of Kirrin. They also meet their cousin Georgina, a surly, difficult girl, who tries hard to live like a boy and only answers to the name George. Despite an uncomfortable start, the cousins become firm friends and George introduces them to her beloved dog Timothy (Timmy), who secretly lives with the fisher boy, Alf, in the village as George's parents will not allow her to keep Timmy. On their way to Kirrin Island, George shows her cousins a shipwreck, explaining it was her great-great-great grandfather's ship. He had been transporting gold when the ship was wrecked in a storm, but despite divers investigating the wreck, the gold was never found. After visiting the wreck, the five arrive on the Island and are exploring the ruined castle when a huge storm blows up, making it too dangerous for them to return to the mainland. While they take shelter on the island, the sea throws up the old shipwreck, grounding it on the rocks surrounding the island. Excited by these developments, they decide to come back at dawn the next day to investigate the wreck before it is discovered. The following day, the five visit the wreck and discover the captain's cabin, where they find some objects belonging to George's great-great-great-grandfather, including an old box which they take back to Kirrin Cottage. The box proves difficult to open, so they throw it from the highest window of the house. The box breaks open, but the noise disturbs Uncle Quentin who confiscates the box. Not willing to give up their quest, Julian sneaks into Uncle Quentin's study and takes the box, which contains an old map of Kirrin Castle. Later in the further investigation on the map, the children find a word INGOTS, which they later understand that it represented the place in which the lost gold was buried. The children realise it is a treasure map showing the location of the lost gold. After making a tracing of the map and returning the box, they decide to find the gold themselves. To the children's shock, the box containing the map is sold to an antique collector. The same man also makes an offer to buy Kirrin Island. The children realise he has unearthed the secret map and wants the gold for himself, and so begins a race for the five to get to the gold first. Thinking the children want to spend time at the island before it is sold, Uncle Quentin and Aunt Fanny allow them to go camping there for one week. Arriving on the island, the five start searching the castle ruins to locate the old dungeons where the gold is hidden. Chasing a rabbit, Timmy falls down an old well, from where the children find the dungeon entrance. Exploring underground, they find the gold in a locked vault. Trouble soon arrives, as bad men come to the island hoping to steal the gold. They capture George and Julian, locking them in the dungeons and ask them to write a note to Anne and Dick who was up in the air to come back to the dungeons. George wrote the letter and Dick find something fishy about it as George signed her name as Georgina and decide not to go down. Unable to find Anne and Dick, they leave the island, taking the oars from the children's boat so they cannot escape. Anne and Dick use the good shaft to rescue Julian and George from the dungeon, and the children hatch a plan to trap the men when they come back to the island with a boat to steal the gold. Although the plan goes wrong, they manage to leave the men stranded on Kirrin Island. They return to the mainland to tell Uncle Quentin, Aunt Fanny and the police what has happened. The gold is recovered and it is decided that it legally belongs to George's family, making them rich and enabling them to afford everything they have ever wanted. George's only wish is to be allowed to keep Timmy, and her parents agree. George also agrees to go to boarding school with Anne, because she and her cousins have become very good friends and also the school allowed pets. ===== On her late mother Meru's 60th birthday, Major Kira receives a transmission from Gul Dukat in which he tells her that Meru, who supposedly died when Kira was three, was actually his lover for many years and had left her family to be with him. When Major Kira's investigation fails to prove Dukat false, she asks station commander Captain Sisko, as the Emissary, to permit her to consult the Bajoran Orb of Time. He agrees, and she finds herself in the past, at a refugee center where she comes face to face with her long-lost family, who do not realize her true identity. Major Kira (Nerys) and Meru are taken from the camp to become "comfort women" for Cardassian troops. The sight of her mother being torn from her children is painful for Nerys, and she vows to help her return to her family. The women are taken to the then new Terok Nor space station, where, despite her sadness, Meru is overwhelmed by the bounty of food and other comforts. Later, she is singled out for special attention by Gul Dukat, the new Prefect of the station. Meru confesses to Nerys that she has what she always dreamed of — good health, beautiful clothes, enough to eat — but at the cost of her family. Later, Nerys learns that her mother has become Dukat's mistress. When Nerys confronts a guard and demands to see Meru, she is thrown out into the station's Bajoran ghetto. Nerys befriends a member of the Bajoran resistance named Halb, who asks her to help attack the Cardassians, but she is suddenly summoned to meet with Meru. When her mother begins singing Dukat's praises, it is too much for Nerys to bear. She angrily reminds Meru that Dukat is not only responsible for killing innocent Bajorans, but also for separating her from her family. Meru explains that Dukat has promised to provide her husband and children with food and medical supplies. Nerys accuses Meru of becoming a collaborator and storms out, hatching a plan with Halb to smuggle a bomb into Dukat's quarters. Her mother could be killed in the blast, but Nerys no longer cares. Pretending to have had a change of heart, Nerys returns to Dukat's quarters to apologize to Meru, then secretly hides the bomb. She is preparing to leave when Dukat gives Meru a recorded message from Taban, Nerys's father. He thanks his wife for what she has done, telling her that she has saved their lives. Kira realizes that if her father could forgive her mother, she can forgive her also. She warns Dukat and Meru about the bomb, and they escape just before it detonates. Major Kira returns to her current time with the painful knowledge that Dukat's story is true and that the line between being a good person and a collaborator is not so clear cut. ===== The film opens with Jake Raye as he fights Mickey Sheehan in a pro-kickboxing bout. The movie opens as they enter the fifth Round of the Lightweight Championship Match. Jake delivers Mickey a lightning fast kick to the throat in the middle of the sixth round, instantly killing him. Seeing what he had done, he decides to give up kickboxing once and for all. A year later, a friend and manager Vinny Petrello (Kickboxing and UFC champion Maurice Smith) asks him for a favor to travel to Manila and bail him out of trouble with a guy named Su. Although Jake's evening with a prostitute (Liza David) is interrupted, he agrees to help his friend in need. Jake Raye travels to Manila, and meets up with local fighters John Jones (James Warring), Sal Taylor (Timothy D. Baker), Manny Rivera (Manny Samson), and Tobo Casenerra (Monsour Del Rosario). He also meets up with Dieter (Robert Marius), the head of the Dojo. Thugs attack Jake, and is helped by a woman named Mariella (Rina Reyes) into an abandoned safehouse. Mariella betrays him, and the thugs enter the safehouse. Dieter drugs Raye, and puts him on the ship with the other fighters. Raye is re-acquained with his friend Bobby Rose (Rick Hill) and meets another fighter named Ernesto (Steve Rodgers). It is revealed that Su (Joe Mari Avellana) is the one who bring the fighters to his island home called Paradise, and it is also revealed that Vinny is helping Su get the fighters there to battle in gladiator matches. The fighters briefly rebel giving Jake Raye time to escape. Soon Raye has a change of heart and decides to free the other fighters. He makes it back to the house undetected by Su, and is helped once more by Mariella. Mariella and Raye uncover a plot for Su to give anabolic steroids to each of his fighters before the match. Jake Raye takes out some guards before he is discovered by Dieter and knocked unconscious by Vinny, pretending to be in trouble. Jake is taken to the challenger’s box of the arena, where Su, Vinny, and his guests are awaiting the matching. Both John and Ernest die in the arena while battling their opponents while Manny is killed trying to escape. (Ernest does win his fight, but Su orders Vinny to kill him either due to his unorthodox fighting i.e. low blows and eye gouging however the fights were not fair to begin with and they were fighting for survival or his embarrassment of su's fighter) the help of Mariella, the remaining surviving fighters (Bobby, Sal, Tobo, and Jake) Jake fights and kills Vinny while the others defeat the guards and the elite fighters. Bobby shoots Dieter while escaping, and the film ends after Jake defeats Su with a swift kick off the balcony. The five people begin to walk off Paradise forever. ===== Looking for a job Toni goes from Italy to Southern France. A local woman named Marie takes him in as her tenant and becomes his lover. But when the Spanish guestworker Josepha comes to town, Toni falls for her. To his disappointment Josepha has a wedding with a wealthier man. So Toni marries Marie after all but he cannot hide that Josepha was his greatest love. After Marie has thrown him out of her house he is determined to see Josepha again. He finds her on a farm in the mountains where she lives with her increasingly abusive husband. Josepha is about to run away and for that purpose she steals money from her spouse who catches and hits her. While Toni is around she kills the man. Toni sacrifices himself in order to cover up for her. ===== Starting out in the 1940s, the story finds the elder Sorn bed-ridden. To an old friend, he recalls his childhood growing up in 1880s Siam, during the reign of King Chulalongkorn and the action flashes back to that time. Sorn's brother was a gifted classical musician, so gifted in fact that it caused a rivalry with other musicians that ended in Sorn's brother's death. Because of that, Sorn's father bars the boy from taking up the ranad-ek (Thai xylophone). However, Sorn, who has shown a talent for the instrument since an early age, defies his father and sneaks off to practice playing in an abandoned temple in the jungle. Eventually, he becomes so skilled at the instrument that his father lets him play after he speaks to a monk who advises him that he should not deny him the right to play ranad-ek. Sorn excels in his studies to the point where he is noticed by other bands. They ask for his presence to complete. He becomes arrogant and misses practice telling his father that his faith isn't misplaced. His father teaches his place by putting him on the Kong-wong. At the competition, the competitor scares his uncle (the substitute on ranad-ek) and becomes clear that the competitor has superior skill. As their playing, the judge realises that Sorn isn't playing on the ranad-ek and calls the teacher out on the fact that if they have a good player, might as well bring out the good material because then you can lose with dignity. The band starts over and plays the same song, but Sorn is skilled. He wins every competition as a boy. So One day, in a local village, Sorn and his ensemble are set up to perform in a courtyard. Across the courtyard is another ensemble, led by a fierce-looking bearded ranad-ek player dressed in black. As the rival player starts to perform, a storm whips up adding to the ominous mood of the setting. Sorn is disturbed by his fiery ability to play and wants to learn like him. But Sorn's talent does not go unnoticed and he is soon chosen to play for a local nobleman and is sent to the palace for more formal music training. There he meets an older man that he thinks is a palace caretaker, or some type of lowly person that does not know about music. However, later, when Sorn is to meet his new teacher, Master Tian, it is revealed to be the old man he met earlier. Tian turns out to be a strict teacher and instructs Sorn on all the instruments of the Thai classical music ensemble. At one point, Sorn is punished for being too flashy a player and is made to relinquish the ranad-ek to an inferior player, much to the dismay of other members in his ensemble, as well as a high palace official watching the performance. So when it comes time for the kingdom's musical competition, it is Sorn who is again the lead player. However, Sorn must overcome his fear at the competition, because he must again face the fierce, bearded ranad-ek performer. The story flashes back forward to the 1940s again, showing Sorn as a respected teacher. One day Sorn's son has a piano moved into his father's studio. The expectation is that his father will be furious at having a newfangled Western instrument brought into his house. But instead of being mad, he instructs his son to play a tune on the piano. The elder Sorn then takes up his ranad-ek mallets and improvises with his son, blending Thai and Western music. This is during the rule of the dictator, Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram, whose government called for the accelerated modernisation of Thailand. As a result, performances of traditional Thai music, dance and theatre were frowned upon. In Sorn's neighbourhood, the orders are enforced by Lieutenant-Colonel Veera. Sorn teaches the Lieutenant a nation can only withstand outside forces if their nation is strong. For that to happen, they must believe in themselves. No matter what, they must protect their heritage and honor it regardless of what they are to become. Sorn plays not only to defy the rules, but to teach a lesson about culture and heritage. ===== Elderly, wealthy Martin Chuzzlewit is constantly hounded by his money-grubbing relations, a fact that depresses and embitters him. He adopts an orphan young woman, Mary Graham, whom he wants as a companion in his old age; she will be paid an annual allowance but will not benefit from his death. However, Martin disowns his grandson, also called Martin, after he falls in love with Mary. Young Martin decides to pursue a career as an architect, studying with hypocritical, dishonest architect Seth Pecksniff, who lives with his two daughters Charity and Mercy and good, kind-hearted apprentice Tom Pinch, whom he is exploiting as a servant. Martin forms a close friendship with Tom, but after he discovers Pecksniff's true character, he leaves for America, in the company of Mark Tapley (ostler of the local inn), to seek his fortune. Pecksniff, who is a cousin of the Chuzzlewits, insinuates himself into Old Martin's company, taking him in as a guest, hoping for a generous legacy on the event of Martin's death. He also makes sexual advances towards Mary; she, who has also formed a special friendship with Tom, tells him of this and he, shocked, leaves the Pecksniff household for London, setting up home with his sister Ruth. Jonas Chuzzlewit, son of old Martin's estranged brother Anthony, marries Mercy Pecksniff — despite being twice her age and having previously shown more interest in Charity — and mistreats her. He also finds himself drawn into a fraudulent insurance scheme masterminded by Tigg Montague, and concocts a murderous plot in order to extricate himself from this. Meanwhile, Mr Chuffey, Anthony's senile clerk, goes into shock in the event of Anthony's sudden death and sleazy private nurse Sarah Gamp is hired to care for him. ===== Set in 1994, the film opens in Las Vegas with Pilot Kelson (Jake Gyllenhaal), a drug dealer, who poses as a valet and takes a customer's Rolls Royce to give his girlfriend a ride to work. His best friend Jack Hayes (Jared Leto) is a self-employed pool cleaner, who gets caught having sex with the wife of Burt Miranda (Mark Rolston), an organized crime figure. While Jack escapes the initial confrontation with Miranda unharmed, Miranda sends a trio of goons (referred to throughout the remainder of the film as "Miranda's Pandas") to break Jack's feet. Jack convinces Pilot to flee and Pilot proposes they go to Seattle without telling him they're going there to see an old fling of Pilot's. The goons catch wind of where the two are headed and set out to hunt down Jack. While at a diner, Jack and Pilot intervene when they discover Cassie (Selma Blair) being assaulted in the diner's parking lot. Cassie suggests that she does not know where to go so Jack offers her a lift. On the way to Seattle, they meet Johnny the Fox (John C. McGinley), an aging stoner who tags along, save Desmond the Alligator Boy from a group of high school bullies, and ultimately end up in Seattle at the memorial for the recently departed Kurt Cobain. Pilot finds his old crush but is heartbroken to discover she doesn't remember him. Pilot meets up Jack again and despite their attempts to evade Miranda's Pandas, they are finally cornered and they break both of Jack's feet. However, he has found love with Cassie, and the two of them decide to stay in Seattle while Jack heals. Pilot, meanwhile, decides to head back to Vegas, realizing he cares for Lucy, the girl he left behind. ===== During World War II, the Saruvian Empire invades and conquers the entire mainland of the United Sovereign Territories and only the southernmost island of Johnstown is free. The UST is able to build a small fort on a deserted island between the two nations though and use it to harass enemy supply lines. The UST is a fictional nation standing in for the United States, using all US weapons and medals. The Saruvian Empire is a fictional nation standing in for Germany, using all World War II era German weapons, uniforms, names, and political terms. ===== From the beginning, Elli and Ellon receive a "cryptic message" from King Brahm, the Dwarf ruler of Mount Zharrkarag and close friend of Elli's father. Upon arriving at Zharrkarag, Elli and Ellon encounter a ghost of a fallen Dwarf inhabitant, Iog or Nestri who informs the pair that the mountain city has been attacked by Orcs. With the help of other Dwarf ghosts, the pair reach the Dragon's Lair, home of the dragon Gaya who assists the player throughout by trading loot with Elli. As they explore the prison, they encounter a captive Dark Elf, revealing their part in the invasion. Later, after battling through waves of Orcs and giant insects, Elli encounters and defeats the great weaver Sonja. Moving into the Zharrkarag forge, the ghost of the Forge Master informs Elli and Ellon that King Brahm is dead but can still be contacted in the Dwarf King's Throne Room. After meeting the King, Elli is given possession of his powerful Warhammer Abraxas to aid him in battle against the Orc warlord Bruul. Upon reaching the Pit and defeating Bruul, Elli is informed that the leader of the overall invasion is Kai'Laria, a powerful dark elf sorceress. Elli and Ellon confront her in the Twilight Cavern where at first it appears she is defeated, but she quickly returns as a ghost, supposedly invincible against physical attacks and thus more powerful. However, before she can strike back, the ghosts of the fallen Dwarves appear and surround her, draining her magic and shifting the Cavern's walls, thus imprisoning her now powerless spirit inside. The Dwarves thank both Elli and Ellon before finally being free and passing into the afterlife in peace. In the Nintendo DS version, there are two additional levels that can be accessed in the Dragon's Lair at any time in the game. Elli encounters a yellow "wererat" called Flopsie stuck in Gaya's food pen with an Orc, who promises to lead Elli to a "powerful weapon" in exchange for freeing only him. Upon releasing Flopsie, he leads Elli into a fiery cavern called Brimstone before Gaya's nests of eggs. By this point it is revealed that Flopsie only used Elli to gain access to Gaya's eggs to feed on them. Elli starts to try and slay Flopsie. After a few tries, Flopsie releases Lava Dwellers on Elli. After defeating the lava dwellers, Elli and Ellon chase Flopsie to the Burrows. After fighting weavers, centipede hatchlings,and centipedes Elli and Ellon finally find Flopsie. Elli pursues Flopsie into monster insect invested burrows where the wererat is surrounded and slaughtered by giant centipedes. ===== Four friends, Gangu (Jackie Shroff), Abdul (Nana Patekar), Nihal (Kumar Gaurav) and Gary (Jaaved Jaffrey)- which forms the word G.A.N.G, get together to start their crime business, but their roots are built on friendship and trust. They succeed in their criminal goals but later they are attacked by a local gangster Tagdu (Gulshan Grover). As a result, G.A.N.G. retaliate with Tagdu and joins with Lala (Mukesh Khanna) a criminal leader with a conscience. But this does not pleases Abdul as they work for free with Lala and decides to join forces with Girja Singh (Imtiaz Khan) another gang leader for money, to which Gangu disagrees. Gary's sister is later killed by Tagdu's men as a form of early humiliation which shatters them deeply. Later G.A.N.G. and Tagdu's men are embroiled in a gang war, in which Gangu is arrested and sentenced to jail for five years. When Gangu is released, he witnesses that Abdul is now driving a taxi, his mother is well looked after, and that Nihal and Gary have also started doing business. It is when Gangu meets his sweetheart, Sanam (Juhi Chawla), and proposes marriage, and subsequently learns that his friends are working with Girja Singh. Nihal and Divya (Ektaa Sohini) marriage begins to fall apart as their child is born handicapped due to the former's drug addiction and later Divya commits suicide with her child. This incident shatters Nihal and goes on a murder spree, for which he is arrested. Girja orders Abdul to kill Nihal before he gives the statement against him to the court, but Abdul, indebted towards their friendship kills Girja men instead of Nihal. Finally Abdul and Gary decides to surrender to police for sake of Gangu and seeks help of chief minister (Raza Murad). But this displeases the latter as if they are arrested they will even testify against him, so he plans to murder the G.A.N.G. with help of Girja and Tagdu. Tagdu kills Gangu's mother in order to weaken the team, but G.A.N.G. finishes the minister's men including Tagdu and Girja. In the process Gangu is severely injured and is on deathbed and asks them for promise to leave crime world forever, to which all agree and Gangu dies after. The G.A.N.G. is about to surrender to the police, till the point where the minister orders the police for "shoot to kill" and kills the team. After a week of encounter lala kill the chief minister for betrayal from G.A.N.G (that is the actually first scene of the film) ===== Bogart as Jean Matrac In 1942, journalist Manning (John Loder) arrives at an English air base to learn about the Free French who are fighting the Germans. Along with Captain Freycinet (Claude Rains), he watches as French bomber crews prepare for a raid. Manning's interest focuses on Jean Matrac (Humphrey Bogart), a gunner, and Freycinet describes Matrac's story: Two years earlier, just before the defeat of France by the Germans, five convicts who escaped from Devil's Island are found adrift in a small canoe in the Caribbean Sea by the tramp steamer Ville de Nancy. These five men, Marius (Peter Lorre), Garou (Helmut Dantine), Petit (George Tobias), Renault (Philip Dorn), and their leader, Matrac, are rescued and taken aboard the French freighter commanded by Captain Malo (Victor Francen). Later, when confronted by Captain Freycinet, the five confess to being escaped convicts from the French prison colony at Cayenne in French Guiana. They had been recruited by Grandpère (Vladimir Sokoloff), a fervently patriotic ex-convict, to fight for France in her hour of need. To Grandpére, the inmates had recounted Matrac's troubles in pre-war France to convince the old man to choose Matrac to lead the escape. A crusading newspaper publisher, Matrac, being opposed to the Munich Pact, had been framed for murder to shut him up. By the time the Ville de Nancy nears the port of Marseille, France has surrendered to Nazi Germany, and a collaborationist Vichy government has been set up. Upon hearing the news, the captain secretly decides not to deliver his valuable cargo to the Germans. Pro-Vichy passenger Major Duval (Sydney Greenstreet) organizes an attempt to seize control of the ship, but is defeated, in great part due to the escapees. When they reach England, the convicts join the Free French bomber squadron. As Freycinet finishes his tale, the squadron returns from its mission over France. Renault's bomber is delayed, as Matrac is allowed to drop a letter over his family's house before returning from each mission. His wife Paula (Michèle Morgan) and their son, whom he has never seen, live in occupied France. Renault's bomber finally lands. It has been badly shot up, and Matrac has been killed. At Matrac’s interment, Freycinet reads aloud Matrac's last, undelivered, letter to his son—a vision of the day when evil will have been defeated forever—and promises that the letter will be delivered. ===== In 1942, Nazi Germany attempts to bring neutral Turkey into the war on its side by staging an assassination attempt on Franz von Papen, its own ambassador to the country. Much to the annoyance of Colonel Robinson (Sydney Greenstreet), von Papen survives and the Russians that his agent provocateur was trying to frame have solid alibis, forcing him to turn to another scheme to inflame Turkey's traditional rivalry with Russia. Meanwhile, American machinery salesman Joe Barton (George Raft) boards the Baghdad-Istanbul Express train at Aleppo and is attracted to another passenger, Ana Remzi (Osa Massen). She is worried about being searched by customs agents once they reach the Turkish border; she asks Joe to hold on to an envelope containing some securities, all that remains of her inheritance. Joe obliges, but when he later examines the envelope, he finds maps of Turkey with writing on them. When they stop in Ankara, he goes to her hotel to return her property, only to find she has been fatally wounded. He hides when someone else approaches the room. He watches unobserved as Soviet spy Nikolai Zaleshoff (Peter Lorre) searches the dead woman's luggage. Then, Joe exits through the window. Leaving the scene, he is seen by Tamara Zaleshoff (Brenda Marshall), Nikolai's sister and partner in espionage. The Turkish police take Joe in for questioning, only it turns out that they are German agents. They take him to their leader, Colonel Robinson. Robinson wants the maps. Joe refuses to cooperate, and is taken away to be interrogated by Mailler (Kurt Katch). Before the Germans get very far, Joe is rescued by Nikolai. When the Zaleshoffs reveal that they are Soviet agents, Joe agrees to fetch them the documents. Unfortunately, he finds his hotel room has been ransacked and the documents stolen. Joe, it turns out, is also a spy (for the United States). When he reports to his boss, McNamara (Willard Robertson), he is assigned an assistant, Hassan (Turhan Bey). The two men head to Istanbul. There, Robinson has bribed a newspaper publisher to print an article claiming that the documents are secret Russian plans for the invasion of Turkey. When Joe barges in by himself, he is quickly taken prisoner. The Zaleshoffs have also been captured. Joe and Tamara get away, but Nikolai is killed during the escape. Joe kidnaps a German embassy official and learns where Robinson has gone. Joe heads to the newspaper. There he forces the Nazi ringleader at gunpoint to burn the maps. Robinson is handed over to the Turkish police and then to his greatly displeased superior. He departs by airplane, knowing he is doomed for his failure. Joe and Tamara head to Cairo for their next assignments. ===== Two friends, Giuseppe Filippucci and Pasquale Maggi, test-ride horses. Though they are saving to purchase a horse, it is difficult for them to afford one, as they are only living off their income from shining shoes in the streets of Rome. One day Giuseppe's older brother, Attilio, visits the boys and tells them that Panza (a fence) has some work for them. Pasquale brings Giuseppe along to meet Panza, who gives them two blankets to sell. Giuseppe and Pasquale bring the blankets to a fortune teller, who buys them. After the sale, Panza, Attilio, and another man burst into the fortune teller's house, posing as policemen. They accuse the fortune teller of handling stolen goods, and finding Giuseppe and Pasquale, force them out and pretend to take them into custody. Attilio tells the boys to go away and keep quiet, letting them keep the blanket money (2,800 lira) as well as 3,000 additional lira. With this money, the boys have enough to finally buy a horse. After purchasing their horse and riding it, the boys return to the city. There the real police, accompanied by the fortune teller, bring them into the precinct for questioning. The police accuse the boys of stealing over 700,000 lira from the fortune teller's home, which obviously was stolen by Panza and Attilio, posing as the policemen. The boys deny all charges and do not mention their knowledge of the three true con men. Giuseppe and Pasquale are sent to a juvenile detention center. On arrival, Giuseppe and Pasquale are separated. Giuseppe receives a package from his mother filled with food and shares it with his fellow inmates in his own cell. Another inmate, Arcangeli, finds a note in a piece of the bread Giuseppe shares. It is from Attilio's boss, and it instructs him not to expose his brother and comrades regarding the con. Giuseppe informs Pasquale; they agree not to divulge the truth. Later, the boys are called into the police chief's office for questioning. Frustrated, the chief threatens to beat the information out of them. Another policeman takes Giuseppe into a side room to beat him. Hidden from Pasquale's view, Giuseppe is taken back to his cell, while another child poses as Giuseppe's screaming voice. The policeman proceeds to flay a sandbag, while the child belts out false screams. Pasquale, thinking his friend was in unbearable pain, finally admits the names of Panza and Attilio to the police chief. Giuseppe discovers that Pasquale confessed when his mother visits him and reveals that Attilio, his brother, has been informed on. Giuseppe confronts Pasquale in front of the other inmates, calling him a spy. A file is planted in Pasquale's cell, and Pasquale is flogged. At their official court hearing, Giuseppe and Pasquale are respectively sentenced to one and two years in prison. Giuseppe commits to Arcangeli's escape plan. While a movie is being projected in the prison, they escape. Pasquale tells the police chief where the escapees went and leads them there, but they have already escaped. Pasquale runs off and finds Giuseppe and Arcangeli riding on their horse across a bridge. They dismount and Arcangeli flees, but Giuseppe stays. Pasquale takes off his belt and starts to flog Giuseppe. Giuseppe falls off the bridge and hits his head on the rocks below. Pasquale cries over his fallen friend's body as the police arrive. ===== An unsigned prologue introduces the reader to 1930s France and sets-up the fiction that the novel tells the true story behind an actual newspaper report of the time. This is imagined as being a passionate adulterous love-affair between the book's two central characters with the nation's unstable political scene as its backdrop. The politics are rendered to us through the characters' every day conversation- they rely on newspapers for information- which means that the history lesson aspect of the book arises organically in the narrative. Written in the third person using a conventional omniscient narrator, the novel airs the internal motivations and viewpoints of various characters. The narrative tone is at times ironic; the author uses unfussy language to tell the story with economy. The vast majority of the scenes in the novel are set indoors, which gives it a domestic and claustrophobic feel. There are no descriptions of physical violence, but there is trauma and angst. The character of Mattlin is a truly vicious villain, while the mood is down-beat -- in fact, mock-Gothic in the Poe-inspired sub-plot involving the renovation of the Manor House. The book is shot through with mordant wit, but there are also lighter moments of tenderness and near-slapstick. On its publication, The Girl at the Lion d'Or was lauded in reviews for Faulks' ability to evoke a sense of time and place and for his adroitness in creating engaging characters. ===== For years, Zack Bradley has been working at the local "Super Club" as a box-boy. He lives with his grandmother and spends his free time with co-workers Lon Neilson, Iqbal Raji, and Russell Porpis-Gunders. Despite his slacker-like ways, he is kind- hearted, popular and supportive. His co-worker Vince Downey earns the Employee of the Month title for the 17th time in a row. Vince is egotistical and rude towards his co-workers, including his box-boy Jorge Mecico, whom he berates constantly. When new cashier Amy Renfro is hired, Zack and Vince fall for her and compete for her affection. Zack is told that Amy slept with the Employee of the Month at her last job, so he decides to win the title. Amy has dinner with Vince, but is repulsed when he puts the move on her. Vince does not realize how Amy feels, thinking they had a good kiss, and continues pursuing her. Zack steps up his act and begins going to work on time and working harder, giving Vince competition for the title. He also goes on a date with Amy, which takes place entirely in Super Club. Within a few days, with Vince still winning the daily star, Zack realizes that getting Employee of the Month is not as easy as he thought. With Iqbal's encouragement, Zack finds his groove and, to Vince's horror, wins the star the next day. A war of attrition begins, as Vince tries everything he could think of to derail Zack's string of stars, even breaking into his house one night to reset the clocks; the sabotage causes Zack to arrive a minute late the following day, but with Iqbal's help, Zack's attendance card indicates that he arrived on time, causing Vince's scheme to fail. Zack takes Iqbal's shift on the day of a championship slow-pitch game against rival chain Maxi-Mart. However, he leaves to play in the game and Iqbal is fired. Frustrated at Zack's new attitude, his friends tell him he is turning into Vince and feel his attempt at getting the title is a result of trying to have sex with Amy. Amy overhears the conversation and is disgusted at Zack for his true intentions, prompting her to compare him to her last boyfriend, also an Employee of the Month with whom she indeed had sex but could not stand his attitude, which was why she requested a transfer. At month's end, Zack and Vince are tied. On the day of the tie-breaking competition, Zack quits, gets Iqbal his job back and tells him he took responsibility for what happened, making a heartfelt apology to Lon, Iqbal, and Russell. Zack tells them he plans to win the competition, not for recognition or to make an impression, but for pride. When the store manager is about to announce Zack's resignation, Zack, Lon, Iqbal, and Russell show up claiming Zack never filed the resignation papers. It is revealed that Russell bribed the human resources manager with a Butterfinger. Zack tries to reconcile with Amy, giving a heartfelt apology and telling her that no matter what, he is a better man because of her. Despite Vince's protests, the competition, for the fastest checkout, is held. The Employee of the Month Award will be granted to the person who finishes the task first. Vince beats Zack by seconds but, during the award ceremony, Semi, the security guard, brings a surveillance video of the competition that shows Vince throwing store products behind his back and onto the conveyor belt without scanning them. The store's assistant manager, who had just completed an audit of the tills used in the competition, proves the tape was accurate and adds that Vince had been under-ringing for the past 18 months, costing the store thousands of dollars. Vince is fired and Zack ends up winning the competition, as well as rekindling his relationship with Amy. Six weeks after being fired from Super Club, Vince is on probation and working at Maxi-Mart. Jorge finally learns to assert himself and treats Vince the same as he was treated by him. He is still willing to give Vince a ride to the bus stop, knowing that this would put him outside the range of his probation ankle monitor. ===== The novel explores events after the destruction of Earth, from the point of view of two returning starship crews, one entirely made up of men, the other consisting entirely of women. The story is set in the early 21st century. Even as the Cold War dragged on, Earth has been suddenly contacted by the Monwaingi space-faring culture. The technology of interstellar travel is spreading across the galaxy, disrupting one culture after another. Monwaing itself was contacted only a few centuries previously. Another culture, the Vorlak, underwent a transition from a stable planetary society to a warlord culture similar to the Japanese Shogunate. The nomadic Kandemirian culture became a hegemonistic one similar to the Mongol Empire. Earth found itself on the fringes of a conflict between Kandemir and a coalition led by Vorlak, with Monwaing on the sidelines, actively supporting the anti-Kandemir forces. There is a lingua franca called Uru, which bonds the diverse cultures together. The original speakers of the language may have also initiated the spread of interstellar technology, but the language seems to have outlived, or at least outstripped its originators. In the 20 years since contact, several expeditions have set out, some in borrowed ships, some in ships built on Earth. The ship USS Benjamin Franklin, with an all-male crew, set out to visit the core of the Milky Way -- actually an unusual quest by the stodgy standards of the typical galactic culture. Another ship has gone as far as the Magellanic Clouds. The pan-European expedition in the ship Europa, crewed entirely by women, has roamed far outside the local group of cultures. The star-drive technology allows journeys of tens of thousands of parsecs in mere months. In spite of this, most cultures are "stay-at-homes" compared to humans, interacting only with the local group of cultures, known as a "cluster". Now the Franklin and the Europa return to find that Earth has suffered the ultimate disaster. ===== The story takes place on 14 February 1895. It is about two gentlemen pretending to be people other than themselves. Interwoven in their storylines are two romance-stricken ladies, each possessing an unusual allegiance to the manliness of the name Ernest. London man-about-town Jack Worthing, who hides behind the name Ernest, is an aristocrat from the country with uncertain lineage. His friend, Algernon Moncrieff, is of moderate means and has also created an imaginary character, Bunbury. Algernon's cousin, Gwendolen Fairfax, has caught the eye of Jack. Jack's ward in the country, Cecily Cardew, has caught the eye of Algernon. Lady Bracknell rules the roost with her heavy-handed social mores. The story begins in London. Jack and Algy are discussing life and love. Both reveal to each other their imaginary characters, Ernest and Bunbury. Jack reveals that he is in love with Algy's cousin, Gwendolen, and Algy reveals that he is in love with Jack's ward, Cecily. Both gentlemen begin to scheme the pursuit of their love. At tea that afternoon, Jack and Gwendolen secretly reveal their love for one another. Gwendolen makes it known that her “ideal has always been to love someone by the name of Ernest.” Jack fears she will find out his true identity. Lady Bracknell, in undulating purple silk Victorian attire, inquires as to Jack's pedigree. “Rise, sir, from that semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous.” Jack confesses that he does not know who his parents are because, as a baby, he was found in a handbag in a cloakroom at Victoria Station. “A handbag?” Lady Bracknell will not allow her daughter “—a girl brought up with the utmost care—to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel.” At the manor house in the country, Cecily is daydreaming as her governess, Miss Prism, tries to teach her German. Uninvited, Algy arrives from London and assumes the role of Ernest. While Algy and Cecily are getting acquainted with the parlor, Jack arrives in black mourning clothes and informs Miss Prism that his brother, Ernest, is dead. When Algy and Cecily come out to see him, the sad news loses its believability as everyone now thinks Algy is Ernest. In pursuit of Jack, Gwendolen arrives from London and meets Cecily. They both discover that they are engaged to Ernest, not realizing one is Jack and one is Algy. When the men arrive in the garden, the confusion is cleared up. The ladies are put off that neither one is engaged to someone named Ernest. Lady Bracknell arrives, by train. As everyone gathers in the parlor, Lady Bracknell recognizes Miss Prism as her late sister's baby's governess from twenty-eight years before. “Prism! Where is that baby?” she bellows. Miss Prism confesses that she inadvertently left the baby in her handbag at Victoria Station. Jack realized they are talking about him. He retrieves the handbag from his private room and shows Miss Prism. She acknowledges that the bag is hers. Lady Bracknell then tells Jack that he is her late sister's son and the older brother to Algy. Unable to ascertain who his father was, Jack looks in an Army journal, as his father was a general, and realizes that his father's name was Ernest. Thus it becomes apparent that his real name is also Ernest - as Lady Bracknell says, being the eldest son, he must have been named after his father. The film ends with Jack saying, “I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital importance of being earnest.” ===== The film begins with Pippi sailing around the world with her father, Captain Efraim Longstocking, her pet horse, Horse, her pet monkey, Mr. Nilsson, and various members of the ship's crew. One night during a hurricane, the captain is washed over board into the sea. As he drifts off, he calls to Pippi that he will "meet her in Villa Villekulla". To that effect, Pippi and her pet animals make their way home, Villa Villekulla, to await his return. Not long after arriving, she makes friends with the two children across the street — Tommy and Annika, who are captivated by her free spirit and fun-loving attitude. They soon convince her to go to school (for the first time in her life) where she gets into trouble, despite winning the hearts of her classmates. Pippi also soon attracts the attention of a local social worker, Mrs. Prysselius, who conspires to put her into foster care. When Mrs. Prysselius goes to speak with the local law enforcement of the need for the girl to be placed in a home for orphans, she lets certain details (her lack of adult supervision, living alone, having a large supply of gold coins kept out in the open, and most of all, leaving her door unlocked) be revealed to a pair of thieves already in jail. The thieves, Bloom and Thunder-Karlsson, decide to rob Pippi themselves once they break out of jail. Pippi and her friends take part in many adventures and close-calls, winning over almost everyone, with the exception of Mrs. Prysselius and Tommy and Annika's parents. Just when Mrs. Prysselius has had enough, got into a breakdown and is about to drag Pippi straight to the children's home herself, Pippi's father returns to take her back to their life on the sea. However, Pippi decides that she can't leave her new friends and decides to stay in Villa Villekulla. ===== The cartoon begins with a tour of a hospital. Porky checks in with a stomach ache, caused by overeating at his birthday party. Instead of a real doctor, he encounters a crazy cat patient posing as "Dr. Chilled-Air" (a reference to Dr. Kildare). Porky explains that he has a stomach ache brought on by overeating at his birthday party. The cat says, "Well, let's take a look" and slams an X-Ray machine into him and the X-Ray shows a birthday cake with only one piece missing and candles still lit in Porky's stomach, that cat decides to take Porky on as his own patient. The cat escorts Porky over to a bed then throws onto a bed where Porky bounces up off of it, his clothes come off and a gown that was laying on the bed flies into the sir and Porky skips right into it and bounces onto the bed and the covers go right over him. and rushes him off to the operating room where he intends on performing surgery on him. The cat is sharpening knives and polishing a huge saw with a rag. then uses an airbag as a punching bag. The cat strolls over to Porky with the saw in his hand and pulls down the covers then lifts his gown and brings the saw over to cut open Porkys belly. After Porky realizes what the cat's intentions are, he panics and exclaims "Hey! Wh-wh-wh-what's a big idea?!" and squirms around to escape from him while the cat still has his gown raised and continues to try to cut him open. Porky finally breaks free from the cat and dives under the bed and crawls through the sheets in an attempt to getaway. He runs out of the operating room and out of the hospital and back to his house with the cat hot on his trail! Porky runs up the stairs and runs into his bedroom and slams the door shut. The cat follows him and opens the door only to see Porky lying in his bad, smiling reclining in his bed. Thinking Porky has given in and he has the upper hand, the cat runs over to Poirky and with a satisfied smile, again pulls the covers down and lifts Porky's gown in another attempt to cut him open when he spots something on Porky's belly. It's a sticker that says "Do not open till Xmas." The cat, surprised looks at the camera and says "Christmas?" The jumps into bed right next to Porky with the saw at his side and smiles and responds, "I'll wait", much to Porky's horror and dismay. ===== The episode begins with Richie placing his head in the oven in a suicide attempt. He has left a suicide note on the table for Eddie to read. It is revealed that this is in fact a ploy to guilt-trip Eddie into buying him a drink. Eddie enters the room, places his briefcase on top of the note and proceeds to read the newspaper. When he notices Richie with his head in the oven, he shrugs indifferently, and Richie relents. It emerges that while Eddie has been out all day trying to claim his dole money, Richie has spent all day making an inexpensive dinner for the pair (everything has been grown, found or foraged), which turns out to be inedible. Eddie refuses to eat the dinner and reveals he has been denied his dole as he has too many savings - £11.80, which ought to last him two months - but he's "invested" the majority of it in a secondhand copy of Parade magazine. Eddie sits down to watch the Miss World contest on TV, but Richie refuses to let him. The two have an argument and Richie throws Eddie out of the flat. He then settles down to masturbate while watching Miss World. Eddie, who has been preparing to apologise to Richie, catches Richie in the act and agrees to keep it a secret if he is allowed to return and watch Miss World. Later, Richie puts two and two together when he realizes that Eddie has only 30p left, and yet the Parade copy only cost £1.50 of his £11.80, which should leave him £10.30. When Richie confronts Eddie, he reveals he has also placed a Miss World bet. Richie is less than impressed when he finds out Eddie has placed the money on the hideous, apparently ancient Chinese contestant, as he felt the odds were so good. The pair must then deal with changing a fuse when Richie breaks the television. In the ensuing chaos, Richie is electrocuted, burns his hand on the kettle several times (exclaiming "I didn't think the kettle would be hot!") and falls out of the window. When Eddie fixes the lights, he notices Richie is gone. Only now does he find the suicide note and assumes Richie has killed himself. After briefly mourning his friend, he begins planning to sell all of his possessions. Richie returns and the two discuss their state in the world. Eddie states his philosophy on life: "You get born, you keep your head down and you die. If you're lucky." Their contestant loses Miss World, and Richie is further depressed. Eddie reveals that he never placed the bet anyway; he only claimed to have done it so Richie would insist they watch Miss World. Eddie had instead spent the money on a "slap-up grill" as he saw Richie preparing "dinner" when he left that morning. The episode ends with Richie punching Eddie in the face. ===== Tomoko, a Japanese tourist, and Ji-Hoon, a South Korean film student, meet in Hong Kong. Despite a rocky meeting and their language barrier, they become good friends. In time, they eventually head back to their respective countries but only after exchanging email addresses – promising to keep in touch and eventually meet again. But with fate pushing them to see each other again, Tomoko decides to go to South Korea to meet Ji-hoon again but some problems occur. ===== Sixteen-year-old Anamika Sharma is a bright young student aware of her privileged position within Indian society. Head Prefect at her school, she aspires to graduate with excellent grades so as to be able to go on to college in the United States to study physics. Anamika is confident that she will be able to get in, but feels conflicted about contributing to the country's brain drain; ultimately, she concludes that it would be best to return to her native country after the completion of her studies to contribute to the modernization of traditional Indian society and breaking down the rigid caste system. The novel is set against the backdrop of the protests against the recommendations of the Mandal commission, which trigger several acts of self-immolation. In particular, classes are suspended for weeks on end, and Anamika finds more time than usual to pursue her private interests. She spends much of her time with Tripta Adhikari, a free-thinking divorced lady about twice her age whom she calls "India". India is a wealthy academic who lives in Anamika's neighbourhood, and occasionally Anamika sneaks out of the house when her parents have already gone to bed to spend the night with her new-found friend. Mr and Mrs Sharma know about Tripta Adhikari but naturally assume that the latter has a maternal relationship with their daughter, while India herself knows very well that what she is doing amounts to statutory rape. Anamika's parents even let her go on a short holiday to Kasauli with India and two of her friends. > [...] I noticed that my biting had caused her to start breathing heavily, so > I replaced my teeth with my lips. I gathered different parts of her flesh > between my lips and kissed her all over, in the opposite order in which I > had bitten. In her breathless moans and her cries of pleasure I owned her > more than I owned myself and was immersed in her more than I had ever been > immersed in my own self. Me, I had not yet discovered. I was an unknown > quantity, a constantly unraveling mystery. But India was absolutely and > completely known both carnally and otherwise. I rolled off of her with the > sweet exhaustion of a man who has just hunted his dinner animal. (Chapter > xix) Also in Kasauli, Anamika is horrified to see that she is expected to drink beer--which she does--and that one evening the grown-ups with whom she is travelling not only gather together to smoke a joint but also offer her one as well. In the end Anamika politely refuses. ("The love of my parents, my education, every moral lesson I had learned was being challenged.") Anamika's second "liaison" is with Rani, the family's live-in servant. Illiterate, only able to speak Hindi, and regularly beaten up by her alcoholic husband, 23-year-old Rani is rescued from a jhuggi by the Sharmas. However, as their apartment does not have a servant's bedroom, Rani is ordered to sleep on the floor of Anamika's room. This, of course, provides the girl with ample opportunity to explore submissive Rani's perfect body, in spite of the servant's occasional tentative protestations that "Babyji", for her own good, should seek the love of a boy her own age. Anamika, however, sticks with her choice, rejects male advances, and, despite the danger of being stigmatised as someone who associates with a person from a much lower caste, is even prepared to teach Rani some English. Finally, she makes several passes at Sheela, one of the girls in her class. Although their male classmates' consider Sheela much prettier than Anamika, Sheela herself is quite unaware of her budding beauty and the boyfriends she could have if she wanted to. She does question whether her intimacies with another girl are morally okay but does not recognize the seriousness of Anamika's endeavours. When Anamika asks her if she will be her "mistress" when they grow up she replies with a non-committal "Maybe". Only when Anamika goes too far and forces herself on Sheela does the latter reject her, at least for the time being. > "Anamika, please stop," she whispered urgently. > If she really didn't want me to she could scream or move away or kick me. > "You're beautiful," I said as I slid my hand between her thighs where her > bloomers should have been. She closed her eyes again, but this time I > couldn't tell if she was enjoying it or not. I pushed with my finger. I > wasn't slow, the way I had been with India and Rani. I was afraid if I was > too gentle she would use it to move away. I used all the force I could > muster. > She let out a howl. "Stop, it hurts." > I pulled back and said, "I just fucked you." There was blood on my finger. > (Chapter xviii) "Divorced woman, servant woman, underage woman, I was pursuing them all," Anamika says about herself. Though she likens herself to a playboy, she always makes sure that none of her lovers suspects anything out of the ordinary, that each of them believes she is the only one for her. ===== The film follows the trials and tribulations of Eddie and other transgender women in Tokyo. ===== In Hong Kong, a mysterious hitman known as the "King of Killers" has murdered a wealthy ex-yakuza crime boss named Tsukamoto. Because Tsukamoto had established a revenge fund in case of an assassination, a US $100 million bounty is placed upon the King. The deceased's power hungry grandson, Eiji, becomes the new head of the Tsukamoto family and one of the bounty hunters. An ex-soldier named Fu is part of a small gang that learns of the bounty. Fu attempts to enter the building where Tsukamoto's lawyers are discussing the terms of the revenge fund, but is rebuffed by the security. When he defends himself, his martial arts skills attract the attention of Lo, a seedy small- time criminal. Lo is also seeking the bounty on the King of Killers, and agrees to hire Fu as his muscle. They are warned not to pursue the case further by Inspector Chan, a member of the Hong Kong Security Bureau. To test Fu's abilities, Lo takes on a small contract to kill a local gang member, while also outfitting Fu and allowing him to live in his home. Fu soon meets Kiki, Lo's daughter, who is a successful attorney and ashamed of her father's sleazy activities. Martin, the head lawyer in charge of Tsukamoto's revenge fund, makes the discovery that prior to his death, the crime lord was forced to swallow old Chinese wartime promissory notes. He sells this information to the bounty hunters, and as Eiji is willing to pay the highest amount, he is the first to learn the serial codes on the notes. Fu and Lo follow Eiji to a small apartment complex, where they learn that the suspect is an old man named Uncle Leung, an acquaintance of Lo's that he had previously been searching for. Despite their best efforts fighting off multiple Yakuza hitmen and even an assassin disguised as a priest, Fu and Lo are unable to extract Leung, who suffers a heart attack and dies during their escape and is then shot in the head by Eiji. Back at Lo's apartment, Lo comes clean with Fu: Years ago, he had met Uncle Leung, and in talking with him learned the old man was a veteran whose entire family was killed by the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Now Leung wanted vengeance on his family's murderers, but the only wealth he possessed were the promissory notes. Taking pity on him, Lo told Leung to hold onto the notes and, in the event of the murder of the Japanese man he wanted dead, cash them in and forward the money to his bank account. Lo had only recently learned that Tsukamoto was the man Leung wanted to have killed, and once the crime lord had been assassinated by the King of Killers, Leung had done what Lo asked and forwarded the money from the notes to Lo's bank account. This had created a paper trail that implicated Lo as the King. Before Fu and Lo can plan further, their apartment is suddenly attacked by two bounty hunters. They are able to barely escape, and Lo makes plans to disappear to mainland China. Before they leave however, they decide to attend Kiki's graduation party. At the event, Fu once again meets Inspector Chan and deduces that the inspector is actually the real King when he slips that he knows Lo is not really the wanted assassin. Fu and Lo then go to Eiji's penthouse to meet Martin, where Fu shoots Lo and demands to cash in on the bounty. Martin however informs them that Eiji has changed the terms of the fund so that no matter who kills the King, he will be the one who receives the money. A massive fight ensues in the penthouse and soon Inspector Chan arrives as the King to help Fu and Lo. They are able to kill Eiji and all of his men, leaving Martin to rewrite the terms of the fund. Later, they are seen together, dividing up the money and discussing their future plans. Chan retires, and recruits Fu to act as the new King. ===== ;Road to Nowhere Ignatz Zwakh, former escort of assassin Primavera Bobinski, is tracked down in Thailand by the half-robotic Pikadon Twins, with a demand from Primavera's half-robot boss Madame Kito that Ignatz return to the Big Weird to work with Primavera. Primavera is a Lilim - a vampiric living dead girl. ;Wine and Roses Ignatz returns to Nana, Bangkok, and is reunited with Primavera. They go to a restaurant that uses gynoids to mimic the English vogue of killing Lilim. The Cartier automata were invented by a Dr Toxicophilous with robotic consciousness that harnessed 'quantum magic', and this quantum-mechanical seat of consciousness is situated in the womb of their descendants, the Lilim. The pair are in the restaurant on a job from Madame Kito, but while Primavera is engaged in assassinating one of Kito's rivals Ignatz is rendered unconscious. ;Beata Beatrix Ignatz and Primavera, now captured and rendered unconscious with a special girdle around her umbilicus (navel), are taken by Jack Morgenstern to the American Embassy, where they are locked up. ;Black Spring Jack Morgenstern reveals that the British government want Primavera and Ignatz returned to them, and Kito has betrayed them to the Americans. Morgenstern questions Ignatz regarding the amount of Lilim escapees from the supposedly quarantined London, but gets no response to his theory that one of the surviving original Cartier dolls called Titania is organising the breakouts. Primavera uses her quantum magic to telepathically induce her guard to release her from her umbilicus girdle, then physically smashes through the wall of her prison, allowing herself and Ignatz to escape by jumping into the river below. Due to the umbilical girdle Primavera's quantum matrix has been infected by hostile nanobots which are inhibiting her full use of quantum magic and are slowly destroying her. Primavera believes that Kito has been blackmailed into betraying them. Primavera and Ignatz leave Nana by boat. Ignatz apologises for running away from Primavera. Ignatz and Primavera make love, Ignatz requiring medical attention for blood loss afterwards. Primavera determines to confront Kito in order to be cured of the nanovirus. Primavera orders new clothes for herself and Ignatz made from living dermoplastic. ;Going to a Go-Go Primavera and Ignatz return to Nana, gaining entrance to Kito's penthouse in the Grace Hotel, only to be captured by Kito and her robot guards. Primavera begs Kito to remove the nanovirus that is killing her. She reveals that her telepathic dreams while captured told her that Kito is being blackmailed by Jack Morgenstern: years ago during a trade war Cartier infected Kito's fake dolls with an impotence STD and in response Kito sent her own virus to infect the genuine Cartier dolls in Paris - a virus that Morgenstern thinks responsible for the doll plague. Primavera says she can disprove this by telling Kito of Titania and how she and Ignatz escaped England... ;Westward Ho Vlad Constantinescu and the Human Front win the British election, and the systematic execution of Lilim by impalement through the umbilicus begins. Primavera and Ignatz decide to runaway together, and flee through the flooded London Underground tunnels to hide in the West End. The pair are captured by a group of doll-killer paramedics, but are rescued by a pair of Lilim. Primavera and Ignatz are taken to meet Titania - the last of the original infected Cartier dolls and Queen of the Lilim - at her hideout under a Whitechapel warehouse. ;A Fairy Queen While telling her story Primavera passes out, and Kito has her resident research and development technician Spalanzani examine her. The 'magic dust' virus consists of nanomachines that are transforming the Ylem at the heart of her being from a quantum mechanical state to a classical mechanical state, which will render her quantum 'magic' inert. Kito agrees to allow Spalanzani to remove the nanomachines on the condition that Ignatz continues his story... Primavera and Ignatz are led into The Seven Stars - Tatiana's underground palace, where they meet Tatiana and her human consort Peter Gunn. At Tatiana's prompting, Peter tells Primavera and Ignatz their story... ;The Lilim Peter's father (Dr. Toxicophilous) was a quantum engineer, a toy maker who built dolls for Cartier, though with the outbreak of doll plague his services are no longer in demand. Titania, his last and greatest creation, acts as a housemaid at the Gunn family home. Peter and Titania visit The Seven Stars that they are constructing as a private playground and Peter unlocks her matrix with his father's key, but infected with a sickness Titania stays there, and cocoons herself as she begins to transform. Peter's father tells him that the rumor that the doll plague was started by a rivals from the East was a lie, and that it is the result of his own dark childhood dreams subconsciously infecting the quantum structure of the dolls when he created them. ;Unreal City Jack Morgenstern and the Pikadon Twins enter Spalanzani's workshop: having bugged it Morgenstern has heard the whole story. Morgenstern has bought enough shares to depose Kito from her company and place the Pikadon Twins in her place. Morgenstern instructs his men to take Primavera but a green light explodes from her umbilicus and Morgenstern, his men, Ignatz, Kito and Spalanzani are sucked inside Primavera's quantum matrix. Inside the matrix they find themselves in a dream world that is geographically a collision of London and the Big Weird, complete with another copy of Primavera. Primavera is unable to wake herself up and return them to reality, so accompanied by Ignatz and Morgenstern she tries to find Dr Toxicophilous: according to Primavera Toxicophilous is present in all dolls and represents the programme that controls their files - he also has the key to her matrix that can wake her up. Morgenstern tries to convince Primavera that he is actually working with Titania, not against her. The dream city is filled with clones of Primavera, with the nanovirus represented by Jack the Ripper-style figures. Unable to find Dr Toxicophilous Primavera realises she needs to look deeper inside herself: she gazes into her own umbilicus and is sucked through, followed by Ignatz and Morgentren. ;Psychic Surgery Primavera, Ignatz and Morgenstern confront Dr Toxicophilous. Toxicophilous tells Primavera that Titania had betrayed her: thanks to his subconscious corruption of Titania's quantum consciousness he had created a living being with a death wish, and Titania has the ability to instil this death wish in Lilim at will. Titania had been negotiating with Morgenstern over using the Lilim as instruments of US foreign policy to infect and destabilise hostile foreign countries, then cauterize the infection by use of the death wish. Dr. Toxicophilous gives Ignatz the key to Primavera's matrix, he inserts it into her umbilical and the dreamers are returned to the reality of Spalanzani's workshop. Spalanzani is killed when he tries to stop Morgenstern shooting Primavera. Due to them waking up at different times Kito gets a head start on her enemies and traps the Pikadon Twins, while Morgenstern is shot and rendered unconscious. Kito re-hires Primavera and Ignatz to work for her. ;Desperadoes Kito, Primavera and Ignatz find themselves on the run from the Pikadon Twins and Jack Morgenstern. Kito says she can get help from a friend called Mosquito. Having been taken in by Titania Primavera and Ignatz spend time at The Seven Stars, chaperoned by a Lilim called Josephene . Ignatz asks for a view of England beyond that of the quarantined London and Josephene shows him via the visual circuits of a shop-window dummy in Manchester, revealing a nightmare world where the Human Front have replaced the dolls with re-animated human corpses, 'Mememoids' whose brains have been taken over by replicating information patterns transmitted via a comic strip called Cruel Britannia, and castrated policemen with guns as phallic replacements. Following the completion of her transformation and indoctrination Primavera is sent out of England to spread the doll plague through Europe. Together with Ignatz she is led through The Seven Stars to a service tunnel in the Channel Tunnel. Kito takes Primavera and Ignatz to meet Mosquito, an old employee who she had previously used to attempt to spread her virus to the Cartier dolls, to ask for money. Back on the road Ignatz and Primavera are attacked by the Pikadon Twins, and though they manage to kill them they lose Kito in the process. ;Dead Girls The Mekong River Ignatz and Primavera try to escape down the Mekong river, but Primavera collapses as she gives in to Titania's death wish. A hologram of Titania appears and explains to Ignatz that the only way the Lilim can survive is by keeping their numbers under control by culling themselves. Primavera dies. ===== Although these two powerful Eastern rulers would eventually declare war on Rome and slaughter thousands of Roman citizens, the plot of the novel centres on the Social War of 91 to 88 BC, a civil war which Rome fought against its mutinous Italian Allies after they were refused full Roman citizenship. (The lengthy section dealing with Marcus Livius Drusus' attempt to secure them the citizenship, which ends in his tragic assassination, is one of the main turning points in the entire series.) Marius and Sulla, still friends and professional colleagues, face the Italian threat together, and succeed in putting down the rebellion of the Italians. However, Marius suffers a serious stroke (his second), and is forced to withdraw from the war. During this struggle, Sulla, rallying his troops against certain destruction near Nola, is hailed as 'imperator' on the field of battle and presented with the highest honour a Roman general can receive: the corona graminea, the eponymous 'Grass Crown'. This was only awarded a very few times during the Republic, and only ever to a general or commander who broke the blockade around a beleaguered Roman army or otherwise saved an entire legion or army from annihilation. However, once Rome has settled this pressing domestic matter, and can begin to plot revenge against Mithridates and Tigranes, Marius and Sulla have their first serious falling out over the question of who should lead the legions East. Marius, now an aged and discredited statesman previously dubbed the 'Third Founder of Rome', is pining for further glory and believes only he has the talent necessary to defeat the allied Kings. Sulla feels as though his old mentor is unwilling to step aside and wants to destroy Sulla's chance of outshining him. The Senate cites Marius's age and poor health as a reason to back Sulla, who moreover is the sitting consul and therefore has the side of right. The seeds of serious discord are planted. The Roman comitia quickly becomes a source of political conflict between the two men, and leads to Sulla's first shocking march on Rome. It also leads Gaius Marius to pursue an unprecedented seventh consulship, which he wins and undertakes after suffering a series of strokes, and is depicted in this novel as going mad. Other narrative threads of note: the childhood of Julius Caesar and Cato the Younger, as well as the early military careers of Pompey and Cicero (who was appointed to Pompeius Strabo as a cadet) in the Social War: and the unjust trial and exile of Publius Rutilius Rufus, falsely accused of extortion, driven out of Rome, and welcomed by a street festival in his honour in the city he was accused of looting. Category:Masters of Rome series Category:1991 novels Category:Novels set in the 1st century BC Category:Depictions of Julius Caesar in literature Category:Cultural depictions of Cicero ===== The two opposing factions introduced in Dark Reign 2 are the Jovian Detention Authority a.k.a. JDA (which evolve to be the Imperium faction) and the Sprawlers (which later evolve to be the Freedom Guard faction of Dark Reign). The two sides are caught up in a conflict spanning Earth's 26th (and final) century. In the Intro, a Sprawler Leader who interacts with the player in the Sprawler campaign quotes: The struggle between JDA and the Sprawlers is, at its heart, the struggle between authority and freedom, government and proletariat. As the earth reeled into ecological collapse, the JDA established large dome cities to protect the citizenry from the harsh conditions outside. However, they left behind all those who would not succumb to their dictatorial will: the Sprawlers. The disenfranchised Sprawlers are thus left in the outside world, bathed in the harsh conditions of a dying planet and fueled by the explosive rage of rebels fighting for a free life under the thumb of a cold overlord. Thus, the Sprawlers desperately fight to break into the dome cities, while the JDA desperately sally out into the decaying 'Sprawl' to keep them out and in a state of submission. The player can choose to play either the JDA or the Sprawlers campaigns, both with similarities and differences to the overall story. If the player chooses the JDA, he/she is a member of strike force, guided by the JDA central AI, "CYGNET". If the player chooses the Sprawlers, he/she is referred to as "Sirdar", a new member of the council eager to prove him/herself. Both sides are concerned with the massive increase in seismic activity around the world which is consuming it and each other. As the story progresses, both sides gain access to new units and structures which the player will need to use in order to proceed further and develop more powerful strategies. ===== The cartoon-style game features agent Halloween Harry, who has to save the world from aliens that want to take control of Earth by turning its population into green-skinned zombies. Some of the enemies reference Aliens, Gremlins, and Elvis Presley. Harry is helped by controller Diane, who gives him information via a video link. ===== Starhunter is an alien tribe that steals all life energy on other planets, gathering the energy in the sixth dimension using "King Medal" and bringing it under their control. Soon they created "Knight Medal" when "King Medal" was not able to absorb all the energy. Hoping to conquer the Earth in one fell swoop, since they believed it would not offer much resistance, they brought along both medals. Fortunately, the ship carrying both medals got hit by crossfire in a war that was going on down on Earth. The medals were lost as the ship exploded in Siberia. Starhunter was forced to retreat and create new medals. One of the medals was broken into 5 pieces. The broken medal was taken by researchers headed by Dr. Earth, and the complete medal was taken by Dr. Heart. One day, Heart's research lab exploded and the medal was nowhere to be found. Later Dr. Earth realized that monsters that had begun to appear were humans that had absorbed the energy from the missing medal when the lab exploded. Upon further research, Dr. Earth created "SportDetector" to control the 5 broken pieces and special suits to utilize each piece's unique power. He gave five youngsters the suits to stop these monsters. Meanwhile, Starhunter is preparing their new invasion of Earth. At the end of the first season's finale, the three male Sport Rangers (Ace, Up, and New) sacrifice themselves to destroy the evil's palace. ===== It is the end of the 20th century. The Metropolitan Police have begun to lose control of Tokyo; crime is rampant and people are no longer safe. Their solution: the establishment of the Anti Vicious Crime Heavily Armored Mobile Special Investigations Unit. Created by men and women of high intellect and physical strength who had a particularly strong, even fanatical sense of justice, they were nicknamed "Kerberos", and armed with special body armor called "reinforcement gear" and heavy weaponry. What started as a noble and courageous effort to stop the onslaught of crime soon spiraled out of control. Their overzealous actions and fanatical hatred of evil soon led to less-than police-like behavior. Public criticism grew as their investigative tactics became more aggressive, cruel, and corrupt. The turning point occurred when a Kerberos member, during a routine investigation, beat a misdemeanor offender to death. This was the catalyst and justification to shut the group down forever and dissolve it completely. However, there were those in the Kerberos group who refused to disarm. Three of the elite rebelled against the system, and fought their way through the city. Two were wounded, and unable to escape capture. Only one—senior detective, Koichi Todome, managed to escape, and he promised the others that he would return for them. Several years later, Koichi, a fugitive from the government, returns home for reasons that seem unclear. The city has decayed at an exponential rate and is completely unlike the place he left behind. Everything is surreal and strange, blurred and nondescript. He wanders, trying to find some semblance of his past and to find the comrades he'd left behind. But, the city itself seems to resist him, and there are those who realize the threat that Koichi poses, and his return is more dangerous than anyone realizes. In the end, it is revealed that most of Koichi's exploits in Japan are in fact a dying dream, as he is attacked and killed shortly after returning to Japan. ===== The Evil King, ruler of the Empire of Horror, has arisen from the dead to rule the world once more. The Greek goddess Athena has summoned the souls of four ancient guardians and bestowed their power upon four heroes to stop the evil once again. Arcade Flyer, front These guardians wield the ability to morph into anthropomorphic beasts to fight their enemies. ===== In Richmond, Virginia, Asa (Frank Craven) and Lavinia (Billie Burke) (née Fitzroy) Timberlake gave their two daughters male names: Roy (Olivia de Havilland) and Stanley (Bette Davis). The movie opens with the young women as adults. Asa Timberlake has recently lost his piece of a tobacco company to his former partner William Fitzroy (Charles Coburn), his wife's brother. Roy, a successful interior decorator, is married to Dr. Peter Kingsmill (Dennis Morgan). Stanley is engaged to progressive attorney Craig Fleming (George Brent). The night before her wedding, Stanley runs off with Roy's husband Peter. Fleming becomes and stays depressed, but Roy soon decides to keep a positive attitude. After Roy divorces Peter, he and Stanley marry and move to Baltimore. Roy encounters Fleming again after some time, and she encourages him to move on with his life. They soon begin dating. Roy refers a young black man, Parry Clay (Ernest Anderson), to Fleming, and he hires him to work in his law office while he attends law school. Parry is the son of Minerva Clay (Hattie McDaniel), the Timberlake parents' family maid. William Fitzroy, Lavinia's brother and Asa's former partner in a tobacco business, doted on his niece Stanley and gave her expensive presents and money, but was very upset when she ran off. He says he will throw Fleming some of his legal business if he agrees to stop representing poor, black clients. When Fleming refuses, Roy Timberlake is impressed and decides to accept him in marriage. In Baltimore, Stanley and Peter's marriage suffers from his heavy drinking and her excessive spending. Peter takes his own life. Shaken, Stanley returns to her home town with Roy. After she recovers, Stanley decides to win back Fleming. While discussing her late husband's life insurance with Fleming at his office, Stanley invites him to join her later for dinner. When he fails to come to the restaurant, she gets drunk. While driving home, she hits a young mother and her young daughter. Severely injuring the woman and killing the child, in a panic, Stanley drives away. The police find Stanley's car abandoned with front-end damage and go to question her. Stanley insists she had loaned her car to Parry Clay the night of the accident. On the strength of this accusation from a rich, white woman alone, Perry Clay is taken into custody. However, Roy suspects that Stanley is hiding the truth, and asks Minerva Clay what she knows. Minerva, despondent about her son being unjustly accused, tells Roy that Perry was home with her all evening, studying. Stanley continues to dissimulate and refuses to admit her responsibility, even when Roy arranges for her to see Parry at the jail where she tries to get him to confirm her story that Perry drove the fateful car and promises him she'll do all she can to get him out once he's been convicted. Later, Fleming confronts her once more: he has questioned the bartender at the restaurant, where Stanley has left an indelible and negative impression: he knows Stanley left drunk around 7.30 pm, just before the time of the accident. Fleming plans to take Stanley to the district attorney, but she escapes to her uncle's house and pleads for his help. Having just discovered he has only six months to live, Fitzroy is too distraught to do anything. The police arrive at Fitzroy's house: Stanley sees them and escapes through the back door and the garden. While pursued by the police, she crashes her car and dies. ===== Rahul (Rahul Roy) is angry with his dad for marrying a second wife, while his mother is still alive; in rage and in fury he pays an uninvited visit to the wedding where he throws his mother's mangalsutra and all the other household items she preserved. He breaks the windows of the wedding car and is hence arrested and sent to the nearest Police station ASAP. Meanwhile, Anu (Anu Aggarwal) runs away from an oppressive girls' hostel run by Arnie Campbell (Tom Alter), who immediately reports to the police station that she is missing. The police catch her and keep her at a nearby Police station (which happens to be the same where Rahul is). While waiting for Arnie, Rahul offers Anu his jacket, which she accepts. Arnie then arrives and takes her back to the oppressive hostel, promising the police inspector that this would never happen again. After they leave, the inspector turns to Rahul and offers him some advice and then lets him go back to his broken home. Rahul can not stop thinking about the beautiful Anu. The very next day, Rahul returns to the hostel area and spots his jacket hanging outside the hostel and wishes to meet Anu. Since she lives in a girl's hostel there is no way he can enter. Hence, he plays cricket with his friend and deliberately aims the ball into the compound. The security lets him inside to retrieve the ball. Rahul goes inside and sees Anu climbing a ladder. She is very surprised by his presence and falls off that ladder. Rahul was unable to express his feelings for her and writes a note on the electricity bill his mother told him to pay that very day. Anu takes the note and leaves. His mother then is upset that Rahul did not pay the bill and asks his Master (Tailor) to help get the bill back. The tailor helps Rahul get the bill along with a note where Anu requests him to meet her at the Main City Library the following Saturday. He arrives on time eagerly, where Anu tells him she has nothing to give him except "thank you", but Rahul says nobody can stop him from loving her, not even herself. Soon after he leaves, Arnie catches her and takes her along to Ooty (another town) to be admitted in another hostel. Rahul employs a spy to eavesdrop and see where Anu is going next. The spy learns about Anu's travel plans and informs Rahul, who goes along with his friend to search for Anu and finds the place they are staying in. They find out that Arnie actually intended to get Anu married and lied to her about admitting her to a new hostel, because she would not have come along. At the hostel, Arnie organises a farewell party for Anu and Anu invites Rahul. who promises to attend the party. After this party, they plan to elope (run away together). At the party, he runs away with Anu and then Arnie catches them both using the police. Anu has to return with Arnie and go to Ooty, while Rahul returns to his home. After a few months, Rahul approaches Mr. Arnie as he can not forget his friend Anu, who he knows is unhappy. Rahul then finds out from Arnie all the details that Anu has a distant relative in Ooty named Uncle Peter who is an alcoholic. Long long ago, Peter had signed the documents and now he had full custody over her. Rahul asks Arnie about her whereabouts and more details so that he could help her settle (and be more happy) and Arnie (wanting to help Anu) reveals everything. They both find Anu in a miserable state with Uncle Peter and bribe the uncle for a sum of 20,000 rupees on the condition that he signs the documents and is no longer Anu's legal guardian. After Anu is finally free from both Arnie, the hostel and Uncle Peter, she wishes to become self-reliant and seeks admission in a typing institute. One day, she comes across a job advert searching for a model to run for "Jean Cardin "brand of clothes in Mumbai who requests Anu to audition. Anu agrees and wins a sum of 10,000 rupees along with a free tour to Paris and a secured residence. She thanks Rahul for all his help, but Rahul mentions to her that he loves her deeply and wants to marry her ASAP, to which Anu agrees, but she says she will need some time to prepare. Rahul's mother (Reema Lagoo), on hearing this story visits Anu and offers some advice, as she knows Anu is an orphan and lonely, advising her not to marry him till he achieves something in life as equality of status between partners is essential for a healthy relationship. The next day, Rahul comes to the place where Anu is having a photo shoot session. He hears the man in charge telling her to change into a swimming costume, to which Rahul disagrees. He tells him that they were planning to get married soon and he disapproves of such nakedness. He is even more shocked when he learns that Anu already signed a contract promising she would not get married within a span of two years. Rahul is heartbroken by this decision and pens her a letter written with his blood. As life goes on, years go by, and Rahul establishes himself as a singer. Anu is also successful as a model. Rahul plans to meet Anu now, but Padamsee (Homi Wadia) reveals to Rahul that it's thanks to Anu that his debut record was released into market, which hurts Rahul deeply as he now doubts his own mettle and talent. Hence, Rahul cancels their marriage plans. Anu, grieved by Rahul's decision, decides to further her career under the director Padamsee who persuades her to accompany him to Paris. Rahul's mother enlightens him that Anu refused to marry him earlier because of her suggestion and that Anu was only a medium for his talent to reach the public - it was his singing that made him successful and popular. She urges him to go back to Anu, his true love. When Rahul comes to stop her from boarding the flight, Anu agrees to abandon the director and stays behind to renew their relationship. ===== Lieutenant Commander Ken White orders the submarine USS Tiger Shark to dive to evade an aerial and surface attack. Crewman Boyer begs him to wait for the captain, Commander Josh Rice, still topside, but White refuses, and Rice (his good friend) and the quartermaster are lost. When they resurface shortly afterward, they discover that the war is over. No one other than Boyer, not even the captain's widow and father, blames him. White marries Carol and remains in the Navy after the war. Everything is fine, until one day he is assigned to show a reporter around who is doing a story about the mothballed Navy. By chance, the submarine that catches the journalist's attention is the Tiger Shark. The newsman remembers the tragic story of the last day of the war and mentions that the officer who ordered the dive "must feel like a heel", and White's feelings of guilt resurface, straining his marriage. Then Boyer is assigned to his unit. When Boyer sees White, he immediately requests a transfer. As it happens, the Tiger Shark is being recommissioned, so White sends him there. A fire breaks out on the submarine, trapping a man in a compartment. Boyer wants to charge in to his rescue, but White makes him go "by the book" and put on a protective suit first, fueling Boyer's hatred. White is about to resign from the Navy to escape the ghosts of his past, but changes his mind at the last moment. As a result, Carol decides to leave him. North Korea invades South Korea the same day, starting the Korean War. White is given command of the Tiger Shark. He sets sail from the Mare Island Naval Shipyard for the war as soon as the submarine is ready. Boyer is a disgruntled member of the crew. When they rendezvous with an aircraft carrier, White is given a special mission. A colonel and his special intelligence unit are in possession of vital information, but are prisoners of war. A rescue mission is being mounted; White's job is to land men at two points to knock out enemy coastal installations in advance of a paratrooper airborne assault on the prison camp. White's part of the raid is led by Commander Peter Morris, a family friend. However, after dropping off Morris's unit first, one of the Tiger Shark engines begins overheating, endangering the timing of the second landing. To make up lost time, White makes the risky decision to enter the mined harbor. Once he sees the signal that the mission has been successful, he surfaces in order to notify his admiral, even though that exposes the submarine to fire from shore batteries. When the Tiger Shark is hit and starts sinking, White orders the crew to abandon ship. He and his men are picked up along with the freed prisoners. His demons finally exorcised, he later attends the launching of another Tiger Shark with his wife, their baby and Boyer. ===== Thomas Perscors ("through fire"), an incarnation of Primal Man, is taken from Earth to the planet Lucifer by Seth Valentinus, a reincarnation of the gnostic theologian Valentinus. Their guide is Olam, who is an Aeon, an emanation of the true god. Lucifer is controlled by "Saklas", which is a Gnostic name for the false creator. Olam has brought Perscors to Lucifer to fight Saklas, and has brought Valentinus so he can remember his true self. Perscors cripples Saklas and changes the order of things across all of Lucifer. ===== Christmas Day 1884. Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle is invited to a seance where two people are apparently murdered. Doyle is saved by Armond Sacker, apparently a professor of Antiquities at Cambridge University. Doyle contacts Claude Leboux, a friend and Scotland Yard Inspector to investigate, but the house where the seance took place has been redecorated. Doyle gets a note from Helena Petrovna Blavatsky inviting him to a speech in Cambridge. He goes to Cambridge, unsuccessfully tries to track down Sacker, and then Doyle attends Blavatsky's talk, and speaks with her afterwards. She warns him of dark spirits and after a meal he is attacked and is rescued by "Professor Sacker" for a second time who turns out to be Jack Sparks, Special Agent to the Crown. They head to Topping to the estate of one of the attendees at the seance, but find that it has become a madhouse. They find a clue to go to a publishing house called Rathbourne & Sons in London. On the journey back to London, Jack reveals that his brother Alexander may be the mastermind behind all their troubles. Jack thinks the attacks on Doyle are prompted by a manuscript that Doyle submitted to Rathbourne & Sons. When they get to the publishing house they find a list of the board of directors - the titular “List of Seven”. A secret trapdoor leads them via an aqueduct to a storage room in the British Museum, which has had many statues stolen from it. The next day they journey to Whitby to trace an acting troupe that may have been involved in staging the seance. There they meet Bram Stoker and an actress named Eileen, the last survivor of the doomed acting troupe. Stoker tells them that strange sights have been seen at the abandoned nunnery north of the town. They investigate, and witness an occult ceremony using the corpse of Sparks' father. Alexander Sparks confronts Doyle and Eileen and invites them to dinner, where they meet the rest of the Seven. Their plan is to take control of Prince Edward, Duke of Clarence, third in line to the throne, and use him to enslave the world by putting a demon in his future child. Doyle, Eileen and Jack fight with the Seven and with the help of a regiment of Royal Marines and Household Cavalry, they defeat the Seven. Jack disappears to continue the hunt for Alexander who has gotten away, while Doyle is granted an audience with Queen Victoria, who offers her thanks for his help. Doyle later learns that Jack and Alexander fought and fell over the Reichenbach Falls, with neither surviving. Doyle decides to commemorate Jack by creating a character in the image of his friend: Sherlock Holmes. ===== Putt-Putt (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) and Pep go to see B.J. Sweeney's Big Top Circus in Apple Valley. They hop on board Roll-Along Cassidy the circus train after a goat eats their ticket. When they reach Apple Valley, they meet B.J. Sweeney, crying because the circus' five main acts aren't put together. The five main acts are Honko the Clown, the Flying Porkowskis, Philippe the Flea, Reginald the Lion and his tiger assistants, Teri and Marie, and Katie Cannonball. Putt- Putt offers to help out and he must search the circus grounds for the performers so they will practice and finally perform for opening night. During his quest, he meets the elephants, Baby Jambo and Mama Mombasa, Sebestian the Juggling Seal, Francine the High-Diving Hippo, Eunice the Unicycle, Bette Bandwagon, Hank the Security Car, Ivan the Strong Van, and all the other circus performers and animals to help them get ready for opening night as well. After Putt-Putt fixes the acts, Mr. Sweeney lets him be part of the show. ===== Gopalam (Srikanth) performs tapas and gets Radha (Sneha) as his wife. Gopalam is an assistant public prosecutor. Radha is the daughter of Judge (Ranganath). She applies for a law degree after marriage and passes the exams with high honors. Radha is superior and more talented than Gopalam at work. This trait infuriates Gopalam and it causes a rift between him and Radha. The rest of the story is all about how they survive the ego tiff. ===== A terrorist by the alias of "The Wolf" engages Alex Cross' old enemy, Col. Geoffrey Shafer, aka The Weasel, to assist him in a grand plan of worldwide terrorist attacks designed to get humanity's attention. After a town in the Southwestern United States is blown up, the FBI's Alex Cross is assigned to the case despite being on vacation to visit his son Alex Jr. in Seattle and his girlfriend Jamilla Hughes in San Francisco. Alex is at a crossroads in his family and personal life. What follows next is a long cat and mouse chase in which politics, communication, and ego take center-stage. The Wolf is ruthless enough to draw in even the most unwilling into his plans and never fails to make a point. His opponents are locked in deep wrangling and indecision. It is up to Alex Cross to make the connections and chase The Wolf and The Weasel across America and Europe at the risk of his life. ===== Lakshmi Narasimha (Balakrishna) is a strict DCP of Vijayawada city who does not mind making his own rules to bring justice to the public. Once, he was indirectly affected by the goon Dharma Bhiksham (Prakash Raj) which costs him his sister and many properties in his native village. But Dharma Bhiksham does not know that it was Lakshmi Narasimha who got affected by him. After a few months, Lakshmi Narasimha is transferred to Vijayawada. Dharma Bhiksham rules the mafia world from Vijayawada. Though a strict police officer, Lakshmi Narasimha compromises with Dharma Bhiksham and takes bribes to the tune of one and half crores. He takes the bribes and then invests all the money into rehabilitating his native village affected by Dharma Bhiksham. Dharma Bhiksham comes to know about it and rebels against Lakshmi Narasimha. The rest of the story is all about how Lakshmi Narasimha puts an end to the life of Dharma Bhiksham using illegal methods. ===== Will McLean is a senior cadet at the Carolina Military Institute, a school that outwardly promises to produce men of honor but practices brutal hazing against the junior cadets. Among these are the overweight Poteete and the Institute's first black cadet, Tom Pearce. McLean's mentor, Lt. Col. "Bear" Berrineau, asks him to protect Pearce. McLean's roommates at the Institute are "Pig" Pignetti, Mark Santoro and Tradd St. Croix, the last of whom offers him a key to his parents' house. As the term begins, McLean's roommates participate in breaking in the new cadets, while McLean remains aloof. This draws the attention of the school's commanding officer, Lt. Gen. Bentley Durrell, who warns him not to be soft. Both Poteete and Pearce become targets of the Ten, a traditional clandestine group of seniors dedicated to ridding the school of "unfit" cadets. Poteete is left standing all night on a high ledge, in which McLean is able to save him from falling the next morning; and Pearce is attacked and has the number 10 carved in his back. In addition, Pearce had razor blades placed in his athletic shoes, and suffers multiple, small lacerations. McLean's attempts to protect him are thwarted when someone intercepts their communications. Together with his roommates, he kidnaps Dan McIntyre, a former member of the Ten, and forces him to disclose the location of the Hole, the place where they take cadets to be tortured. McLean and his friends arrive at the Hole just as Pearce is threatened with immolation. They distract the Ten and McLean unmasks one of them, John Alexander. The Ten retaliate by having Pignetti charged with theft and expelled by an Honor Court that they control. Alexander issues a large number of demerits against the rest of McLean's faction, placing them also at risk of expulsion. McLean offers to resign if Alexander will show leniency towards Santoro and Tradd, which Alexander accepts. Before he can submit his resignation, McLean sees McIntyre on campus meeting with Bear and Tradd's father. He enters the St. Croix house and discovers the history of the Ten from Mr. St. Croix's journals. Not only have the Ten been operating for years, but Durrell supports their activities. Most shockingly, Tradd is a member and has kept them ahead of McLean at every step. McLean confronts Tradd and throws the house key at him. McLean returns to the Institute and marches into Durrell's office. He demands that the senior class, with Pignetti reinstated, be allowed to graduate; that the Ten be disbanded and exposed; and that Durrell resign at the end of the year. If Durrell does not agree, the journals will be sent to the press. Durrell accepts the terms for the sake of the Institute. McLean remains at CMI until graduation day to see the deal through, but he remains disgusted by the corruption and chooses not to graduate himself. As he walks out the gates of the Institute, Bear hands him his class ring, telling him that he earned it. ===== Eddie and Richie are preparing for a visit from Richie's wealthy auntie, Olga. To create the impression of poverty they have killed their goldfish, 'Elvis', to make her believe they have no food left in the house; scattered bills strategically around the house so that she sees one wherever she sits; and Eddie has sprinkled water everywhere to make it look like they've been crying a lot. When Richie phones to ensure she brings her cheque book, he is informed by her servant she has died and left him £600 in her will. Overjoyed, Richie safely ensconces £300 on top of the bathroom cabinet where he believes no one will ever find it, and the duo take the remaining £300 down to the funfair where Eddie causes £45 worth of damage to a shooting stall. Richie agrees to settle the debt only to discover that his wallet and the £300 have been stolen. In a bid to escape, Eddie asks the proprietor of the shooting stall (Mark Arden) to call it double or quits if he can shoot a particular target, however instead he deliberately shoots him in the eye so they can make their getaway. Being chased through the funfair by the workers, the two hide first in the house of horrors and then in the fortune teller's tent. Here the old fortune teller (Liz Smith) reveals to Richie that she knows his driving licence to be a fake and then describes his "secret love picture". Convinced that the old woman has something (which Eddie believes to be dropsy) he asks her to tell his fortune and she reveals that before the moon rises three times, he will die. Richie rushes to the hospital, where, after causing much havoc with the nurse (Helen Lederer) and the patients, he is granted a clean bill of health by Sir Roger Cobham (Roger Brierley), a famous heart surgeon, who kicks him out immediately afterward. Richie is relieved, but on the way out he and Eddie accidentally push an old man (Nick Gillard) down a lift shaft. Richie then comes to the conclusion that his death will be caused by an incident. Three days later, Richie has created a bunker and has not left it for three days and nights nor has he eaten anything, as he has enlisted Eddie to test all of the food and drink. Eddie has taken this task to heart, especially when testing alcohol. After bribing Eddie to check if the moon has risen yet, Richie notices that the ceiling above him is sagging, and Eddie explains that it's his piano. Richie makes him go upstairs and move it. Richie prays that whatever fate awaits him be given instead to Eddie. His prayer is repeatedly interrupted by Eddie playing piano and just as Richie gets up to order Eddie to come down at once, Eddie and the piano crash through the ceiling, destroying Richie's bunker. It's only at this moment that Richie realises that everything that transpired leading him to get the curse was because of Eddie and suggested they hide in the fortune teller's tent. Realising that Eddie could be the cause of his death, Richie throws him out of the flat. That night, as Richie is visited by the Grim Reaper, who informs him that he is going to hell. Richie pleads for his life, failing to notice that Death seems to have trouble with his mobility. It is revealed to the audience that Death is in fact Eddie on stilts in a robe. Richie offers to play chess for his soul but 'Death' refuses, claiming he doesn't know the rules. He also refuses to play Cluedo because Richie always looks at the mystery cards. Eventually, Richie beats 'Death' in a game of I spy. 'Death' agrees to allow Richie to live in return for Eddie's return to the flat; the remaining £300. While Richie and Eddie argue, the shooting-gallery stallholder kicks the door down looking for Richie, as he has come to return his missing wallet. They realise that it was the fortune teller who stole Richie's wallet, and therefore knew of its contents - the forged driving licence and Julia Somerville nude collage. The Stallholder takes the £300 to pay for his eye operation and Richie's girly world magazine, as the stallholder is about to leave, Richie asks him if he would like to kick Eddie in the bollocks which he gladly does. ===== As the episode begins, Richie is trying to enjoy an English Sunday morning, while Eddie is trying to watch what he believes are pornographic videos. After Eddie has forced Richie to sit down to watch the film, the pair observe that the film is not particularly erotic and Richie suggests that the "Furry Honey-pot Adventure" is probably a kids film. Eddie's other purchases also turn out to be innocent - "Big Jugs" is a history of Victorian pottery and "Swedish Lesbians in Blackcurrant Jam" is actually "Swedish Legends in Blackcurrant Jam Making". Eddie was disappointed that he spent an hour choosing some wrong videos and ruining his Sunday entertainment. At this point, the landlord Mr. Harrison bursts into the flat asking Richie and Eddie if they would mind his shop, as he must deal with his mother's "stupid bloody funeral!". In the shop, Richie demands to wear a white overcoat and make Eddie his assistant by wearing a brown coat. But Mr Harrison doesn't have one, so Richie tells Eddie to put his jacket on "back-to-front" so customers can see that Eddie is merely his assistant (there was no "assistant" name tag). Mr Harrison leaves and Richie engrosses himself in the role of shopkeeper, while Eddie empties all the packets of Hula Hoops that Richard repeatedly crushes with the counter flap. Richie goes on bizarre nationalist rants, repeatedly insisting that British things are 'best in the world', and is extremely rude to every customer who enters the shop. First, Richie insults a friend of Eddie's who came to complain that his newspaper was not delivered. The customer wants to take the newspaper Richie is reading and beats Richie's head against the counter when Richie argues with him. (Richie timidly calls him a "thug" after he leaves, to which Eddie responds, "British thugs, best in the world!") Later, an old woman in the shop hears Richie talking to himself and inquires if he is mad, to which Richie responds by threatening to punch her. Then a doctor arrives to buy three bottles of champagne, but makes Richie angry when he calls him "assistant." Richie is in desperation with the state of the nation when Eddie suggests they go up to the roof and watch cricket. Eddie sets up a bell on the door so they know when people are entering the shop. Richie refuses to watch the cricket because he feels responsible for watching the shop, but then changes his mind when the same little old woman comes back with her big tattooed son who punches Richie in the face for threatening her. On the roof, the pair chat and watch the cricket game before Eddie hears the bell and goes downstairs to serve a customer. Richie sets a trap for Eddie by sabotaging his deckchair, then he realizes that the roof flap cannot be opened from the outside and panics before Eddie opens the flap, hitting Richie in the face. Eddie then helps Richie to the booby-trapped chair and Richie injures himself further. When Eddie goes down to serve another customer Richie sets another trap with Eddie's favourite sandwich, pickled onion, where the trap door will smash Eddie's head. The plan backfires again and the hatch shuts, trapping both of them on the roof. People start looting the shop and Eddie climbs down the drainpipe to stop them. Unfortunately, Richie has removed the string that holds the pipe to the roof, so the pipe collapses to the ground with Eddie on it. Eddie does manage to stop the looting and returns to the roof. As soon as Eddie gets back up, the door slams shut and it begins to rain. The episode ends with Richie punching Eddie off the roof. ===== A spacecraft filled with refugees from a cosmic catastrophe crash-lands on an unmapped planet. There the survivors must face the reality of their precarious situation; the ship was lost and little had been salvaged from it. Everything comes to depend on one bright young man accidentally among them, a trainee planet-builder ("polymath"). While it would have been his job to oversee all aspects of establishing a successful colony he faces major difficulties; not only is his education incomplete, he had been studying a vastly different planet. Two ships escaped the catastrophe. One lands in the jungle in a mountainous area. The other, with the polymath, lands on water, allowing the passengers just enough time to escape the sinking ship. With his education incomplete, he is faced with an array of problems he needs to overcome, in order to ensure the survival, of not only the passengers from his ship, but those on the lost ship as well, who are under the control of a despotic captain determined to get back into space. ===== The episode begins with Eddie sitting down at the breakfast table. Richie then enters the room in his pyjamas singing "Happy Birthday to Me", much to Eddie's dismay. Richie then begins his annual birthday "routine" of reading what are obviously forged cards, including some supposedly from Sue Carpenter, General Pinochet, Rod Steiger, and "all the lads on the Ark Royal". Eddie claims that the cards are the same ones Richie received last year. One of the cards is from ABBA with "Happy Christmas 1973" written inside. Another is clearly forged but appears to be from the people of the Soviet Union "in grateful thanks to comrade Richie". Eddie points out that Richie has simply written it himself and put all the R's the wrong way round, Trying to save face, Richie insists that this is how Russian is written. Richie asks Eddie where his birthday gift is and, after annoying Richie with a couple of gag gifts (Richie's comb that he "lost" last week and the TV remote), Eddie hands Richie a piece of paper with the words "Madame Swish 3:30" written on it. Richie, believing it to be a prostitute's card, heaps praise on Eddie and becomes excited at the prospect of finally having sex. However, it soon comes to light that Madame Swish is actually a horse running in the 3:30 race at Kempton. An ungrateful Richie struggles to hide his disappointment and when a clearly frustrated Eddie points out that he has given Richie a "red hot tip", Richie retorts that there is "nothing he can do about it now". Eventually, Richie relents and gives Eddie £20 to put on the horse, with odds of 10/1. Whilst Richie puts up his birthday decorations, Eddie returns after the big race and successfully fools Richie into thinking that the £20 bet Richie put on the race has left him with £2 in winnings. As Eddie tosses over the winnings, Richie falls off the ladder he is standing on and breaks his leg. Richie then begs Eddie to "get the ambulance" only to be informed that they "haven't got an ambulance". As a result, Eddie gives assistance, which results in Richie being knocked unconscious before he eventually manages to get to hospital. Eddie and Richie return from the hospital, with Richie bandaged up and in a wheelchair at 7 p.m., when Richie is expecting his party guests. As the clock strikes 7 there is a knock at the door - however only Eddie's both "real" friends, Dave Hedgehog and Spudgun, are there. Richie realises he has no friends and invites the pair to stay, following which he insists the group play "Sardines" - a variant of hide-and-seek in which one person hides and the rest have to find him, and when they find him they hide with him. However, being in a wheelchair, Richie needs the other three to hide him in the upstairs cupboard, and they must do so with their eyes closed. Once they have hidden Richie and counted to ten, Eddie, Spudgun, and Dave instead decide to spend the night in front of the television, drinking the liquor Eddie has bought with the winnings he conned Richie out of. Richie is ecstatic after being in the upstairs cupboard for over five hours, believing it to be a world record, but soon after he gets bored and decides to rejoin them downstairs. Due to his immobility, Richie falls down the stairs, crashing through the bathroom door breaking his other leg, much to the amusement of the other three. A drunken Spudgun then vomits on and accidentally falls on top of the injured Richie. Richie's second mishap just so happens to occur at the same time as last orders at the local pub, so Eddie invites the regulars around for a quick party. Eddie amuses the crowd by doing impersonations of Richie - with a mop end on his head and saying "Oh! Oh! why won't anyone ever have it off with me? Maybe it's because I'm a big fat ugly bastard with a microscopic penis!" Richie (now with both legs in casts) then enters the room, although he is oblivious to Eddie's mockery of him. After Eddie convinces him that all of his friends have turned up for his party after all, Richie cheers up and attempts to boss over the activities. After attempting to divest a female guest of her blouse, he is stopped by her boyfriend, who then proceeds to get everyone together to give Richie the bumps. As they all throw him into the air, Richie hits the ceiling and his casts shatter, ending the episode with a close-up of him screaming in pain. ===== ===== Sergeant Dutton Hatfield is working for the American embassy. His latest assignment is to escort a supposed team of scientists inside the Research Development Institute facility outside Tel Aviv, Israel. However, the scientists are revealed to be terrorists in disguise, led by Colonel Baron. Baron is seeking retribution for his humiliation when he had an ideological disagreement with his superior officer General Miller, over the merits of the Gulf War, and Miller forced him to retire after Miller became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Baron and his eight men, including an insider scientist named Dr. Berg, are seeking a sample of a deadly virus that is being developed inside the facility, and plan to use both the virus and a set of five pre-arranged bombs in Washington, D.C. as leverage to arrange an escape and a payment of $510 million. Once the takeover of the facility begins, Hatfield quickly discovers the plot and eliminates three terrorists, while the remaining five take the only four surviving scientists - Pawklowsky (Andre Kashkar), Elaine Starkov (Bridget Marks), Eliot Stein (Larry Smith), and Abrahams (Ami Dayan) - as hostages. Hatfield then meets Dr. Allie Levin, the scientist behind the development of the virus for biological warfare, and with the help of a communications officer named Ira, tries to have her escorted out through the evacuation tunnels in the basement. However, they encounter two more terrorists in the basement; Hatfield manages to kill both, but not before one of them guns down Ira, after he acts as a human shield to defend Dr. Levin. After Ira's death, Hatfield and Levin bond over their respective separations with their spouses; Levin's husband, a pilot in the United States Air Force, was killed in the Gulf War, while Hatfield's wife left him for his former best friend. Hatfield and Levin quickly become attracted to each other. Baron then orders his ruthless right-hand man Ramos to begin executing the hostages, starting with Dr. Abrahams. In order to avoid more dead hostages, Hatfield agrees to a swap with Ramos to exchange the cylinder containing the virus with the second hostage, Dr. Stein. However, once Ramos retrieves the cylinder, he kills Stein and flees. Unbeknownst to Hatfield, another remaining terrorist named Gallo has taken Dr. Levin and brought her back to be with the other hostages. Baron orders Dr. Berg to prepare a sample of the toxin as a demonstration, only to betray Berg and demonstrate its lethal effects on him; after smashing the vial containing the sample and ripping off Berg's gas mask, the toxin kills him within seconds, thus satisfying Baron. Baron and Ramos take Levin, Pawklowsky, and Starkov aboard a bus after both General Miller and Israeli Colonel Gideon have negotiated a cleared roadway to the airport, with $500 million being wired to Baron's designated account and the remaining $10 million loaded onto the waiting plane, piloted by one final terrorist. Gallo pursues Hatfield in security vans down the numerous evacuation tunnels, culminating in both of them crashing in the facility's loading dock, with Gallo's van exploding and killing him. Colonel Gideon arrives in a helicopter just in time to pick up Hatfield, and the two pursue the bus. Ramos kills both Starkov and Pawklowsky to try to convince the soldiers to back off, but Hatfield leaps onto the roof of the bus anyway and drops in through the roof hatch. After a brief fight with Ramos, Hatfield gains the upper hand and puts him in a chokehold just as the bus arrives at the airport. Hatfield tries to force Baron to stop the bus by threatening to kill Ramos, only for Baron to shoot Ramos himself. Hatfield then attacks Baron and knocks him unconscious at the wheel, and Hatfield and Levin both jump out with the cylinder just before the bus crashes into a parked fuel truck, exploding and killing Baron. Hatfield then notices the final surviving terrorist at the getaway plane, who has taken Hatfield's son hostage. The terrorist shoots Hatfield in the shoulder, only for Gideon to snipe him from the chopper. The wounded Hatfield reunites with both his son and Levin. ===== Shiva (Bharath) enters into St.Peters college, Bangalore and meets Pooja (Renuka Menon), who was born and brought up in the United States and has come to India to stay with her grandparents while completing her college education. Shiva falls in love with her but soon realises that their characters are totally different. Pooja feels alone, like a fish out of water in India and she wants to return to the US. So Shiva thinks about a plan to get her to stay and he expresses his love to her by creating a fictitious character MR X but never reveals about the character till the end. Pooja (Renuka Menon) who got impressed by MR X refuses to see him in the later stage but understand and accepts Shiva's true love. ===== Deepika (Kamna Jethmalani) cannot bear with the control that her mother Sudha Rani (Vani Viswanath) imposes on her life. In order to make her mother angry, she uploads explicit pictures of herself and emails them to a fictitious name "T. Mahesh". However, there seems to exist a T. Mahesh (Jayam Ravi), who is a catering student. The more Deepika and Mahesh run into each other, he starts following her wherever she goes. Mayilravanan (Prakash Raj) is a policeman who wants to marry Deepika. In hopes of creating a distance between Deepika and Mahesh, Mayilravanan seeks a relationship with Sudha Rani. The relationship between Deepika and Mahesh grows into love as they both try to separate Mayilravanan and Sudha Rani in hopes of setting life to how it originally was. ===== Sathya (S. J. Suryah) is a casanova by character and pursues Tina (Shradha Arya), a woman around. He sets his sights on Haritha (Nayanthara) and manages to woo her. She loves him whole heartedly and he is not in favor of that. At one moment he falls for Haritha, but at the same time, she comes to know about his real character, and she ends their relationship. The story is about how Sathya changes himself and earns her love back. ===== The film opens at a Rotary Club function to honour a retired Justice Jyotin Chatterjee. The judge has served the profession all his life with honour and spotless integrity. As he is about to retire, he recognises there will now be a void in his life. His wife remarks to reporters that neither he nor she knows what he would do after he retires. Retired life is not easy for the ageing judge. The younger generation is bolder and quicker than he was in his time. He is invited as the guest of honour at many functions. But he finds that his stump speech about the venerable and time- tested legal profession falls flat. The youngsters wish to know when the law will relax its grip on their issues (principally around love, romance and sex). The judge admits that love makes the world go round and urges the youngsters to enjoy their youth but to do so responsibly. The judge also agrees (after some initial reluctance) to a suggestion from his family and visits Joggers Park to get some exercise. He finds that the Park moves at the pace of its younger regulars, much too quickly for him. He wonders if he will ever catch up. Around this time he meets Jenny Suratwala at Joggers Park. Jenny is a young and vivacious freelance model and event planner. One of his speeches had made an impression on her young mind, and she wishes to learn more about him. They become friends. As their friendship deepens, they discover a new world in each other. Jenny learns from the judge's vast experiences, and the judge uses her perspectives to enter and appreciate the younger generation. Jenny brings an element of need. She is faced with a legal problem around the ownership of her late father's apartment, and the judge helps her fight and win her case. The friendship deepens. The judge is taken by her exhilarating views and wishes to see more of her. She, too, pines for him when they are apart. Around this time, some of Jenny's younger male colleagues are perturbed by this relationship. It thwarts them from pursuing Jenny, and it is not socially acceptable because of the conspicuous age difference. They resolve to find a way to end it, and settle on stalking the couple and taking pictures of their intimate moments. (The film is not clear about any sexual activity, but the pictures are sufficient to destroy the judge's reputation and marriage.) On one occasion, Jenny discovers them taking pictures, and she angrily berates them and destroys some of the pictures. Jenny finally admits she is in love with the judge. Meanwhile, the judge is faced with a family problem of his own. His son has been caught having an affair. His daughter exposes the incident and asks the judge, the vanguard of honour, to deliver judgement. The judge strongly reprimands his son and orders him to end the affair and seek forgiveness from his family. The family honour comes first. Jenny has an upcoming birthday. One of her friends is planning the party. She invites the judge to attend the party and openly profess his love for her. If he truly meant his speeches, then he must act accordingly and express his feelings without fear or remorse. On the day of the party, a strange man shows up at the judge's house. He is Tariq Ahmed, the editor and publisher of a local tabloid. Jenny's jealous colleagues brought the photos to his tabloid, and Tariq intercepted them just in time to avoid publication. It turns out that Tariq owes a debt of gratitude to the judge for having helped him with a difficult case several years ago. He turns the photos over to the judge's daughter. The daughter confronts the judge. This incident also involves the family honour. The judge is compelled to end his relationship with Jenny. Several years later, the judge runs into Jenny at the airport. Jenny is now married and has a child. They greet each other warmly and Jenny introduces him (her fourth boyfriend, the one she loved very much) to her husband. They fondly remember their previous association as the film ends. ===== Santhosh (Prakash Raj) and Seetha have a son named Surendhar (Prithviraj). Sumathi (Saranya Bhagyaraj) is the daughter of Sarath Babu. She lived in a palatial house and enjoyed a luxurious life in her childhood. However, her father loses his textile business and is pushed to poverty. Seetha moves to the house opposite Sumathi's house. Her husband and son are still back in their city, waiting to finish training. Sumathi approaches her to work as a maid. Seetha becomes impressed at first sight by Sumathi's wise and sensible character and takes her as her maid. After a few days, Seetha comes to know that the house she has moved into was initially owned by Sumathi's family. She gets influenced by Sumathi's modesty, kindness, and good nature. Sumathi also had the habit of writing novels, one of which she shared with Seetha. Seetha imagined her son and Sumathi as the characters in the story, which gave her the opportunity to react differently. Assuming her son and Sumathi are fictional characters in the story, she expresses her desire to make Sumathi her daughter-in-law. At first Sumathi is shocked, but she accepts her request happily. Seetha communicates this arrangement over the phone to her husband and son that she has chosen her daughter-in-law. However, she did not reveal the name or identity of Sumathi, because she wants it to be a surprise when they meet her in person. Unfortunately, Seetha dies in an accident before her husband and son's arrival, which leaves a suspense as to who the daughter-in-law is. After his mother's death, Surendhar vows to locate and marry a girl identified by her mother. Since Sumathi is a maid in the house and is much poorer compared to Seetha's family, she does not reveal she is the one. Sampooranam (Bhagyaraj), Surendhar's close friend, moves into their house to snoop around and find out the girl identified by Seetha. As a father, Santhosh didn't have patience and wanted his son to have a good life. This led him to choose a rich girl, completely opposite of what Seetha would have chosen. Passed many twists and turns, Sampooranam succeeds in identifying that Sumathi was the girl Seetha chose. His main evidence was Sumathi's published novel, the one she shared to Seetha. Surendhar happily marries Sumathi with Santhosh and Sampooranam's blessings. The story ends with Sumathi remembering the words of Seetha, that she has always imagined Sumathi to be the wife of her son. ===== In the 1880s, Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria (Sharif) clashes with his father, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (Mason) and his mother Empress Elisabeth (Gardner), over implementing progressive policies for their country. Rudolf soon feels he is a man born at the wrong time in a country that does not realize the need for social reform. The Prince of Wales (Robertson Justice), later to become Britain's King Edward VII, provides comic relief. Rudolf finds refuge from a loveless marriage with Princess Stéphanie (Parisy) by taking a mistress, Baroness Maria Vetsera (Deneuve). Their untimely death at Mayerling, the imperial family's hunting lodge, is cloaked in mystery, but the film's ending suggests the two lovers made a suicide pact when they decided they could not live in a world without love or prospects for peace. ===== A.J. Wentworth, B.A. is set in the 1940s at Burgrove, a boys' preparatory school in Wilminister, in rural England. A.J. Wentworth is the mathematics master. He is very fond of the school but inefficient at disciplining his pupils who take advantage of his kind nature. The headmaster, the Rev Saunders, who is nicknamed 'Squid' by the boys, is a snob and the Matron is Wentworth's constant enemy. ===== ParaWorld ("parallel world") is an alternate universe where dinosaurs and ice age creatures never became extinct. A group of 19th-century scientists, the SEAS (the Society of Exact Alternative Science) led by scientific genius Jarvis Babbit, discovered the parallel world where dinosaurs and primitive human tribes coexist. When they subsequently learned that people don't age in this dimension and that the concept of electricity is inexistant, they decided to remain there to rule. Later, three young scientists are led to Jarvis Babbit: the American geologist Anthony Cole, Swedish biologist Stina Holmlund, and Hungarian physics genius Béla András Benedek, all of whom having discovered elements in the "real" world that point toward the existence of a parallel world. Jarvis Babbit decides to send the three scientists into "Paraworld", seemingly for an expedition. However, when the three heroes discover the true intentions of the SEAS, they have to rally all the parallel world's warring inhabitants in order to defeat the SEAS. The three scientists serve as the game's core "hero" units. Their main goal is to return to their home world, but to do this they will need to enlist the aid of enlightened natives and battle against the hostile creatures, tribes, and ultimately the masterminds trying to stop them. Along the way they'll meet several characters who are seemingly based on classical scientists such as Nicola Tesla or Charles Darwin ("Nikolaj Taslow" and "James Warden" in the game). They eventually discover that a man named David Leighton, who is one of Babbit's men, is orchestrating events on the parallel world, and pursue him. They also learn of a plot to permanently seal the world away by moving the planet out of orbit, which will also trigger a cataclysm. In order to save the planet and secure their own escape from ParaWorld, they are forced to assault Babbit's fortifications. They manage to stop the countdown and Cole kills Leighton in battle. Babbit makes a last-ditch effort to stop the heroes by using a giant robot. Having failed, Babbit falls into lava and presumably dies. The heroes finally go back home. However, Cole is awakened in the middle of the night by a phone call of Béla telling him that the dinosaurs have come through as well. The chaos of ParaWorld now ensues on planet Earth. ===== The story is set in 450 A.D. The Huns, a horde of barbarians from the distant plains of Asia, move toward the rich western lands of Germania, led by a savage chief, Attila. Flavius Aetius, a Roman general, is the only person who knows Attila since he was a hostage with the Huns for years. Aetius and his companion Prisco carry a message from the Roman emperor Valentinian III to the Hun's king Rua. After reaching their palace, Aetius learns that the king died, and that two brothers Bleda and Attila are now ruling the Hun kingdom. Bleda favours peace and tolerance, but Attila is at odds with him, and tensions develop. Yet Aetius knows to make an alliance between the Western Roman Empire and the Huns. Aetius returns to the Imperial court at Ravenna, where the childish emperor Valentinian III is busy with Roman parties in his palace and enjoying himself, while ignoring the fact that the Empire is beginning to fall apart. Because of this, his mother Galla Placidia is ruling the Empire. Honoria, daughter of Galla Placidia and sister of Valentinian, hopes to get rid of them, but needs help to do so. She asks Aetius to join her in a coup d'état, but he has vowed an oath to serve the Empire and refuses, even if he's arrested and stripped of his military rank by Valantinian and Galla Placidia due to his alliance to the Huns. The two brothers battle, Attila wins by ordering his bodyguard to fire arrows at Bleda and his bodyguard during the hunt, and declares himself the sole leader of the Huns, riling them to support his aspirations of conquering the Roman Empire. Flavius Aetius returns to Ravenna, and finds Emperior Valentinian enraged by imagined attempts against his rule. Galla Placidia realizes that the Empire is now on the edge of destruction and gives Aetius full military power in an effort to protect her son. As a Roman field army marches to block Attila's path, Honoria slips away from the Imperial court and visits the Hun in his camp. The battle is eventually joined with a frontal attack on the Roman encampment by Hunnic cavalry. This first move is a deception, designed to draw the legions out of their fortified position. Aetius decides to pursue the retreating Huns, anyway. His cavalry charges and his foot soldiers follow them into the fray. After a clash of arms on the open plains, the fighting moves into the Hun camp. Here Honoria is found hiding in a nomad cart and killed. But Aetius is soon killed by an arrow through the neck and the Romans lose their will to fight. They flee the field and the Huns follow to burn their encampment. As night falls, Attila takes his young son, Bleda, to view the carnage strewn battlefield. There, a badly wounded Roman archer manages to fire a last shot. The arrow misses Attila, but kills Bleda. This emotionally traumatizes the Hun. He appears to lose his passion for conquest and plunder. On the way toward Rome, a sullen Attila and his horde come upon a procession of Christians led by Pope Leo I. Bewildered by the assembly he faces, Attila speaks alone with the Pope in the middle of a stream that separates his army from the religious gathering. Leo calmly tells Attila, "You can kill everybody...old people, women, children..." and Attila suddenly hears the disembodied words of his murdered brother Bleda. "Innocent blood won't be washed away. It will come back to haunt you." With this warning in mind, Attila suddenly decides to turn back towards the Alps, leaving Rome unscathed. ===== Suryaprakash (S. J. Suryah) is a businessman who wants to become richer than Bill Gates. A college girl named Savithri (Tamannah) does research on him and when she meets him, she lies to him that she has companies on Java island and he replies by touching her forehead, nose, lips, neck and when he tries to touch her below the neck, she stops. After that he goes to a place where an ad shooting is taking place. His model(Malavika) is bathing with her back exposed and Surya applies soap to her back for the ad. It is then shown that the model is helping Surya's enemy in his business. Then he goes for an award ceremony and accepts a gift. There he sees Savithri and his personal assistant tells him to see her midriff. When Surya sees her navel, he sees a bomb there and he takes her to a room and removes her saree and realizes that it is only a phone. Then she tells him that she lied and reveals her true identity. He then marries her for her talent in cooking and uses her for his restaurant business. Then he goes to a place where his model is shooting an ad and he smooches her navel, removing her saree. Then he sees Namitha, where she tries to win him, but his clone, which was discovered by Stephen Raj, goes to her and tries to impress her. There he takes her body measurements. First he tries to take her breast measurement but is stopped by her and then he tries to touch her buttocks but is again stopped by her. Then he lifts her dress and her navel is exposed and when he is taking the measurement he pinches her navel. Then he tries to seduce Savthri but she stops him. Then his mother dies but he cannot come as he was going to a meeting. His mother's last rituals are done by his clone. Then he becomes conscious of his family and then he spends his time with his wife Savithri by removing her saree, kissing her navel. Then he sells his property. Cast *S. J. Suryah as Suryaprakash, a money-minded businessman, and his clone Suryaprakash, a sentimental and family-loving person dual role *Tamannaah as Savithri, a college student who does research on Suryaprakash *Prakash Raj as Kasi Viswanathan, Suryaprakash's inspiration, whom he considers as his guru *Namitha as Namitha, a model whom Suryaprakash dances with *Malavika as a model whom Suryaprakash dances with *Vadivelu as 'Digil' Paandi, Suryaprakash's brother-in-law whom he humiliates *Santhanam as Personal Assistant *Seetha as Suryaprakash's mother who dies in the end *Nassar as Dr. Stephen Raj, a scientist *Seetha Anil as “Digil” Paandi’s wife *Sriman as Suryaprakash's PA *Sathyan as Ad Film Model *Shakeela as Minister Dairy Development *Balaji *Bava Lakshmanan *Bonda Mani ===== ===== In the broadest view, the Strands series deals with the immortal Elves, who have been around since the forming of the world, and their interactions with humans. They are immortal in the sense that they don't die of old age or disease (the eldest of them is roughly four and one half billion years old), though they can be killed or die from grief. The purpose of the Elves is to provide "aid and comfort" to all living things, but especially their beloved human cousins. Against this urge to help, they find themselves feared, hated, and persecuted by humans because of their immortality and extra-human, nearly godlike, powers of prescience, manipulation of the future, healing, and control over physical items. Over time, they have faded, for multiple reasons: they reproduce very seldom; some have chosen to fade from the earth due to grief or personal loss; and they have been persecuted by humans. Likewise, their powers are waning with the passing of time. In 1500 CE, they disappear entirely, but their bloodlines remain, due to interbreeding with humans over the years. Hundreds of years later, in the 1990s, the blood suddenly starts manifesting itself in certain people. What becomes of them after the 1990s has never been fleshed out by the author. ===== In 2009, a genetically re-engineered measles virus, originally created as a cure for cancer, turns lethal. The virus kills 90% (5.4 billion out of 6 billion) of the world's population and turns 9.8% (588 million) into vampiric albino zombie-like cannibalistic mutants called Darkseekers, who are extremely vulnerable to the ultraviolet rays in sunlight. The remaining 0.2% (12 million) of the population are immune to the virus and are the prey of the mutant Darkseekers. Three years after the outbreak, U.S. Army virologist Lt. Col. Robert Neville lives an isolated life in the deserted ruins of Manhattan, unsure if any other uninfected humans are left. Neville's daily routine includes experimenting on infected rats to find a cure for the virus, searching for food and supplies, and waiting each day for any immune humans who might respond to his continuous recorded radio broadcasts, which instruct them to meet him at midday at the South Street Seaport. Flashbacks in his life reveal that his wife and daughter died in a helicopter accident during the chaotic evacuation of Manhattan, as the military enforced a quarantine of the island. Neville himself stayed behind with other military personnel. Neville's only companions are his German Shepherd Samantha (Sam), some mannequins he regularly "talks" with, and the characters on film recordings from video stores. At night, he barricades himself and Sam inside his heavily fortified Washington Square Park home to hide from the Darkseekers. One day, Sam follows a deer into a building. Neville cautiously goes in after her and finds the deer's corpse along with Sam, but the building is infested by Darkseekers. Both escape unharmed and the attacking Darkseekers are killed by the sunlight. Neville finds a promising treatment derived from his own blood, so he sets a snare trap and captures a female Darkseeker. A male Darkseeker goes after them, but is blocked by the sunlight and returns to the shadows. Back in his laboratory in the basement of his house, Neville treats the female seemingly without success. The next day, Neville notices "Fred", a mannequin usually at the local video store, positioned outside Grand Central Terminal and shoots him in disgust. However, Neville realizes he is being watched by the Darkseekers all over the buildings. As he approaches Fred's body, he is ensnared in a trap similar to the one he used to capture the female; by the time he escapes, the sun is setting and he is attacked by infected dogs. Neville and Sam eliminate them but Sam is bitten during the fight. Neville injects her with a strand of his serum, but when she shows signs of infection, Neville is forced to choke her to death before she turns. Heartbroken and driven by rage, Neville ventures out and deliberately attacks a group of Darkseekers the following night before he is rescued by a pair of immune humans, Anna and a young boy named Ethan, who have traveled from Maryland after hearing his broadcast. The two take an injured Neville back to his home where Anna explains that they survived the outbreak aboard a Red Cross evacuation ship from São Paulo and are making their way to a survivors' camp in Bethel, Vermont. Neville denies this and argues that no such survivors' camp exists. Neville adjusts the potential cure and injects the female Darkseeker. The next night, a group of Darkseekers, who followed Anna and Neville back the night before, attack the house. Neville, Anna, and Ethan retreat into the basement laboratory, sealing themselves in with the female test subject. Discovering that the last treatment was successful, Neville assesses the situation as a Darkseeker rams himself against a glass door to break in. Neville draws a vial of blood from the woman he cured and gives it to Anna, before shutting her and Ethan inside a coal chute in the back of the lab. Neville then takes a grenade and kills the Darkseekers at the cost of his own life, saving the cure. The next day, Anna and Ethan arrive at the survivors camp in Bethel where they are greeted by military officers and other survivors before Anna hands them the cure. Anna narrates how Neville's effort and sacrifice to save humanity ultimately became legend and people should take inspiration from him. ===== An outlaw, Roy Bean, rides into a West Texas border town called Vinegaroon by himself. The customers in the saloon beat him, rob him, toss a noose around him and let Bean's horse drag him off. A young woman named Maria Elena finds and helps him. Bean promptly returns to town and shoots all those who did him wrong. With no law and order, he appoints himself judge and "the law west of the Pecos" and becomes the townspeople's "patrone." A traveling preacher, LaSalle, buries the dead. Bean renames the saloon The Jersey Lilly and hangs a portrait of a woman he worships but has never met, Lillie Langtry, a noted actress and singer of the 1890s. When a band of thieves comes to town (Big Bart Jackson and gang members Nick the Grub, Fermel Parlee, Tector Crites and Whorehouse Lucky Jim), rather than oppose them, Bean swears them in as lawmen. The new marshals round up other outlaws, then claim their goods after Bean sentences them to hang. Dispensing his own kind of frontier justice, Bean lets the marshals hang a murderer named Sam Dodd and share his money. When a drunk shoots up a saloon, Bean doesn't mind, but when Lillie's portrait is struck by a bullet, the fellow is shot dead on the spot. Bean then goes through the dead drunk's pockets. Finding money, he then fines the dead drunk for discharging a firearm in a public place and pockets the money. A madman, Bad Bob, comes to town for a showdown, but Bean shoots him in the back. Prostitutes are sentenced to remain in town and keep the marshals company. Maria Elena is given a place to live and fine clothes ordered from a Sears Roebuck catalog. A mountain man called Grizzly Adams gives her and Bean a bear, named "Zachary Taylor" after the 12th President of the United States, but later renamed the "Watch Bear," as a pet. When a lawyer named Frank Gass shows up claiming the saloon is rightfully his, Bean puts him in a cage with the bear. Bean goes off to San Antonio alone to see Jersey Lilly, leaving a pregnant Maria Elena behind and promising her a music box that plays "The Yellow Rose of Texas." In his absence, Gass and the prostitutes conspire to seize control of the town from the judge's hard rule. A dapper Bean tries to see Lillie Langtry's show, but it is sold-out. He is deceived by men who knock him cold and steal his money. Upon his return, Bean finds that Maria Elena is dying following a difficult childbirth. He names the baby Rose after the music box's song. He also plans to hang the doctor, but Gass, who has been elected mayor, overrules him. Bean is sorrowful about losing Maria Elena and rides away. Gass brings in hired guns to get rid of Bean's marshals. Years go by. Oil rigs have been built around the prospering town. Automobiles are seen everywhere. A grown-up Rose is surprised one day to look up and find Bean has returned. A shootout follows. Bean, on horseback, chases Gass into a burning building, declaring "For Texas, and Miss Lilly!". Some time later, a train pauses by the town. Out steps Lillie Langtry. She is told the story of Judge Roy Bean and his feelings toward her by Tector, the caretaker of the saloon, now turned into a museum. She concludes that he must have been quite a character. ===== The President of the United States decides that the true cause of the Great Depression (raging when the film was released) is a loss of "optimism" as a result of a plot by financiers and bankers who are getting rich from the Depression. The President then appoints Lawrence Cromwell as secretary for the newly created Department of Amusement. Cromwell creates an army of entertainers and sends them out across the country. Much of the action centers around Cromwell auditioning acts in his office (with interruptions from janitor "George Bernard Shaw", played by Stepin Fetchit). At the end, as a musical production number breaks forth, Cromwell looks out of his office window and sees the Depression literally, instantaneously lift. ===== The first novel, Line of Delirium, takes place decades after a devastating interstellar conflict — the Vague War. While the reason for and details of the war remain largely unexplained, it is clear that almost every alien race was at some point involved in hostilities with the humans. The war was going badly for Earth, until two Earth officers decided to take matters into their own hands. Disobeying orders, they turned their fleet and headed for Earth, demanding the government's surrender. One of the officers, a man named Grey, established the Human Empire and became the emperor. His co- conspirator Lemak became the supreme commander of all human forces. While it is not exactly clear how the tide was turned, it is known that all races opposing the new empire were eventually beaten. Two of which, the cyborg Meklar and the ursine Bulrathi formed a subsequent pact with the humans — the Trinary Alliance, creating a nearly unbeatable force (humans excel at ship-to- ship combat, Meklar are master engineers, and Bulrathi are superb ground combatants). Close to the end of the war, a man named Curtis van Curtis acquires an alien device he calls "aTan" (from athanatos, "immortal" [Greek: Αθάνατος, literally, "without death"] ) giving immortality to anyone who can afford it. He formed the aTan company, which quickly became almost as powerful as the Human Empire (as some characters in the novel call it, "an empire within an empire"). The secret of the device is coveted by many, as the aTan company holds exclusive rights, with Emperor Grey's grudging approval (in exchange he gets free reincarnations). Kay Altos is a professional bodyguard whose homeworld was destroyed by the imperial forces after it was invaded by the Sakkra — a fast-multiplying frog-shaped race, which was subsequently exterminated by the Empire. One fine morning he wakes up to face a teenager holding a gun, trying to avenge his sister's accidental death at Kay's hands. Kay's main problem — he did not have time to pay for his next reincarnation. He tries to trick the kid but ends up dying anyway. He is surprised to find himself in an aTan facility on Terra — the capital of the Empire with none other than Curtis van Curtis himself greeting him. Van Curtis hires Altos to safely bring his only son Arthur to an obscure planet known as Grail. Van Curtis's main concern is anyone finding out that Arthur is his son and kidnapping him in order to find out his father's secrets. Kay's payment should he succeed — unlimited free reincarnations. His payment in case of failure — eternal torture and executions. Kay agrees, and a backstory is created where Kay Ovald is a space merchant, travelling with his son Arthur, when their ship explodes. After reincarnating on a planet in the middle of a civil war, Imperial Security officer Isabella Kal recognizes Arthur and begins to chase him all over the Empire, even going as far as asking Admiral Lemak for help. Unfortunately for Arthur van Curtis and his bodyguard, Kal is not the only one seeking to stop them. A mysterious race known as the Silicoids seem to know of Arthur's mission to Grail and wish to prevent him from reaching his goal in order to preserve the galactic balance. Kay and Arthur board a luxury liner to the next planet on their way to Grail. Altos knows that, in all likelihood, Imperial Security is waiting for them at their destination. They manage to get passage on a shuttle, dropping off several passengers on a world close to their course. By a stroke of misfortune, that shuttle is stopped by a quarantine ship, and all passengers are secretly taken to a planet belonging to the Darloks — an ancient race exceptional at espionage and sabotage. Kay and Arthur soon discover that the Darloks plan to turn them into their agents and also manage to learn the Darloks' true form (unlike Master of Orion, Darloks here are not shapeshifters but Goa'uld-like snake parasites). It is there that Kay first meets Viacheslav Shegal — an agent of "Shield", Emperor's special forces. He helps Shegal commit suicide (to be reincarnated on a human world), so that the true nature of Darloks is known to all. Meanwhile, a massive Silicoid fleet arrives and proceeds to bombard the planet from orbit. Troops are sent in to retrieve Kay and Arthur and bring them before Sedimin — the Foot of the Silicoid Basis (a rank equal to emperor). Sedimin wants to know the true mission that van Curtis entrusted to Arthur. It is on the Silicoid ship that Arthur finally reveals to Kay an awful truth — he is not Curtis van Curtis's son. Arthur is a clone and, as such, has no rights under Imperial law. As Arthur puts it, "immortals need no heirs." Since Arthur is being honest, Kay reveals that his true name is Kay Dutch and that he is a super — a genetically engineered being with increased speed, strength, memory, and other characteristics much higher than a normal human. By law, Kay also has no rights, but his past was covered up by a senator who adopted him. While Arthur still hides his true mission goal from Kay, he reveals it to Sedimin, who decides to let them go. They are dropped off on Tauri — a paradise planet for retired Imperial officers and their families. While Kay is out purchasing a ship, Arthur is kidnapped by Isabella Kal. Kay's determination to free Arthur is guided less by his obligation to his client than his friendship with the boy. His first destination, however, is the planet where he was killed prior to being recruited by van Curtis. He finds his killer, a teenager named Tommy Arano, and, instead of killing him, takes him to his hypership that was left on the planet. The next morning, Kay explains to Tommy that he is, in fact, Arthur van Curtis, whose mind was wiped by the Silicoids on one of his previous attempts to reach Grail. The mind-wiped Arthur was given to a human family to raise as their son, while another Arthur was reincarnated by "aTan" back on Terra because the machine assumed he died. Kay and Tommy then head to an Imperial planet almost entirely ruled by a crime syndicate known as 'the Family'. The Mother of the Family is his genetic sister, also created in a test tube. She uses the Family's resources to locate Arthur on a heavily defended Imperial station. She agrees to given them all they need to retrieve the boy: outfit their ship with a masking device, provide them with advanced power armor and weapons (including an "Excalibur" tachion rifle for Kay that shoots a full second before the trigger is pulled), and four soldiers — two conditioned humans, a human cyborg, and a Meklar. Kay has himself souped-up with artificial enhancements (drastically shortening his lifespan). The strike group manages to infiltrate the base and fight their way to the medical wing, where Arthur is being tortured. Once Arthur is retrieved, they fight back to the ship, losing the two conditioned soldiers. In the hangar bay, Kay faces off against a Meklar working for Isabella Kal and is probably the first human (or almost-human) to pose a challenge to a twelve-foot-long mechanized reptile. Kay's Meklar companion clashes with the Imperial Security Meklar, giving the others time to escape. Once aboard his ship, Kay finds out that, due to his torture, Arthur is dying. Their only hope is to make it to Grail before he dies. When they finally make it Grail's orbit, another obstacle awaits them — Admiral Lemak and Isabella Kal on an Imperial destroyer. While Kay is trying to find a way out, his ship's illegal AI makes its own decision and the ship into the destroyer's shields. While Kay, Tommy, and Arthur are being reincarnated in Grail's branch of aTan, Kal forces Lemak to have her shot, so that she can follow them. The two clones and the bodyguard manage to make it to Grail's Dead Zone — an area on the planet where most mechanical devices fail for no apparent reason. It is there that Arthur finally reveals to Kay his true mission and the reason for van Curtis to have a clone: Curtis van Curtis did not obtain the "aTan" device from aliens. Van Curtis discovered Grail during the Vague War. There he found God or rather a being/machine that created the universe. God made van Curtis an offer — a universe created based on his subconscious desires, just like this universe was created for someone else. Van Curtis asked for more time to think about it. God then gave van Curtis the knowledge to create a device allowing him to live forever. Finally, after many decades, Curtis van Curtis decides to find out how new universes are created and sell these universes to the public. Kay realizes that this would destroy the Empire and attempts to stop them, but finds out that neither Tommy and Arthur nor Curtis van Curtis (who suddenly appears) can be killed in the Dead Zone. Van Curtis takes Arthur and Tommy and leads them to the Threshold, but Tommy refuses and opts to leave with Kay instead. The novel ends as they both walk towards an uncertain future. Emperors of Illusions Book Cover Emperors of Illusions is the second novel, continuing the story of Kay Dutch as he travels with Tommy Arano, trying to stop Curtis van Curtis from destroying the Human Empire. They believe he is trying to do that to get back at the person he believes responsible for the creation of this universe — Emperor Grey. The only way Kay thinks he can stop van Curtis is by killing the Emperor, a virtual impossibility. "Shadows of Dreams" is a short prequel to "Line of Delirium" that describes life on a small quiet human colony that is turned upside down when a Psilon battleship enters the system, still believing that the Vague War is on. The Psilons are the most advanced race in the galaxy, with only two or three troopers wearing power armor necessary to destroy an entire city. As the colonists prepare for a hopeless battle, one man reflects on his life thus far. ===== The movie follows three recent college graduates in Chicago: Tim, Chris and Alex. Tim watches the screen of his laptop as he makes out with his girlfriend. Chris conducts relationships by cellphone. Alex's preoccupation with chat rooms sabotages a potential face-to-face relationship with a girl he meets at a party. Videos called "noisehead" appear throughout the film. Within the film, the character Alex takes videos of people making noises and then edits those videos into music videos. ===== Eighteen-year-old Michael Corben (Richard Grieco) of Detroit, Michigan, is a handsome slacker underachiever. Rather than attending his high school French class, he spends all of his time drinking and partying, until graduation arrives, when all of his debauchery catches up to him and he learns that he cannot graduate without a French credit. He has only one more chance to obtain the credit: the French teacher, Mrs. Grober (Robin Bartlett), and the French Club are headed to France for summer school, and Michael must accompany them and participate if he wants to graduate next summer. However, at the airport, a CIA agent also named Michael Corben (David McIlwraith), who is on his way to France as well, is killed by the assassin Ilsa Grunt (Linda Hunt), henchwoman and surrogate mother of the villainous Augustus Steranko (Roger Rees) who seeks to steal all of the gold in Europe and use it to mint his own coins under the guise of a common currency. Because important details about the agent's identity (including his actual age) have been kept meticulously secret, Michael is mistaken for the CIA agent. He is inexplicably boarded first class on his flight to Paris, and upon arrival is whisked away by British Intelligence. The late Agent Corben's mission had been to protect Augustus Steranko, who (being not suspected to be evil) has been murdering European finance ministers as part of his plan. After some efforts to explain that he isn't the Corben they think he is, Michael agrees to play along once it becomes apparent that he will be allowed to utilize high-tech gadgets, including X-ray glasses, exploding chewing gum and L.A. Gear sneakers with suction cups, as well as a Lotus Esprit. At first, he enjoys the thrilling adventures the life of a spy provides, but begins to rethink his decision once his life begins being endangered by Steranko's deadly assassins, including Zigesfeld (Tom Rack), a henchman with a prosthetic gold hand, and Areola Canasta (Carole Davis), who kills her victims using her poisonous pet scorpion. In the meantime, Steranko captures Michael's teacher and classmates and holds them all hostage at his remote castle stronghold. Michael teams up with a girl his own age named Mariska (Gabrielle Anwar), the daughter of Agent Blade (Roger Daltrey) who was murdered by Steranko and his gang, to bring the villains down and save his friends as well as all of Europe's gold. Despite being briefly captured and imprisoned by Steranko's men, Michael escapes, rescues Mrs. Grober and his friends, and battles and defeats Zigesfeld. Steranko, his duplicitous nature exposed by Michael, kidnaps Mariska and attempts to escape with his gold in his Eurocopter Ecureuil helicopter. Michael manages to rescue Mariska, and Steranko is subsequently killed when he falls out of the helicopter, and it and the onboard gold supply both drop on him. Afterwards, Mrs. Grober agrees to give Michael the French credit that he needs. ===== Spurned by a rejected offer of marriage, the demon sorcerer Smada Rezhyk begins imagining that the sorceress Lady Delivev Ormoru of Castle Spinweb is plotting to bring him down. He sends his most faithful demon servant, Gildrum, to take the form of a handsome knight, who has been injured in battle and comes to Castle Spinweb for refuge with the plan to impregnate Delivev with a child. For this purpose, Rezhyk gives the demon his seed; once Delivev is with child, Rezhyk imagines that he has eleven days to prepare his defenses until Delivev discovers the weakening of her powers and aborts the child. What he does not imagine is that the sorceress will not abort her son, or that his faithful demon servant will fall in love with his mortal enemy. Once the son, Cray Ormoru, reaches maturity, he starts on a journey as a knight to discover what became of his mysterious father. Cray gains a few clues to the real identity of his father; he eventually realizes that he will be unable to complete his quest as a knight. Consequently, he decides to take up an apprenticeship as a sorcerer instead, following in his mother's footsteps. Rezhyk volunteers to play the role of master to Cray, but secretly seeks to sabotage his magical education. Cray is discouraged, although this turns to anger when Gildrum reveals Rezhyk's falsehood. Gildrum secretly teaches Cray demon summoning. He learns that Rezhyk is his father and abandons his apprenticeship; Rezhyk tires of his duplicity and orders Cray's death. Gildrum manages to twist his orders from Rezhyk and hides Cray in the demon realms and continues to teach him sorcery. Cray befriends several demons and realizes that he will gain easier success by using demon allies instead of demon slaves. As freed demon slaves cannot be re-enslaved, he offers to free demons permanently in return for their service. With an army of demons he returns to defeat Rezhyk, who is already seeking to destroy Delivev. With Rezhyk finally vanquished, Gildrum is able to reveal his hidden passion for Delivev. ===== Like Ant Attack, Zombie Zombie has a B-movie storyline. ===== In college, 18-year-old Amy impulsively gave her dog, Rufus, oral sex. Eight years later, she lives a seemingly ordinary life as a schoolteacher and is engaged to nice-guy John. When John suggests complete honesty, Amy lies and tells him that she had a lesbian experience with her best friend Linda. On a trip to her parents' house, Amy finally relents to John's badgering and tells him. The next morning, Dougie, Amy's drug addict brother who had overheard the conversation, spills the beans at the breakfast table and, much to her parents' shock, Amy admits that he is right. Amy and John leave as her father will not speak to her and her mother says that she is ashamed. Once back, Amy and John's relationship is strained. Despite all their attempts to fix things, one night while drunk, John calls her a "dog-blowing cunt" and Amy decides to leave. She shacks up with Linda and her boyfriend Carl, but leaves due to their noisy lovemaking. With the help of her co-worker Ed, Amy finds a new apartment and begins a relationship with Ed after he learns that his wife has been cheating on him. After Amy's mother dies of an aneurysm, Amy returns home and reconciles with her father, who gives her a letter her mother had written her prior to her death. Amy and Ed visit Dougie in prison to inform him of their mother's death. He instantly begins to blame Amy, who leaves quickly before Ed can figure out what Dougie is trying to say. Some time later, Ed and his wife are trying to work things out and Amy realizes her feelings for Ed. As it doesn't work out between Ed and his wife, he and Amy become a couple. Ed thinks he's discovered Amy's secret: she was pregnant and engaged to John, but got an abortion and her parents were incensed. Amy decides to go with the lie, thus "letting sleeping dogs lie." ===== A Renaissance influenced nineteenth-century antebellum/Dutch colonial revival mansion located in a bayou nearby New Orleans, Louisiana was a happy home to a family (presumably the Gracey family) as well as friendly resident ghosts until evil forces known as the Order of Shadows, led by Atticus Thorn, terrorized the mansion including the family, causing them to abandon the home and forcing all the resident ghosts of the mansion to serve his wills. Renowned author Ezekiel Halloway, who is also known as Zeke, spent most of his life in orphanages after his father's death and his mother's disappearance during the Civil War. Sometime later, he went on his own to pursue a career; his true passion was writing as he always dreamed of becoming an author. His desperation in a search for a job to help finance his passion leads him to discover a misleading newspaper advertisement about being a caretaker for the aforementioned mansion. Making the decision to take the job, he journeys to the mansion on October 17, 1879. Upon examining the mansion on arrival, he is greeted by six friendly ghosts, who are Atticus Thorn's slaves, causing him to faint in horror. When he awakes a spirit in a crystal ball named Madame Leota informs him that Atticus Thorn has trapped 999 souls in the mansion as part of his attempt to take over the Afterlife and should be sent into the Depths of the Afterdeath. She also informs him of how to use the Beacon of Souls: a magic lantern that fires bolts of light to fight off evil spirits. Leota also says that the Beacon is used to destroy the evil for good. Despite his fears, Zeke agrees to help them and is given the weapon. He travels around the mansion, freeing shriveled ghosts and collecting legendary Soul Gems—the items that power up the Beacon—from the friendly ghosts. During the course of the events, Atticus Thorn, whom Zeke fights four times, watches with sadistic delight. After fighting dozens of enemies, Zeke eventually gains a pirate's ring that unlocks a passageway to the Vault of Shadows, Atticus Thorn's secret lair behind a painting in the Foyer. Atticus reveals his plan to take over both the Afterlife and the Land of the Living, and he steals the Beacon of Souls from Zeke. Zeke and Leota then face off against Thorn's true form: a giant, worm-like creature. After Atticus dies, Zeke emerges victorious and is thanked by the friendly ghosts. The Haunted Mansion is finally returned to light, and the 999 spirits are set free and move on to heaven. Zeke is employed as the caretaker of the estate and continues to live in harmony with the remaining ghosts along with Madame Leota. He then pursues his dream as a writer and a recognized author under Leota's and the other ghosts' guidance later on. ===== Caye (Candela Peña) goes to Gloria's Hair Salon which she frequents and where she discusses with other customers everything from life to politics during her time off; they are also her friends. They share a dislike of the immigrant prostitutes they observe from the salon, because some of them, including Caye, are also prostitutes and believe the immigrants take clients and income they would otherwise have. Caye's point of view changes when she meets Zulema (Micaela Nevárez), an illegal immigrant prostitute working to send money home to her mother and her son Edward who she left in the Dominican Republic. They develop a bond and support each other with everything, including shopping, fashion tips and hair styles. Caye takes Zulema to her mother's house for dinner. Caye's phone constantly rings but she refuses to answer, something her mother is confused and bothered about. Zulema volunteers to teach sex education at Caye's sister-in-law's school, enabling her to send a toy truck to her son for his birthday. Caye meets Manuel, a computer programmer, outside a club. With some persuasion, Caye convinces him to go with her. Over beers at a café, Caye confesses she is a prostitute. Manuel does not believe her and laughs it off and they begin a relationship. Zulema tells Caye about a man who physically abuses her but has promised her papers to legalize her status in Spain and allow her to bring her family to Spain. Caye is suspicious of the offer and begs Zulema not to go with him. Caye's theory proves true, the man wishes simply to use Zulema and never had any intentions of getting her legal status. Zulema escapes a first meeting with him when Caye comes to help, but is later lured to a hotel room, where the client turns out to be him, and she is beaten and presumably raped. After Zulema has consensual sex with a compassionate "volunteer", she goes to the hospital for a full medical examination, something she had not done for many years. When Zulema sees the test results, she collapses. While her medical status is not stated, it is implied that her condition is fatal and communicable and she arranges to meet with her abuser and has unprotected sex with him in an act of revenge. While at the hospital with Zulema, Caye receives a call from a client requesting her services for himself and his friends. Caye heads to the cafe where they have arranged to meet. There she runs into Manuel and a group of his co-workers and realizes that it was Manuel and his friends who are requesting her services and thus learns of Manuel's infidelity. Manuel meanwhile realizes that Caye was not joking about her profession. Without saying a word, they both understand the situation and go their separate ways. Devastated over her health issue, Zulema decides to return to the Dominican Republic. With a heartfelt but bittersweet good-bye, Caye gives Zulema a makeover and an envelope of cash and asks her to “go be happy”. That afternoon, while having dinner with her family, Caye announces that Zulema has returned to the Dominican Republic because she was a prostitute and could no longer bear the emotional burden of the profession and distance from her son. The film concludes with Caye's cellphone again incessantly ringing, her mom asking her whether she is going to answer or not and Caye simply retorting, “¡Cógelo tú mamá!” ("You answer it, mom"). ===== The main character, Nicholas Hunt, is an American politician and lobbyist, closely involved with some branches of secret military research including paranormal activities. He is not a hero: as Dukaj himself describes him, he is "a cynical, egoistic bureaucrat, whose main motivation for all of his decisions in his job is, it seems, covering his ass". Currently he has lost an internal power struggle and is assigned to oversee what seems like a dead-end, low-key project. Soon, however, his project starts to gain more importance, as scientists explore some promising theories from the borders of memetics and telepathy, including study of potential lifeforms that would use memes just as we use genes, and develop new sciences like psychomemetics. Suddenly a strange cataclysm takes place, with millions of people worldwide going insane and many densely populated areas becoming a 'no-go' zone. Is this an alien invasion? A result of military or corporate experiment? A new step in human evolution? Or are we seeing the painful transformation into a post-technological singularity world? Nicholas Hunt is not sure, but he knows one thing: the rat race is going on, and he will do everything he needs to survive. ===== An old wooden crate, marked from an 1834 Arctic expedition, is discovered by a janitor beneath the basement stairs at the zoology department of Horlicks University. He notifies Dexter Stanley, the school's biology professor, and together they open it to discover the crate contains a small yet powerful - and hungry - beast, still alive after 140 years. The creature kills and eats the janitor, as well as Stanley's grad student Charlie Gereson - consuming them entirely, leaving only scraps of clothing behind. In a daze, Stanley flees to the home of his friend, English professor Henry Northrup. He tells Henry the whole story, and Northrup believes him, seeing the crate- dwelling beast as a way to rid himself of his verbally abusive, alcoholic wife, Wilma. He dopes Stanley's drink, and while Stanley is unconscious Henry writes and leaves a letter for Wilma to find and then drives to the University where he cleans up the blood and remaining scraps from the beast. Wilma meanwhile comes home and finds the letter and after reading it races up to the University. Henry had led her to believe in the note that Stanley had attacked a female grad student earlier and that she was now hiding underneath the stairs and that only Wilma would be able to talk her out. As Wilma peers under the stairs looking for the girl, Henry quickly comes up and pushes her from behind up against the beast's crate and starts screaming for it to come out and feed on her. After an initial delay that sees Wilma start to berate Henry, the beast - Northrup likens it to a Tasmanian devil, albeit possibly having six legs - does indeed appear and eat Wilma completely, then retreats back into its crate. As Henry carefully loads the crate into another larger crate for disposal, he notes that Wilma's face (and only her face) is still visible in the crate. Northrup drives the crate within a crate to a local quarry and tips the entire cargo into the deep quarry lake. Upon his return home Stanley wakes up, and the two decide to keep quiet about the entire incident - Stanley has gained a friend, and Northrup has lost his abusive wife, a situation that both are happy with. ===== The episode involves Bobby's relationship with Marie, a vegetarian, and Hank and the guys finding an abandoned couch in their usual spot. Bobby experiences his first kiss, but the relationship sours due to his being more interested in Marie than she is in him. He takes the break up hard. To cheer him up, Hank and Peggy take him to the Panhandler Steakhouse where he sees Marie also having dinner with her parents. He takes on the restaurant's standing challenge to eat a 72-ounce steak in under an hour, simultaneously spiting Marie and finding catharsis by eating the entire steak in just 37 minutes as everyone in the restaurant watches. He later vomits from overeating, which Connie initially feared might be his still reacting to the break-up. The couch story has Hank and the gang initially being against the couch being in the alley. As the days progress, they grow to like sitting on the couch while they drink in their usual spot. The couch is also where Bobby and Marie kissed, somewhat to Bill's annoyance. The couch disappears near the end of the episode, but it is ultimately revealed that Bill has moved the couch into his living room. ===== Sorcerer Cray Ormoru and his friend, the seer Feldar Sepwin, craft an enchanted mirror that allows whoever gazes upon it to see their heart's desire. For Cray himself, the mirror remains blank for many years, until one day he sees in it the image of a young girl. With no idea of who she is, he watches the girl transform into a lovely woman over the years, and Cray realizes that he is destined to find her. When he does, he learns that this is Aliza, a sorceress who lives in a crystal palace which is partly within the demon realm and who is dedicated solely to the study of her craft. Cray finds Aliza to be a skilled young sorceress, but also cold, aloof, and entirely focused on sorcery. Cray encourages her to take an interest in the outside world and forms a budding friendship. However, this friendship is strongly discouraged by Aliza's sorcerer grandfather, Everand. Despite Everand's disapproval, Aliza and Cray travel to the demon realm and also to the home of Cray's sorceress mother, Delivev. During this latter journey, Aliza looks into the mirror of heart's desire and causes it to shatter. This causes some initial confusion, but it is quickly revealed this is because Aliza's soul has been stolen from her. Ultimately, her grandfather Everand is shown to be a villain of the worst degree. He uses Aliza's soul and his capture of Feldar as leverage to demand Aliza and Cray's obedience. However, Cray rallies his allies from the demon realm in order to confront and defeat Everand and free Aliza's soul. With her soul freed, Cray and Aliza realize their love for each other. ===== ===== Private investigator Lew Harper (Paul Newman) does not have many friends and has an appointment to sign his divorce papers. He is referred to a missing persons case by one of his friends, mild-mannered Albert Graves (Arthur Hill), one of several attorneys of multi-millionaire Ralph Sampson. Sampson, who is described as crazy, alcoholic and egotistical, disappeared after flying from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Sampson is married to the physically disabled but hard-boiled Elaine Sampson (Lauren Bacall). She doesn't like her husband and believes he is off with another woman, which she claims she would not mind, but she wants to be sure he is not off squandering his fortune. Harper interviews Ralph Sampson's seductive daughter, Miranda (Pamela Tiffin), who hates and is hated by her stepmother, and Miranda's amiable boyfriend, Allan Taggert (Robert Wagner), who was the missing man's private pilot. He is told Sampson disappeared from the airport after telling a hotel to send a limousine for him. The hotel staff say Sampson cancelled his request shortly after making it. An old photo of a glamorous starlet in Sampson's bungalow leads Harper to Fay Estabrook (Shelley Winters), now an overweight alcoholic. Harper gets her drunk to see if she is connected to Sampson's disappearance. While she is passed out he answers her phone and pretends to be the "Mr. Troy" the caller, "Betty", assumed him to be. Betty warns the man she thinks is Troy that Fay was seen with a stranger and that they need to be careful "when the truck goes through." Harper asks about Ralph Sampson, which alerts Betty that she is not speaking to Troy, so she hangs up. Harper hangs up too, and is confronted by Troy, holding a gun. Troy is Fay's husband, Dwight Troy (Robert Webber), and the house is his. He menacingly asks Harper some questions, but is satisfied by Harper's cover story that he is just a lovesick fan of the ex-star, Fay. Harper tracks down Betty Fraley (Julie Harris), a lounge singer. When he asks about Ralph, she recognizes his voice from the phone call. Harper, noticing fresh needle marks on her arm, threatens to turn her over to the narcotics squad, and Betty admits she knows Sampson, but says it is only casually, as a drunk who frequents the bar. Harper becomes more insistent and Betty has the bouncer, Puddler (Roy Jenson), throw him out. Puddler assaults Harper in a back alley, until Taggert comes out of nowhere and knocks Puddler unconscious. Taggert had been investigating the case himself, which took him to the lounge. They head back to Troy's house to check on the truck, thinking Sampson may be in it. While Harper is inside the house he hears gunshots. Taggert, standing watch outside, spotted the truck and shot at it. Harper tries to run the truck down on foot, but the truck, which has distinctive tire tracks, attempts to run Harper over and speeds away. Elaine receives a message from Ralph asking her to cash in $500,000 worth of bonds. She verifies that the handwriting is Ralph's, and Harper deduces that he has been kidnapped. After Graves cashes the bonds for her and puts the money in the estate's safe, Harper advises him to call in the police to guard it, while he goes up to a remote mountaintop property that Sampson had previously given away to Claude (Strother Martin), a bogus holy man, for his cult's Temple in the Clouds. Despite Claude's attempts to distract him, Harper looks around. He finds a huge kettle of beans cooking and a tire print identical to the truck's. Back at the Sampson estate, Harper finds a ransom note with instructions to drop the cash that night at an oilfield outside of town. Since the note assumes they already have the cash, Harper suspects the kidnapper has an inside source. During the ransom drop the man picking up the money is shot dead and the cash is taken by someone following in a white convertible. A matchbook on the body leads Harper to The Corner, a seedy bar in Castle Beach, a beachfront community. Harper cons the barmaid into revealing the dead man was "Eddie", a regular customer who had made a long-distance call to Las Vegas from the bar three nights before. Outside, Harper spots the truck that earlier tried to run him over, driven by Puddler, which he follows back to the mountaintop temple. There, he uncovers a smuggling operation of illegal immigrant labor run by Troy, using Claude's temple as a front, with Eddie as the smuggler. Harper is caught and questioned by Troy, who knows nothing of the kidnapping or Eddie's part in it, but realizes the white convertible belongs to Betty Fraley. Puddler takes Harper to another location and beats him up, but Harper is able to escape and kill the pursuing Puddler. Shaken, Harper makes his way to his soon-to-be ex-wife Susan (Janet Leigh). She comforts him and they spend the night together, but the next morning he leaves her again and she realizes Harper's only true love is for his work. At the estate, Graves tells Harper that the dead man was Eddie Rossiter, a small-time car thief and junkie who has a sister, Betty, who is also a junkie. Harper concludes that Taggert, Betty, and Eddie kidnapped Sampson. He confronts Taggert, who pulls a gun on him. Taggert is about to kill Harper, but he himself is shot by Graves, who bursts into the room just in time. When Harper tells Miranda that Taggert is dead and he kidnapped her father, Miranda admits she hated her father. Graves, who has long been in love with Miranda, attempts to console her. Harper goes looking for Betty and the money in Castle Beach, where she and Taggert had a place, and locates the cottage by finding her white convertible parked outside. He hears Betty being tortured inside by Troy, Claude and Fay. She tells them the money is hidden in a deep-freeze storage locker. Harper bursts in, shoots Troy, slugs Claude unconscious, locks Fay in a closet and, after he retrieves the key to the locker, helps Betty to escape. Harper tells Betty he knows she double-crossed and killed her brother, and she admits to it, saying it was because he had got her addicted to drugs. She reveals that Sampson is being held in an abandoned oil tanker. Harper calls Graves to tell him to meet them there. When Harper searches the ship he is knocked unconscious from behind. Some time later Graves revives Harper. They find Ralph Sampson's body, he has recently been killed, presumably by whoever hit Harper over the head. Harper and Graves dub this mystery person "the fourth man". They also discover that Harper's car is gone, driven off by Betty. They drive after her, and when she sees them following in her car, she flees at high speed along a narrow winding hillside road and is killed when the car swerves off the road. Harper and Graves retrieve the money and Graves drives Harper home. On the way, Harper tells Graves he knows he is the fourth man, because the locker key is still in Harper's pocket and a kidnapper would have searched him for it while he was unconscious. Graves admits he killed Sampson, saying he did so because Sampson was a monster who was cruel to everyone, including him, when he prodded Graves to pursue Miranda's affections just for his own cruel amusement. Harper tells Graves that he has no choice but to turn him in, Graves replies that he will not allow Harper to do that. Harper says that Graves will have to shoot him to stop him. Graves stops the car and Harper gets out and walks to his front door. Graves cannot bring himself to shoot Harper. Neither man is sure what to do; each pauses uncertainly, saying to himself, "Aw, hell." ===== ===== Two sidewalk photographers, Tubby McCoy (Lou Costello) and Flash Fulton (Bud Abbott), aspire to work for the local newspaper. Their childhood friend, Dr. Bill Burns (Patric Knowles), invites them to come along on a call to a building fire. While attempting to photograph the inferno, Tubby is injured and brought to Burns' hospital. While they are there, Silky Fellowsby (Sheldon Leonard), a gangster who is admitted as a patient to establish an alibi for a robbery he is planning, mistake Tubby and Flash for two Detroit hitmen. He expects them to guard the bank's entrance while they rob it, while they mistakenly believe that they are hired to take photographs of the gang as they leave the bank. When the bank is robbed, Tubby and Flash are considered the prime suspects. Fellowsby heads to a ski resort in Sun Valley to "recuperate", hiring Burns and his nurse (Elyse Knox) to care for him. To clear their names, Tubby and Flash go to the resort, where they are hired as waiters. They attempt to retrieve the stolen cash by blackmailing the gangsters with the bank photographs, which turn out to be worthless since the robbers' faces are not shown. A fight ensues and after a climactic ski chase down the mountain, the gangsters are caught. ===== In 1930, entertainer Bill Miller believes that he has the ability to become a solo performer. He and his partner Ben Bailey split up and go their separate ways. Miller fails miserably, and his manager Leo Lyman thinks it would be a good idea to perform with a "stooge." Enter Ted Rogers, who plays an accident-prone foil for Miller. Soon afterwards, Miller's act is a hit. Along the way, Rogers is unaware that he is the real reason the act is a success and becomes very loyal to Miller. Even though he receives no billing, he defends his "partner" when others suggest he is being taken advantage of by Miller. Eventually, even Miller's wife Mary is ashamed of his treatment of Rogers, going so far as to threaten him with divorce. Miller is more determined than ever to prove he can make it as a single and fires Rogers, but promptly regrets his decision as his first performance as a true solo artist flops. He addresses the audience, apologizing and admitting that the "stooge" was the true heart and soul of the act. Rogers, who is sitting in the audience, comes to his rescue by joining him onstage and the two finally become true partners. ===== Duchovny plays Eugene Sands, a surgeon who has his medical license revoked after operating under the influence of amphetamines and opiates. Hutton's character, a crime lord named Raymond Blossom, happens upon him in a bar where Sands saves someone's life with an emergency procedure to inflate a collapsed lung. Blossom hires Sands as his personal physician, patching up his accomplices when they cannot go to a hospital, and tending to the crime boss and his girlfriend, Claire (Jolie). In the final act of the film, Claire and Sands become involved, and he must face up to conflicting loyalties to Blossom, Claire, and the FBI agent who has blackmailed him into being an informant. ===== A young Florentine girl, Alessandra Cecchi, is drawn to a young painter commissioned to paint the family's chapel walls. The painter is brought to her home by her father, a rich textile merchant whose business would be negatively affected by the rise of Girolamo Savonarola in Florence over the next few years. The book follows Alessandra's daily life, and is written in the first person, as a memoir written by Alessandra late in her life. Her passion for painting and learning serve her well, but her family does not approve. Her mother tries her hardest to shape Alessandra into a woman who will be desired by a successful and powerful man. Eventually, after Alessandra has met the painter, but before her feelings for him and his talent have made themselves known to her, her hateful brother Tomaso suggests strong but quiet Cristoforo Langella as a potential husband for her. She marries him shortly afterward. Meanwhile, her attraction to the painter grows, as does her affection for her husband Cristoforo. Alessandra's observations of the political turbulence in Florence are key to the storyline. Dunant captures the personal conflict felt by Alessandra - she feels torn between Savonarola's fiery message and her own ideas. She believes she knows what is right, but doesn't know what she will do about it. Alessandra realizes that her duty to her family and to her spouse cannot take over her life, and eventually realizes her passion for the painter. Her romance, it seems, is necessary, because she is the only one who can save him. ===== Courtney Bates, who survived the events of the first film, is now a senior in high school. She invites her crush, Matt, to stay at a condominium for her birthday weekend with her and her friends, Amy, Sheila, and Sally. Upon arriving, two of the girls' boyfriends, Jeff and T.J., show up at the house. That night, Courtney has a dream of the killer from the first film, who is now reincarnated as a greaser and armed with a drill bit guitar, and awakens on the kitchen floor. That day, her visions grow violent but she is comforted when Matt arrives. Sally disappears and the group is unable to find her, but she later returns to the house, having left to go to the store. Courtney and Matt are left alone. Matt surprises Courtney with a birthday cake and the two begin to have sex. The killer impales Matt through the chest and chases Courtney downstairs, where he confronts the group, who have just returned. The killer impales Sally with the drill. Sheila and T.J. flee, while Courtney, Amy, and Jeff leave in Jeff's car. Jeff is impaled by the killer, and Courtney and Amy flee back to the house. Sheila and T.J. run to a nearby house for help, but the killer catches up to them and T.J. is killed. Sheila manages to return to the condominium before the killer murders her as well. Courtney and Amy escape but the killer pursues them through a construction site, where Amy falls to her death. Courtney uses a oxyacetylene torch to light the killer on fire, finally killing him. Sometime later, Courtney wakes up next to Matt, but he morphs into the killer. She then awakens inside a psychiatric ward and screams frantically, as a drill bursts through the floor and the credits roll. ===== The story follows the adventures of a young groob, named Sprocc, who loves to play with his splingtwanger (a guitar-like instrument). On his homeworld, planet Blipp, creativity is stifled and only the traditional music passed down from many generations is allowed. This stagnant environment quickly becomes too much for the artistic Sprocc and he improvises his own music, this nearly gets him exiled from his homeworld. But, he decides "life on Blipp for him was through", so he goes to an urban planet where he meets a variety of aliens. There he makes some new friends and learns of a competition for the "Worst Band in the Universe". The irony of this title is that within the context of the stagnant music environment, a creative band would be considered bad and the most creative band considered the "Worst". However, after winning the competition, Sprocc learns that the contest is a sham run by the same imperial authorities stifling music creativity. Sprocc and his bandmates are sent in exile to the junkyard planet, Wastedump B19, where Sprocc meets another exile called Skat. After a persistent effort by Sprocc, eventually Skat is persuaded to help Sprocc, his bandmates, and the other exiles build a ship, that is powered by music, and return to Blipp one year later. After returning to Blipp, the music exiles perform a grand show but are eventually stopped by the imperial authorities. However, the elder leader of Blipp comes out and explains that the old ways are no longer viable, that Sprocc and his friends represent the new generation of music creativity, and that they should be embraced and supported. With their authority stripped away, the Imperials can do nothing but watch the new generation and their new music. The book comes with a bonus CD. The CD covers some of the music performed at the "worst band in the universe competition" in the novel. All the music was written and performed by Graeme Base. ===== Jaani (Chiranjeevi) runs a small-time casino with his partner Bhillu (Nagendra Babu). One day he helps two women Anusha (Radha) and Uthpala (Suhasini), stuck with their broken car, and gives them a drive. Utpala succeeds in an interview by remembering Jaani's answer and gets a job as a nurse in a hospital. Jaani and his partner also help Anusha to get a job by blocking her competitor. One day, Bhillu discovers cocaine in an egg in his kitchen and they start investigating the source of this egg. They discover this to be from Pogaku Subbarao (Gollapudi)'s store. This unfolds the links between a seeming businessman, Pogaku Subbarao, and an underworld Don, Vasanth Dada (Suresh Oberoi). They also offer jobs to the unemployed and use them to sell their body parts. Utpala's unemployed brother Sharma (Prasad Babu) gets into their trap and leaves home. Utpala reaches Jaani for help to talk to her brother. Jaani discovers that the phone number given to contact her brother is in the same city and starts exploring into this. Meanwhile, Anusha lodges a complaint against Pogaku Subbarao and his nephew, Sudhakar about their dark secrets. Salim (Ranjeet), a left hand of Suresh Oberoi, disguises himself as a policeman and asks Anusha to come with him for an inquiry. When he attempts a rape, Jaani saves her. They fall in love and start exploring Vasanth Dada's kingdom. They discover that Sharma escaped from Vasanth Dada's den and left a letter with Utpala, explaining every activity in the underworld. Sharma, the lone witness of the underworld, is killed in the hospital by Salim. When Jaani and Anusha attack Vasanth Dada, they're captured and left in a desert as prey for vultures. Using a magnifying glass, dropped by Pogaku Subbarao, they free themselves and attack Vasanth Daada. In the final clash, Jaani and Bhillu collapse the entire Vasanth Dada dynasty. Jaani marries Anusha and is shown traveling with kid. ===== The camera slowly zooms out on a young woman masturbating to a porn sex tape. She gets up abruptly and goes out to a party, looking for sex. Leila has learned she has some power over men with sex but feels a part of her is still untouched, holding back, despite her assertiveness. Before she can choose a partner for the night she is corralled by David, into a bathroom, while his girlfriend calls through the door. She leaves, but keeps her eye on David as she picks up a shy guy, with whom she has sex against a fence outside as David watches from his car while his girlfriend, Victoria (Polly Shannon) fellates him. Leila is in complete control of her encounter while David remains completely passive. He next sees her walking down the street, and follows her. She smiles but does not speak to him and breaks into a run, leading him to a playground. They crouch inside a small tunnel and watch each other as she begins to touch herself. But this time he leaves. When Leila sees David again they finally speak to each other, and he takes her home, where they have sex. He asks Leila if she will go out with him on a real date, giving her his number when she leaves. They finally do go out, and begin a real romance. She meets his father, who is physically fragile but very funny, teasing her about having sex and making noise in their apartment. David cares very tenderly for his father, who is charmingly brusque. Leila is still skittish, although she is not intimidated when David's old girlfriend, Victoria (Polly Shannon) confronts her at her job, warning her that David has intimacy issues. When they go back to the club again, Leila dances suggestively with a couple of men while watching David's reaction, and he is hurt and angry when they return to his place. She brushes off his fears when he confesses that he thinks of nothing but her, that he needs her, but she acts like it is all a game. He begs to her to promise that she will not leave him, and she does, but does not believe it herself. When David finds his father dead, he turns to Leila for consolation, but she does not know how to comfort him. This leads to conflict, and ends with him asking her to leave. Later, he reconsiders; but he is unable to find Leila again, as he knows nothing about her except her first name. Leila finds her sexual world more and more unsatisfying and becomes increasingly frustrated. She picks up the shy guy again, but strikes at him in anger when he is unable to follow her peremptory commands, and throws him out of her apartment in disgust. Leila spends time with her parents as they go their separate ways, and gets ready for the wedding while the summer is coming to an end. As she rides her bicycle to the ceremony, David sees her and follows in his truck. He waits outside the synagogue and approaches her as everyone floods out onto the sidewalk following the wedding, and then Rachel (Kristin Lehman) grabs Leila's hand and she calls out to David, to ask if he is coming. At the reception David watches Leila dance with an old man, but she runs away again when he approaches her. This time he follows her all the way home, and all the way inside, telling her he will not leave her again. They reunite and the film ends with the two engaging in a passionate kiss. ===== The cartoon opens with titles featuring an instrumental of "The Sailor's Hornpipe" (also one of the theme songs to the Popeye cartoon series), seguéing to a scene of Sam digging a hole to bury his treasure on a beach. Sam is singing the stereotypical pirate shanty "Dead Man's Chest"—on the second strain, Sam switches from the typical "yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!" to a decidedly more original "yo-ho-ho and a bottle of... Ma's old fashioned ci- der" with a conga kick on the last syllable and a parody of "Dad's Old- Fashioned Root Beer", a well-known radio advertising jingle at that time. In attempting to bury his treasure, Sam has encroached on Bugs' domain, as Bugs happens to have his rabbit hole there on the beach. When Bugs asks him who he is, he responds in his typical way: "What's up, doc?! I ain't no doc! I'm a pirate! Sea-Goin' Sam, the blood-thirstiest, shoot-'em-first-iest, doggone worst-iest buccaneer has ever sailed the Spanish main!" To protect the location of his treasure, Sam prepares to shoot Bugs, claiming "Dead rabbits tell no tales!" Bugs then temporarily tricks Sam into trying to shoot himself in the head by saying: "Now, just a minute, Red. Ain't you got that wrong? You mean dead men tell no tales." After realizing he's been tricked, Sam grounds his teeth together so hard they shatter before he fires at Bugs. Bugs escapes in a tied lifeboat, at one point rowing himself towards a ship without the boat. Following, Sam swims towards the ship to retrieve the paddles from where Bugs left them (oblivious that he doesn't even need them since he already made it to the ship without them), then returns to the lifeboat, which he then rows back to the ship. As Sam searches for Bugs on the ship, he sees Bugs disguised as Captain Bligh (effecting the voice and thick-lipped appearance of Charles Laughton in his portrayal of Bligh in Mutiny On The Bounty). Sam takes criticism from "Captain Bligh" before being ordered a bunch of chores. Sam soon realizes he's been tricked (again), and follows a fleeing Bugs, but crashes into the mast while doing so. In a side gag, Bugs is trying to hide and a pesky parrot keeps crowing to Sam, "He's in there! He's in there! Awk!" Finally, Bugs asks the parrot, "Polly want a cracker?" The parrot changes his tune, "Polly want a cracker! Polly want a cracker! Awk!" Bugs hands him a lit firecracker, which promptly explodes, blasting all of the parrot's feathers off, leaving him dazed and smoldering. His last words before he faints are, "Me and my big mouth!" For the next part, Bugs poses as the now-unconscious parrot to lead Sam into a cannon. Bugs lights the fuse, and then, "KABOOM!" The cannon explodes and Sam falls out of the barrel. In a series of gags that mildly anticipate the Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner series, Bugs is in the crow's nest and Sam tries various unsuccessful attempts to get to him; Bugs told him that the elevator is out of order and tosses him a rope. But, when Sam climbs up, he climbs back down and crashes on the ground below. For his next attempt, he made a seesaw, and puts a ball on it, but that kind of failed too. In another one, that skirts the laws of physics, Bugs tells Sam he's going to jump. Instead, Bugs drops a convenient anvil over the side of the crow's nest, Sam catches it, and the anvil's momentum causes the entire ship ("except for the crow's nest") to submerge. Sam mouths some apparent curses underwater, then tosses the anvil overboard and the ship resurfaces. When Bugs comes down to check on Sam, Sam proceeds to attack him with his sword, making Bugs mad that he's "sore again". Bugs crawls in a hatch in the ship's side, with Sam following with his sword: "Ooooh, I'll keelhaul you for this!". When he opens the board, he is blasted by a cannon. Bugs opens the hatch to Sam's left and calls: "Yoo-hoo! Mr. Pirate!". Sam opens that board and, again, gets blasted by a cannon. Bugs opens another hatch and calls: "Oh, uh, Redbeard!". Sam, trying to avoid getting blasted again, decides to open up the hatch with his sword from a safe distance. Nothing there. Suddenly, another hatch opens in his face and a cannon blasts Sam once more, much to his annoyance. Sam now chases Bugs again, and is now subjected to the famous lots- of-doors in-and-out routine (previously used in Little Red Riding Rabbit), which ends with Sam getting blasted by a cannon again. Sam confronts Bugs, who throws a match into the powder room, which a panicking Sam swiftly retrieves (a gag that would later be recycled into 1954's Captain Hareblower). This is repeated until finally, Sam is too late to retrieve the match that ends up exploding the entire pirate ship when he refused to go after another match again, reducing the ship to splinters. On his last nerve, Sam furiously chases Bugs with his gun: "ooooh, I'll blast your head off for this!" until he seemingly has Bugs defeated ("Alright, now! I got ya cornered! Come out and meet your doom!") until a cannon blasts him once more. Finally, defeated, Sam raises the white flag. Bugs turns to the audience, puts on an old-style ship captain's hat, and paraphrases John Paul Jones, "I have not even begun to fight!" and he laughs. ===== Wildlife photographer Pickett Smith (Sam Elliott) is taking photographs of the local flora and fauna as he canoes through a swamp surrounding an island containing the affluent mansion estate of the wealthy and influential Crockett family. Also evident throughout the swamp are numerous indicators of pollution, which Pickett believes are connected to pesticide use on the island plantation. After Clint Crockett (Adam Roarke) accidentally tips over Smith's canoe, he and his sister Karen (Joan van Ark) escort Smith to the family mansion where he meets the entire Crockett family. The grouchy, wheelchair-bound family patriarch Jason (Ray Milland) intends on spending the next day enjoying both the 4th of July and his own birthday celebrations uninterrupted. Due to the mutual dislike of the fauna around the mansion, Jason sends a man named Grover to spray pesticide in order to get rid of the frogs. Pickett later discovers Grover's corpse covered in snakebites in the swamp not far from the house. Despite this warning, Jason continues with his celebrations the next day. Early next morning, Michael Martindale (David Gilliam) sets out to check on a possible downed telephone line. He accidentally shoots himself in the leg and is rendered immobile by strange white moss hanging down from the surrounding trees. Tarantulas descend from the branches and kill him. Back on the estate, Jason's sister, Iris Martindale (Hollis Irving) sends her son, Kenneth (Nicholas Cortland) into the greenhouse to collect flowers for a centerpiece. As he gathers the flowers, he fails to notice dozens of tokay geckos entering behind him. The geckos swarm over the stacked shelves, knocking over numerous jars of poisonous chemicals, and the resulting toxic gas asphyxiates him. Seeing the danger posed by the animals, Pickett suggests that everyone should leave the island, but Jason is adamant that nothing will ruin his birthday celebration. In the meantime, while chasing after a butterfly, Iris is frightened by snakes and baby alligators along her path, and in a panic, falls into a swamp, where leeches latch on to her. She manages to detach a few, but fatigued, she falls down near a rattlesnake, which promptly bites and kills her. Her husband, Stuart (George Skaff), comes looking for her, but falls into the swamp and is eaten by alligators. On Pickett's advice, Charles (Lance Taylor, Sr.) and Maybelle (Mae Mercer) - respectively Jason's long-suffering butler and cook - decide to leave, along with Kenneth's fiancée, Bella Garrington (Judy Pace). Clint takes them across the lake in his speedboat. Clint stays behind and searches the nearby grocery store while the others walk on. A flock of birds suddenly appear, and they run off behind a building; their fate is left unknown (though a strewn-open suitcase is seen later). Clint discovers his boat is untethered (the culprit is an Argentine black and white tegu which bites through the tether) and swims to reach it, but a cottonmouth kills him in the water. His wife, Jenny (Lynn Borden), tries to rescue him, but gets stuck in the mud and is killed by an alligator snapping turtle. Karen and Pickett decide to leave with Clint and Jenny's children, leaving Jason behind, as he refuses to join them. They cross the lake in Pickett's canoe, encountering an alligator and water snakes, which Pickett dispatches with the boat paddle and a shotgun. They eventually make it ashore and reach a road, where they hitch a ride with a woman (Carolyn Fitzsimmons) and her son (Robert Sanders). She tells them that she is heading to Jefferson City and has not seen a single person or car on the road all day, while the boy shows them a huge frog that he took from summer camp. Later that night, Jason, now alone in his mansion (save for his dog, Colonel), witnesses hundreds of frogs breaking into the house and staring at him. Looking around the room at his stuffed animal trophies adds to his tension, and he falls out of his wheelchair and collapses, apparently from a heart attack, with the croaking frogs hopping all over his corpse. Finally, all of the lights in the mansion completely flicker out. Following the end credits, an animated frog hops into frame with a human hand in its mouth, swallows it with a loud gulp, then hops out of frame. ===== In a cemetery the Weird Sisters, three school girl witches, are destroying and defacing headstones and statues, while close by Lady Macbeth weeps beside a headstone marked "beloved son" and Macbeth stands by. The three witches plan to meet with Macbeth later, and leave the cemetery. Macbeth leads Duncan's gang to a drug deal with Macdonwald and his men. In a gunfight between the gangs, all of Macdonwald's gang are killed. While chasing two gunmen, Banquo and Macbeth are led to the Cawdor Club. They seize the club and kill the owner. Duncan hands the club over to Macbeth, and Macbeth and Banquo celebrate by drinking the club's alcohol and taking pills found on a table. During this drug trip Macbeth meets the three witches, who prophesy that he will soon be in Duncan's position with control over the gang. He tells his wife this, though she doubts he has it in him to take over Duncan's position. Later when she learns that Duncan will be dining and staying at their house, she plots with her husband to kill him. Lady Macbeth drugs Duncan's bodyguards, and while they sleep Macbeth takes their knives and kills Duncan, framing the guards. Macduff comes to Inverness and finds Duncan murdered in his bed. Before the bodyguards can profess their innocence Macbeth shoots them. Malcolm, Duncan's son, immediately suspects Macbeth as having something to do with his father's death and flees. After Macbeth is hailed as the new leader by most of Duncan's gang Macbeth sends two murderers to kill Banquo and his son, Fleance. The murderers kill Banquo, but Fleance escapes. Macbeth holds a celebratory dinner, and after learning that Banquo has been killed, sees a vision of Banquo's ghost at the dining table. Macbeth is becoming shaken by his desire for power. Lennox, Ross and others suspect Macbeth of killing Duncan and Banquo. Macbeth finds the three witches in his house that evening and, after drinking a foul potion and engaging in an orgiastic sexual encounter with them, asks the witches of his future. He is told to fear Macduff, but no man "of woman born shall kill you". Later it is revealed that Macduff is not a natural birth, but a caesarean section, which is not "of woman born". He is also shown a vision of Fleance being hailed as gang leader. These prophecies enrage Macbeth, as does the witches' quick disappearance, and he has the murderers go to Macduff's home and brutally kill Lady Macduff and her son. Lennox and Ross go to tell Macduff who has gone to his uncle Siward. Malcolm convinces him that Macbeth has gone much too far in his quest for power and must be stripped of his leader status. Lady Macbeth has become more insane, re-imagining the evening of Duncan's killing and tries to wash off his blood from her hands. A doctor sedates her, and Macbeth appears indifferent to her instability. He prepares for the impending attack from Macduff, Lennox and Ross. Lady Macbeth commits suicide in a bath tub by slashing her wrists, enraging Macbeth. The two murderers, realising the unlikeliness of surviving the attack, swiftly flee Dunsinane leaving Macbeth with only Seyton, his main bodyguard, and two others. The murderers run into Macduff and his associates at the edge of Burnham Wood and are shot. Malcolm leads his men to Dunsinane where they ambush the house and a gunfight ensues. Macbeth is chased to the cellar where he faces off with Macduff and is stabbed in the stomach. He stumbles upstairs to his bedroom, where the body of Lady Macbeth lies, and dies at her side. As Macduff leads Fleance, now the inherited gang leader, from the house Macbeth's "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech is heard. ===== The Class follows the diverse fates of five members of Harvard's Class of 1958, recording the way their lives intertwine, and coming to a dramatic conclusion at their class reunion, twenty-five years later. Andrew Eliot comes from the Boston Brahmin Eliot family. Due to his background, he always feels the pressure of high expectations, and suffers from a lack of confidence as a result. He is otherwise laid-back and friendly, and a good friend to all his classmates. To experience life without privilege and to fulfill his military obligation, he serves in the navy as an ordinary swabbie. After his military service, he makes an ill-fated marriage to the daughter of one of his father's classmates and takes up a career in investment banking. Unfortunately, his wife is a serial adultress and alcoholic and demands a divorce, leaving him estranged from his own son and daughter, with limited visitation after his wife places both in boarding school at the age of 9 and 6, denying him custodial rights and frustrating his attempts to give them a home life. He has an interest in his family's history during the American Revolution, which in turn leads to him following his conscience and helping organize the Moratorium Day protests on Wall Street. Jason Gilbert, Jr., son of Jason Gilbert, Sr. né Jacob Gruenwald, has the makings of a perfect son, of whom any parent would be proud. Despite this, there is one thing that troubles him: he is in constant conflict with his identity as a Jew, despite his parents' assimilation and conversion to Unitarianism. He experiences prejudice at several points, when denied admission to Yale and when denied invitation to the punches of Harvard's final clubs. He also notes more pervasive racism, when a popular black athlete is denied entrance to the Hasty Pudding Club, and when a drill instructor punishes him during his service in the Marines when he inadvertently invites him to a segregated restaurant off-base, which the drill instructor interpreted as taunting. Over the course of the book, he overcomes this, due to the loss of his Dutch Christian fiancée, a paediatrician who is killed while attending a sick kibbutznik child during a visit to Israel. The incident leads him to immigrate to Israel and become a kibbutznik himself and join the Israeli paratroopers, in exploring the Jewish identity that had been denied to him throughout his life by his family's assimilation while being externally imposed on him. He is shown as participating in the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, and dies during the rescue of Jewish hostages from Uganda. Theodore Lambros was born to a working class Greek family, and was admitted to Harvard with no scholarship after graduating from Cambridge Latin School, and thus must work as a waiter to support himself throughout his schooling, and does not have the wherewithal to live on campus. During the course of the book, this fact makes it difficult for him to truly "belong" to his class. All the same, he endures and eventually achieves his ambition of securing a professorship in the classics at Harvard. Tragically, he has no one to share it with, after committing adultery while on sabbatical at Christ Church, and his subsequent divorce from his college sweetheart. Daniel Rossi is a talented pianist. His father disowns him due to his choice of Harvard in light of President Pusey's refusal to cooperate with the McCarthy hearings, particularly after the death of his older son in the Korean War. Daniel chooses Harvard on the advice of his mentor in music, Gustav Landau, who likens the McCarthy persecutions to those of the Third Reich which he himself fled. Daniel eventually wins his father's approval due to his success and fame as a pianist, composer of a Broadway musical and conductor of two orchestras, but finds this acceptance meaningless after years of estrangement. However, to maintain this extremely hectic way of life, he becomes alienated from his wife, and a serial adulterer addicted to stimulants and phenothiazine. The drug addiction becomes his downfall and causes severe motor dysfunction that ends his musical career, but redeems him through allowing him to reconcile with his wife and daughters. George Keller, né Gyuri Kolozsdi, enters the United States as a Hungarian refugee following the student uprising in 1956, and is granted a place in the Harvard Class of 1958. He rushes to assimilate as quickly as possible and becomes fluent in English in seven months. He remains highly paranoid and deeply regrets his abandonment of his fiancée, a Budapest pharmacy student, in the rush to flee Hungary. His determination and fierce loyalty to his country of refuge eventually result in a position in the White House, as a protégé of Henry Kissinger. His personal detachment and unresolved emotions leave him unable to form any meaningful relationship with his wife or to consider becoming a father, and they eventually divorce. After a lengthy speech at his 25th class reunion, where he is confronted with the human toll of his policy implementation in the Vietnam War, he commits suicide, asking Andrew Eliot, as his executor, that his money be sent back to his family in Hungary. ===== Set in England in 1828, the story centres on wealthy Samuel Pickwick and his valet Sam Weller, who are in a debtors' prison where they recall the misadventures that led to their imprisonment. On the previous Christmas Eve, Pickwick introduced his friend Wardle, Wardle's daughters, Emily and Isabella, and their Aunt Rachael to Nathaniel Winkle, Augustus Snodgrass, and Tracy Tupman, three members of the Pickwick Club. They were soon joined by Alfred Jingle, who tricked Tupman into paying for his ticket to a ball that evening. Upon learning Rachael is an heiress, Jingle set out to win her hand and eventually succeeded. Pickwick engages Sam Weller as his valet and, through a series of misunderstandings, he inadvertently leads his landlady, Mrs. Bardell, to believe he has proposed marriage to her. Pickwick is charged with breach of promise and hauled into court, where he is found guilty as charged and sentenced to prison when he stubbornly refuses to pay her compensation. ===== The city of Quaint's zeal for goodness can be catastrophic, and no one knows this better than Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, two stalwart champions of all things bad. The homicidal necromancers -- and their substance-addled manservant, Emancipor Reese -- find themselves ensnared in a scheme to bring goodness into utter ruination. Sometimes you must bring down civilization... in the name of civilization. ===== Abigail and Roger are an engaged couple living separately in bedsits in London. Abigail is a shorthand typist, who is outspoken and very capable domestically, she can mend a fuse, cook, drive and so on. Roger works in the City and is into keeping fit and planning for their future. Much of the humour arose from the different attitudes to life, and their interest in the attractions of London. ===== A police detective investigates the murder of a solipsistic social worker who had sought the identity of the mysterious "Mr. Big", an extortionist who threatens welfare cheats with exposure unless he is paid off. ===== A suave, smooth burglar named King Kong tries to make up for his thieving ways by teaming up with an Albert 'Baldy' Au, a bumbling Taishanese police detective from the United States. Both work together to try to find a set of stolen diamonds; the diamonds are also being tracked by a European criminal known as 'White Gloves'. The two heroes are supervised by Superintendent Nancy Ho, who has a temper. ===== An Actor's Life For Me is based around Robert Wilson/Neilson, an actor who believes is about to make it big time. While he never achieves his quest for fame, he always remains optimistic that he will do at the next audition. His girlfriend, Sue Bishop, and agent Desmond Shaw do their best to keep his feet on the ground. The final episode of the TV series ends with Sue's father (John Woodvine) being humiliated as a result of Robert's new risque play and a misunderstanding with the police. As a result of this, Sue walks out on Robert. ===== Dr. Jonas Carson (Alan Thicke) creates an android that looks just like a human teenage boy, and he "adopts" him as his son and as an older brother to Becky (Robyn Lively), who names him Chip. After the Carsons move to a new town, Chip (Jay Underwood) is enrolled in high school alongside Becky. Dr. Carson also goes to the high school, having filled a vacancy as a science teacher, which allows him close range to see how Chip interacts with others. Chip's ways seem to have an annoying or amusing effect on students and teachers, depending on how it is viewed. Chip runs afoul of Coach Duckworth and strict teachers, but his literalist actions surprisingly make him some friends, as other teenagers see it as a way that he is bucking the system. Chip also gains the attention of Erin (Kristy Swanson), a fellow student. However, Dr. Carson and Chip are being stalked by Gordon Vogel (Joseph Bologna), a former employer who is a defense contractor. A former colleague of Carson's, J.J. Derks, is enlisted to seek out Carson. When asked about Carson's son, Derks says Carson only has a daughter until he remembers that Carson in his younger years had confided in some friends about his idea to make a realistic android, which Derks and the others originally dismissed. Vogel tells Derks they will capture Chip, as Carson had failed to oblige an earlier contract. Since Chip was built with Vogel's resources and while Carson was supposed to honor the contract, Vogel claims he is entitled to ownership of Chip. When Derks questions what Vogel wants with Chip, Vogel replies he intends to reprogram Chip for military purposes. Chip must shake his pursuers while trying to present a "normal" life like a human. ===== Joseph Svenden is a middle-aged schoolteacher who lives on a farm with his dying mother. In his simple life there is no excitement, even in his long-time relationship with a widow. However, when a 17-year-old beauty enrolls in his class, life takes an unexpected turn. She boards her horse in his barn and she then seduces him. They carry on a furtive relationship which leaves him torn between the passion, and knowing that he is doing something wrong. When her indiscretion starts the inevitable scandal, many different reactions ensue. ===== A newly wed couple, Vishwam (Madhu) and Sita (Sharada), have married against the preference of their families, and left their hometown. Both want to start a new life at a new place. Initially, they stay in a decent hotel but soon due to financial reasons they move to another, ordinary hotel. Vishwam, an educated, unemployed youth, is an aspiring writer and had some of his short stories published in the newspapers earlier. He dreams of having his novel, titled Nirvriti (Ecstasy), published in the newspaper. He meets one of the newspaper editors (Vaikom Chandrasekharan Nair), who agrees to read his novel but declines to publish it as Vishwam does not have many writings to his credit. Sita is offered a job as a sales girl but cannot accept it because she is unable to pay the required security deposit of 1,000. With several unsuccessful attempts to get a job, the increasing financial pressure forces them to shift to a slum. With an old lady named Janaki (Adoor Bhavani) and a prostitute named Kalyani (K. P. A. C. Lalitha) as their neighbours, things do not work as desired for the couple and they end up selling Sita's jewellery. Vishwam takes a job as a zoology teacher in college but soon loses it. He then accepts a job as a clerk in a timber shop with a meager salary, replacing one of the dismissed employees (Bharath Gopi). Vishwam and Sita try to set up a happy home with their newborn baby, but soon their dreams fade as they struggle on precariously. When Vishwam falls ill, Sita tries for his betterment with all her capabilities but is unable to afford the medicines. She finally decides to call a doctor. However, Vishwam dies, leaving her alone with their infant baby. When Sita is advised to return to her parents after Vishwam's death, she declines. The film ends with Sita feeding her baby and gazing at a painting on the from an Indian Hindu epic, Ramayana, depicting Sita Swayamvara and determinedly at the closed door of their house. ===== The film opens with George (David Gilliam) and two women (Juli Drajkó and Judit Viktor) running through the woods. The women fall into a large pit trap while George is caught by a snare. As he hangs helplessly, a masked man approaches and disembowels him with a knife. What is later revealed as some days prior to this, the European Sales division of Palisade Defence military arms corporation are on a bus to a team-building weekend at a "luxury lodge" in the Mátra Mountains of Hungary. When a fallen tree blocking the road halts the bus's progress, the driver (Sándor Boros) refuses to take a dirt road through the woods and, after an argument, drives off, leaving the group to walk the remaining distance to the lodge. Eventually the group reaches the lodge, which is old and in serious disrepair, but the manager, Richard (Tim McInnerny), convinces the wary but tired group to enter. Inside, Harris (Toby Stephens) discovers a file cabinet full of cryptic Palisade documents, written in Russian. The group discusses the documents, leading Harris to relate a story he'd heard about the lodge: the lodge was previously a mental institution, and in the early 20th century a Palisade-made nerve gas was used to clear it out after the inmates took over. Jill (Claudie Blakley) responds with the story she'd heard: the lodge was a "reeducation center" for Russian war criminals, and after an escape a Palisade-made nerve gas was used to clear escapees out of nearby buildings. Both mention a lone survivor who swore revenge on Palisade. Steve (Danny Dyer) starts to tell his own story about the lodge's past as a clinic staffed by busty nurses when he finds a human tooth in the meat pie the group is eating for dinner. Chastising Gordon (Andy Nyman) for serving a pie he just found in the kitchen, everyone goes to bed. That night Jill sees someone looking into the lodge from the trees. Though nobody is found outside, everyone but Richard agrees that they should leave the lodge. The next morning Richard grudgingly sends Harris and Jill to the top of the hill to call the bus driver back, on the condition that the rest participate in a team-building game of paintball. Reaching the hill, Harris and Jill find the bus abandoned and the bus driver dead in a nearby creek. Back at the lodge, the game of paintball has just finished when Gordon steps into a bear trap. After several failed attempts by Steve and Billy (Babou Ceesayu) to pry the trap open, Gordon's left leg is cut through completely under the knee. Harris and Jill arrive in the bus, load everyone in and head back for town. On the way, a spike strip is thrown in front of the bus, which causes it to crash. Harris is thrown clear of the bus in the crash, and is decapitated by a masked killer with a machete. Jill is captured and tied to a tree, gagged, doused with gasoline, and burned alive. The rest discover Harris's body, prompting them to head back to the lodge for the night. While Steve and Maggie (Laura Harris) smoke, a masked figure (Levente Törköly) "quietly" grabs Gordon and carries him into the basement. Discovering Gordon's absence and a newly opened door, the four head into the basement which leads to an underground prison. Through one door Billy and Maggie find the now-dead Gordon, who has had the Palisade logo carved into his torso, and a now-unmasked killer who fires a shotgun at them. The two hide in a nearby cell, where Billy dies from a chest wound. Steve hides on the second floor while Richard escapes out the back into the woods. While the killer searches for Steve, Maggie sneaks up on him with a large knife she took from the prison in the basement, but she falls through the rickety floor. The killer turns around and takes aim at Maggie, but, at the last second, Steve saves her by impaling the killer through the back. The killer falls down and becomes lodged in the main level floor, and Maggie takes his shotgun and shoots the killer in the head. Believing they are safe Maggie and Steve exit the lodge, but discover that a group of several more armed, Russian-speaking killers, are awaiting them outside. Maggie shoots one before he can fire on them, and the two run into the woods. They come across Richard, who has stepped on a Palisade-made land mine and cannot move without detonating it. Richard guides Maggie and Steve through the minefield. The killers know that the area is a minefield and do not enter; they use a fallen branch to pass over the minefield close to Richard and torment him with insults and stones as they pass overhead. Accepting his situation, Richard does his best to save the others and steps off the mine, killing himself as well as two of the killers. Steve and Maggie come to another building, the real Palisade lodge. Inside they find their boss George, who is partying with two escorts Steve ordered via the Internet earlier. George brings out a prototype missile launcher and fires it at the approaching killers, but the missile locks on to a passing commercial jet instead, destroying it. The five run into the woods, leading to the events shown in the beginning of the film. Maggie is snared and is about to be molested by a killer when she manages to smash his head with a rock. Steve encounters two attackers and gets beaten and stabbed, but eventually kills them both with a knife and a submachine gun. Maggie is chased by a flamethrower-wielding killer into an abandoned prison camp, filled with crates bearing the Palisade logo. There, Maggie breaks her leg, but is saved when one of the escorts, rescued by Steve, arrives and shoots the man. Steve, Maggie and the escorts make it to a rowboat on the shore of the nearby lake, and as they paddle off to safety Steve jokingly quips, "Foursome?" ===== Quark learns from the Ferengi leader Grand Nagus Zek that his mother, Ishka (who is also Zek's lover), has been captured by the Dominion. Zek offers a reward of 50 bars of latinum for her rescue. Quark and his brother Rom decide to assemble an all-Ferengi commando team to rescue her, claiming that the reward is 20 bars so they can keep a larger share. They first recruit Rom's son Nog, making him "Strategic Operations Officer" for the mission. Next, they hire Leck, a Ferengi "eliminator", tempting him with the challenge of fighting the Dominion's Jem'Hadar soldiers. Quark bails out his cousin Gaila, who has been arrested for vagrancy, and signs him up as a chance for redemption. Disgraced ex-Liquidator Brunt, hoping to win Zek's favor, persuades them to add him to the team for the use of his ship. In battle-training simulations, the Ferengi prove to be poor commandos; one simulation ends with Leck killing Ishka. Quark and Rom realize that although Ferengi may not be good commandos, they are excellent negotiators; instead of attacking the Dominion, they propose a prisoner exchange to win Ishka's freedom. Major Kira and Captain Sisko give Quark custody of Keevan, the Vorta captured in the episode Rocks and Shoals, and Quark arranges a meeting with the Dominion at the abandoned space station Empok Nor. The team makes base camp in Empok Nor's infirmary. The Dominion's negotiator, a Vorta named Yelgrun, arrives with Ishka in custody, guarded by a squad of Jem'Hadar. Quark offers his terms, to which Yelgrum agrees: all but two Jem'Hadar must leave the station before the prisoner exchange takes place. While celebrating their soon-to-be-successful exchange, Rom accidentally lets slip that the reward is actually 50 bars, not 20. In a rage, Gaila tries to shoot Quark but ends up killing Keevan. Quark persuades the team not to give up, offering equal shares of the 50 bars. Nog discovers some working neural stimulators in the abandoned infirmary, which enables him to move Keevan's body by remote control. At the prisoner exchange, they are able to get Keevan's dead body to walk; Yelgrun does not realize he is dead until after Ishka is safely with Quark, when Keevan walks into a bulkhead. The Ferengi ambush the two Jem'Hadar guards and capture Yelgrun; as they leave Empok Nor, Keevan's body continues walking into the bulkhead. ===== When a district attorney who has been investigating a utility company's directors for fraud is suddenly killed, his wisecracking newspaperman friend (Pat O'Brien) gets curious. He and the upstanding new district attorney (Neil Hamilton) separately pursue the case. Cultivated but sinister businessmen, a shady nightclub owner specializing in "import and export", several beautiful young women always seen in evening gowns, a "Latin lover" type who reads Casanova and an abundance of suave men in evening dress provide eye-candy for the duration. ===== Each episode has a stand-alone plot with Maureen Lipman playing a different character each time. She described the women as having "a certain emptiness in their lives". ===== Determined to make her young, blonde, and beautiful daughter June a vaudeville headliner, willful, resourceful, domineering stage mother Rose Hovick will stop at nothing to achieve her goal. She drags the girl and her shy, awkward, and decidedly less-talented older sister Louise around the country in an effort to get them noticed, and with the assistance of agent Herbie Sommers, she manages to secure them bookings on the prestigious Orpheum Circuit. Years pass, and the girls no longer are young enough to pull off the childlike personae their mother insists they continue to project. June rebels, and elopes with Jerry, one of the dancers who backs the act. Devastated by what she considers an act of betrayal, Rose pours all her energies into making a success of Louise, despite the young woman's obvious lack of singing and dancing skills. Not helping matters is the increasing popularity of sound films, which leads to a decline in the demand for stage entertainment. With bookings scarce, mother and daughter find themselves in Wichita, Kansas, where the owner of a third-rate burlesque house books the act in hopes of keeping the vice squad at bay. When one of the strippers is arrested for shoplifting, Rose immediately volunteers Louise for the spot as her replacement. Louise reluctantly agrees to go through with it, though it's clear she's only doing it to please her mother. This becomes the final straw for Herbie, as he's disgusted by the lengths to which Rose will go and realizes that Rose will never marry him. He leaves, though he gives her a moment to give him a reason to stay. She fails at giving him one. At first, Louise's voice is shaky and her moves tentative, at best, but as audiences respond to her she begins to gain confidence in herself. She blossoms as an entertainer billed as Gypsy Rose Lee, and eventually reaches a point where she tires of her mother's constant interference in both her life and wildly successful career. Louise confronts Rose and demands she leave her alone. Finally, aware that she has spent her life enslaved by a desperate need to be noticed, an angry, bitter, and bewildered Rose stumbles onto the empty stage of the deserted theatre and experiences a moment of truth that leads to an emotional breakdown followed by a reconciliation with Louise. ===== A criminal called Scrubby has escaped. He was imprisoned for trying to steal the Magic Pendulum - which brings toys to life. Relik, a cuckoo clock, guards the pendulum. Scrubby appears suddenly and steals the pendulum. A hero called Inguz, are called on to recover the pendulum before the toys' magical world disappears. ===== Charlie (Tori Spelling) works for a company that is taken over by Walcott (played by Greg Germann) who believes family values are a priority. Career-driven Charlie does a little fibbing when under the pressure of Walcott's standards, and believes she's in the clear. But when Walcott invites himself over for dinner, she borrows her friend's house and daughter (Abigail Breslin) and hires actor Buck (Jordan Bridges) to play her husband for the evening. The one-night "act" turns into a full-time gig when her boss decides to rent the house next door for the summer, forcing Charlie and Buck to stay together in the fake lifestyle she created. ===== Danny Skinner and Brian Kibby both work for Edinburgh's restaurant-inspection team as environmental health officers. Skinner is a hard-drinking man, who is involved in football hooliganism and supports local team Hibernian F.C.. He is reading a book by Edinburgh chef Alan de Fretais called The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. He conceives a strong dislike for Kibby and bullies and undermines him mercilessly at work. He relaxes by reading Hugh MacDiarmid, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Schopenhauer, and watching Federico Fellini films. Kibby is shy and inward-looking, and drinks Horlicks, collects model trains, and obsessively plays a computer game called Harvest Moon. Kibby's social life revolves around a hillwalking group called the Hyp Hykers and attendance at Star Trek conventions. The plot describes Skinner's relationship with alcohol and his search for his unknown father. His alcoholism causes him to lose his girlfriend Kay. Gradually it dawns on him that the damage that ought to accrue to his body from his lifestyle is instead inflicted on Kibby. For a while he enjoys this, particularly relishing his promotion at work, but when Kibby becomes mortally ill he realises that he needs him. When Kibby comes out of hospital after a liver transplant (caused vicariously by Skinner's heavy drinking), they both realise that their dependency is mutual. Kibby (who has retired on health grounds) puts on weight and becomes a heavy drinker in his own right. Skinner resigns and goes to San Francisco in search of someone who might be his father. He is disappointed in this as it turns out the man was exclusively homosexual during the period in question, but does find love at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, in the shape of American Dorothy Cominsky. Skinner returns to Leith where he continues the search for his father and starts a relationship with Kibby's sister. When he discovers de Fretais having sex with Kay, he tries to kill them both, succeeding in killing the chef and gravely injuring his ex-girlfriend. By the end of the story Kibby is strongly alluded to be Skinner's half brother, with Brian's father, Keith Kibby being the man for whom Skinner had been searching. Skinner knows this with reasonable certainty, as he dies at Brian's hand. ===== The plot concerns three teenagers living in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Bill (Eric Stoltz) has just graduated from high school and got his first apartment. His younger brother Jim (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), who is fixated on Vietnam and the Vietnam war, spends a lot of time practicing with his Nunchakus, getting high, listening to heavy metal on his boombox, and hanging out with Vietnam vet Charlie (Randy Quaid). Other important characters include Tom (Christopher Penn), a hedonistic high-school wrestling champ who works with Bill at a bowling alley, Harry (Rick Moranis) a trendy department store manager, Anita (Lea Thompson), Bill's ex-girlfriend who works at a donut shop, and Eileen (Jenny Wright), Anita's friend and Tommy's girlfriend who works at the department store with Harry. Anita has a fling with a cop named David (Hart Bochner) who, unknown to Anita, is married. The three boys set out for a night of fun and craziness at a strip bar and later on have a party at Bill's apartment. ===== Argentinean doctor Salvator, a scientist and a maverick surgeon, gives his son, Ichthyander (, Ikhtiandr) (Greek etymology: "Fish"+ "Man") a life-saving transplant - a set of shark gills. The experiment is a success but it limits the young man's ability to interact with the world outside his ocean environment. He has to spend much of his time in water. Pedro Zurita, a local pearl gatherer, learns about Ichthyander and tries to exploit the boy's superhuman diving abilities. Similar to other works by Beliaev, the book investigates the possibilities of physical survival under extreme conditions, as well as the moral integrity of scientific experiments. It also touches on socialist ideas of improving living conditions for the world's poor. ===== Doug and Kat, a dog and cat respectively, have recently gotten married and live in a small and rather old house. At the beginning Doug and Kat explain the "plan": to open their own bakery and "to keep on loving each other a lot, forever." Despite some reluctance about the bakery from Doug, he goes along with the plan too. As they bake cupcakes in their small kitchen, the oven suddenly cracks and breaks. The two decide to search for jobs to pay for the damages; Kat as an ad agency assistant and Doug as a coffee barista. They both promise to quit after they earn enough. They buy a new oven, but it's too big and doesn't seem to fit their small kitchen. While messing with it, they accidentally break two ceramic dolls of themselves from their wedding. The two decide to work more so that they can renovate their kitchen; Kat joins the ad agency board and Doug gets promoted to manager. They expand their small house, but the constant work has made both of them too tired to bake. Six years later, Kat finds the still broken ceramic dolls and the two decide that for their anniversary to come home early so that they can bake something together. However, Kat ends up staying late to help an employee. When she arrives, Doug is sitting at the dinner table, sad and with the dolls fixed. When he suggests they quit, Kat refuses as they are financially secure. As Doug leaves upstairs, he accidentally bumps the table and the dolls shatter. Soon, their marriage begins to lose affection. Kat attempts to cheer up Doug with cupcakes, but he is disappointed by the fact that they were store-bought and decides to break up with Kat. As Doug packs his belongings to go, Kat suddenly remembers her passion for baking and stops him with another "plan" and takes a sledgehammer to the wall. The two embrace with their love restored. Doug and Kat are shown living in their new apartment situated above their newly built bakery. They look out together with them wondering what their new plan will be. After the credits, their ceramic dolls are seen repaired next their wedding photo. ===== A group of disfigured people gather near a railroad in a desert where they are killed by a mysterious gunslinger named Aman (Wesley Snipes), who also rips out the head and spine from one of the dead bodies. Nearby in the same desert, a group of criminals is waiting to be transported. Aman arrives, kills most of the guards, and frees one criminal called Fabulos (Riley Smith). The rest of the criminals nonetheless end up being transported to a small settlement where they are supposed to be hanged. However, just as they arrive, the settlement is attacked by a bizarre gang led by a skinless man named Kansa (Kevin Howarth), who slaughters most of the inhabitants. Through flashbacks it is revealed that the same gang of outlaws once raped Aman's lover, so he went after them and brutally killed them while they were imprisoned and defenseless. While running away Aman, himself, was killed, so his mother, a nun, broke her covenant with God and sacrificed herself to save his life, which in turn cursed him for life. The curse makes all the people killed by Aman come back to life, so all the gang members that Aman had killed returned as undead to seek revenge, except for Kansa's son who remained dead. The undead lose their skin after a week, so they remove the skins from the people they kill to use as replacements. The only way the undead can be killed is by destroying their brains. Part of the undead gang attacks Aman and Fabulos while they are visiting a woman and a child, but the four manage to kill all the attackers. However, Fabulos is severely wounded, so Aman kills him in order for him to come back as undead. Kansa (who put on new skin) and his remaining 2 undead followers arrive at a secret temple with the beautiful Angel (Tanit Phoenix) whom they took hostage back in the settlement. Kansa believes that inside the temple they will find a way to resurrect his dead son, but this proves to be false. Aman and the undead Fabulos soon catch up with them, and Aman kills Kansa and his followers. While Aman is leaving with Kansa's head in his hand, Angel seductively approaches Fabulos. ===== Tom Valentine wakes up in an unfamiliar loft apartment - not sure where he is or how he got there. Despite the chic surroundings, there’s blood on his shirt, evidence of a struggle and a Luger pistol on the Persian rug... Valentine is only certain of three things: The girl that he loved has been murdered. His mind has been warped by the effects of a powerful psychotropic drug and he only has one chance to bring the shrouded, corporate killers to justice... ===== ;Invasion: The book begins with Publius Varrus laying its framework: he is retelling his history and the history of the Roman withdrawal from Britain. He then begins by talking about an ambush by Celts where he and Caius Britannicus are injured. While thinking about his time spent with Britannicus recovering from these injuries, his thoughts lead to their meeting: Britannicus had been a captive of Berbers and Varrus freed him from them. After this encounter Varrus recalls how he and Britannicus traveled together to Britain to become primus pilus and legate, respectively, of Legion XX Valeria Victrix's Second Millarian Cohort. While they are in command of this unit, Hadrian's wall is overcome by a horde of Picts and other Celtic Tribes. The unit spends a year and a half fighting their way back to Roman Controlled Britain. Outside of Londinium they encounter a legion from the army of Theodosius. ;Colchester: After Varrus recovers from his injuries, he returns to Colchester, the location of his birth. When he returns he finds that his boyhood friend, and his grandfather's helper, Equus had ensured that his grandfather's smithy was not devoid of tools. Varrus begins to run the business again, striking deals with Cuno, Equus's brother in law. Varrus also gains several contracts with the local legion, because his swords use a higher quality of iron than the other local suppliers. Britannicus visits the Colchester legion and finds Varrus. While they are attending a military party, Britannicus proposes that he may create a colony similar to the Bagaudae's colonies in Gaul. After a visit when Varrus explains his grandfather's use of skystone metal to create the hardest sword and dagger in existence, Varrus and Plautus discover a conspiracy by family enemies of Britannicus, the Senecas. Another encounter with the Senecas follows several years later as Varrus and Plautus interfere with the youngest of the Seneca brothers. There encounters ends with Varrus beating the brother up and carving a V into his chest. The attack leads to a massive manhunt by the military because the youngest Seneca had connections with the emperor and the military hierarchy. Because of the persistent nature of this search and a conviction that the eldest brother, Primus, would eventually figure out who his brother's attacker was, Varrus flees Colchester. First heading to Verulamium, he beds Equus's sister, Pheobe who had previously bedded him for the first time since his injury. From there he leaves for Aquae Sulis, where Britannicus owns a villa. ;Westering: On the road to Aquae Sulis, Varrus encounters several bandits who attempt to murder him. He later, after another assassination attempt, finds out that these men had been hired by the Senecas. He finally arrives in Aquae Sulis and encounters Britannicus's brother-in-law Quintus Varo. Varo invites Varrus to his villa. At the villa, Varrus meets Caius Britannicus's sister Luceiia. Also while at the villa Varrus encounters a Welsh hunchback Cymric. Varrus demonstrates the African bow which his grandfather had left in his collection of weapons. Luceiia and Varrus return to the Britannicus villa. While there Luceiia introduces him to a druid who has knowledge of meteor shower that coincides with when Varrus the Elder discovered his skystone. The local people had called this the return of dragons, a local myth that had revolved around covert smelting and metal working by the Pendragons, a local tribe. The druid leads Luceiia and Varrus to the location where a number of cattle had been killed during that same night. There they find impact craters and a lake unknown to the druid. On a return trip from the site, the party gets caught in the dark during a downpour. The druid leads them to a hamlet where they take shelter in a cottage. While there Luceiia and Varrus express a growing interest in each other and agree to marry each other. ;The Dragon's Nest: Varrus finds seven sky stones in the valley, all marked by donut-shaped impact craters. He digs all of them up but they are all small, and Varrus does not think that these are large enough for the cataclysm that happened to the cattle. Meanwhile, Caius Britannicus returns to the villa. Upon his arrival he expresses his approval of Varrus and Luceiia's wedding, invitations are sent out and a number of individual soon begin arriving, among which is Equus with Varrus's smithing materials from Colchester. Also among the arrivals is Bishop Alric who, along with a military friend Atonious Cicero, tell Varrus of Pheobe's death by the hands of Caesarius Seneca, the youngest Seneca. The wedding is a jolly event despite Varrus' grief over Pheobe. A large group of friends stay at the villa for several weeks. Soon after the wedding Britannicus's friends, Tera and Firma, bring news that they lost their trading fleet to pirates. This news shakes the men of the group and they spend a long night discussing Brittanicus's proposition of a military colony. They all agree to begin recruiting in the colony and invest their livelihoods in the purchase of the villas surrounding Caius's and Varo's. Varrus is also able to discover the main part of the meteor, which is buried under the bed of a lake in the valley. By employing a handful of military engineers, Varrus drains the lake and retrieves the stone. ;The Dragon's Breath: While visiting Aquae Sulis Varrus encounters Quinctilius Nesca, a cousin of the Senecas. Varrus escapes with the help of a trader who had been hoodwinked by Nesca and by killing two of Nesca's guards. The man mysteriously dies during Varrus's escape. While he escapes, Varrus also learns that Seneca had returned to Britain. Varrus places him under surveillance and soon hatches a plot which he carries through to kill Seneca. Meanwhile, agents of the King of the Pendragon clan, Ullic, approaches Britannicus and entreats him for a meeting between the two leaders. They meet and after some vocal sparring the two agree to a protective alliance between the two regional powers as Britons. Soon after Bishop Alaric passes through the region again, telling the Colonists, they now called themselves such, that Frankish cavalry was now running rampant in parts of the empire, and that the political tensions were rising. Also Alaric brings news of Caius's son Picus, who was now aligned with the Roman emperor in Constantinople and the a new military commander Stilicho who favored the use of heavy cavalry. In the final chapter, Varrus reveals that he was able to smelt his skystone and casts a statue of the Celtic goddess Coventina who Varrus names The Lady of the Lake. ===== The film follows the life of Mattie Rigsbee (Burstyn), an elderly woman who believes in strong religious convictions. The film explores the lonely qualities of life for senior citizens after their children leave as adults. Reinhold and O'Grady play Mattie's children, who live in a deep southern town. Mattie soon finds a likable friend in the local dogcatcher, Lamar Benfield (Hamill). Through this relationship, she meets the dogcatcher's nephew, a troubled juvenile delinquent orphan, Wesley (Taylor Thomas), currently serving time in juvenile detention for a recent car theft. Mattie finds that this young man is missing direction and believes that with a little insight on Christianity, he can straighten up and fly right. ===== ISOC Deputy Director Pallop Pinmanee was sacked after Lieutenant Thawatchai Klinchana, his driver, was found driving a car containing 67 kilograms of explosives near the residence of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Pallop denied all involvement, noting that "If I was behind it, I would not have missed." A government spokesperson stated that the explosives in the car were completely assembled, equipped with a remote sensor ready to be detonated, and would have had a blast radius of around one kilometre. ===== Iliac is a young masseur who went home to Pampanga to find out that his bedridden father is dead. Iliac assists in the preparation of his father's burial including dressing his dead father up inside the morgue. ===== Cockney sailor Charlie comes home from a long voyage to find his house razed and his wife Maggie missing. She is in fact now living with bus driver Bert and has a new baby – whose parentage is in doubt. Charlie's friends won't tell him where Maggie is because he is known to have a foul temper. But he finally finds her and, after a fierce row with Bert, they are reconciled. ===== Porky is on a camping vacation beside a lake where Daffy happens to live. The duck quickly insinuates himself into Porky's attempts at relaxation, and every time the duck gets Porky riled enough to threaten violence, Daffy shows him a sign that says it is not duck hunting season, and that there is a hefty fine for even "molesting" (i.e. "bothering") a duck. When Porky calls Daffy screwy, Daffy makes eyes with Porky and responds "That, my little cherub, is strictly a matter of opinion". Porky and Daffy both sing to different effect. Porky, who has trouble with words starting with M and B (among others), stammers and stutters his way through the standard "On Moonlight Bay" from 1912, while Daffy periodically breaks into a somewhat-sultry version of a then-recent hit called "Blues in the Night." At one point, Porky unconsciously starts to sing Daffy's number, then stops, looks into the camera with a "Harumph!" and returns to "Moonlight Bay". Daffy is able to get away with a lot "Hoo-hooing" after every gag, until near the end, when a new sign says duck hunting season is now open, and it even specifically invites shooting this duck. The tide has turned dramatically, and Porky gets his revenge. While Porky chases Daffy around a tree, the picture gets out of order and breaks, then Daffy appears saying "Ladies and gentlemen, due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to continue this picture. But don't worry, I'll tell you how it came out.". The duck asides to the audience that he beat up Porky. A hook whisks Daffy offscreen and a loud smashing sound is heard. Porky then drags the dazed duck across the screen, his shotgun now bent in the form of Daffy's head. ===== Elmer Fudd attempts to catch Bugs Bunny with a carrot on a fish hook, but Bugs attaches the hook to Elmer's pants and reels Elmer in. Then Elmer chases Bugs into a Vaudeville theater; Bugs disguises himself as a can- can dancer, but Elmer recognizes Bugs, and prevents him from exiting the stage. Bugs dances, then plays the piano where Elmer hides and gets bounced around. Bugs then tricks Elmer into high-diving into a glass of water. Elmer is then tricked into wearing a Shakesperean costume, then, prompted by Bugs, acts, then does poses and silly faces; Bugs prompts the booing audience to throw a tomato at Elmer. Elmer is then tricked into performing a striptease down to his shorts. Bugs disguises himself as a southern sheriff while a real one arrests Elmer for "indecent southern exposure". But the sheriff stays for the Bugs Bunny cartoon on the movie screen. Elmer notices the scene with Bugs' disguise, thinks the sheriff is an impostor, and pulls off his pants — disrobing a real sheriff, who furiously escorts Elmer out of the theater with his rifle as Bugs conducts the orchestra in a finale. ===== The Gate concerns a middle-aged married couple, Oyone and Sosuke, who married for love in their student days. As the novel opens, they languish in ennui because they have no children and Sosuke has to focus on his career. Over the course of the novel it is revealed that Oyone was the wife of a former friend, and that Oyone and Sosuke suffered exclusion from society due to their ill-advised marriage. Oyone's ill health and a visit from Sosuke's younger brother provoke a familial crisis which becomes the central story. Oyone feels her childlessness was a punishment sent by the gods for abandoning her previous husband. ===== Catstello is being chased by a cat rapidly at high speed around the house, yelling "Hey Babbit!" Catstello narrowly escapes into the mousehole, while the cat crashes into a wall. Babbit notices this and asks Catstello for the cheese, which he replied that he hasn't got any because he is scared of the cat. Babbit then chastises Catstello for his cowardice, but when this doesn't get into Catstello's head. Babbit continuously slaps him on the head. They attempt to steal cheese that is being guarded by a cat. Their schemes include past a sleeping cat, which doesn't go so well as Catstello runs off at first time, a small airplane and a rope and pull system. Finally, Catstello manages to escape the cat with a wedge of Swiss cheese, which unfortunately Babbit doesn't like. Fed-up with Babbit constantly ordering him around and repetitively slapping him as well as his ingratitude for all of Catsello's efforts, Catstello continuously slaps him and force-feeds Babbit chunks of Swiss cheese, remarking "Ooohhh, I'm a baaaaaaad boy!" ===== Rajaram, owner of a fleet of lorrie, meets Devi (Soundarya), a garment factory owner. After that acquaintance, she once seeks his help in dealing with two street ruffians, who were teasing her sisters, Lata (Chandini) and Geetha (Sishwa), and is shocked when the culprits turn out to be his brothers, Ravi (Ravi Teja) and Gopi (Venkat). Rajaram takes the incident lightly as the pranks of youngsters and is very lenient with them. With more such incidents, the two fall in love, with the brothers and sisters not far behind. On his brothers' request, Rajaram approaches Devi for her sisters' hands in marriage to his brothers. But she curtly refuses her consent on grounds that the two are wayward drunkards. Rajaram reacts sharply to it and vows to get his brothers married to her sisters. Since then on he is more exacting with his brothers and brings about a transformation in them. Devi agrees to their marriage. But the incorrigible brothers come in an inebriated condition for their engagement and Rajaram faces the brunt of Devi's ire. She insults him and leaves with her sisters. An outraged Rajaram kicks his brothers out of home. The two brothers being state rank holders in engineering find favor with a businessman, Rangarao (Sarath Babu), who employs them. Rajaram, who is genuinely fond of his brothers, sells away his property and gives money secretly to Rangarao, paving the way for a partnership deal between Rangarao and his brothers. Piqued at being kicked out of home, his brothers, unaware of his hand in securing the partnership for them, nurse a grudge against their brother and insult Rajaram in Devi's presence. She, being in the know, slaps them and opens their eyes by informing them of his sacrifice. This brings about a total change in them and the repentant duo go to Rangarao to restore the property to their brother. Rangarao has other plans and tries to have them killed with gundas. The brothers escape death and land in a hospital with injuries. A furious Rajaram goes to Rangarao, who reveals his real identity. Rangarao is the brother of Chinna Rao (Bhupinder Singh), a criminal who was caught in the police dragnet with Rajaram's help and later died. This is Rangarao's vendetta. In the ensuing melee, Rangarao is killed. Rajaram and his brothers reunite. The film ends with all the three brothers getting married; Rajaram with Devi, Ravi with Latha, and Gopi with Geetha. ===== The film opens with Ruth Earlton and her fiancé Dr. Ted Carver arriving at her father's house. She has been told that her father has died, and is returning to find out what will be done with the estate. They arrive on a stormy night, and are greeted by her invalid uncle Robert, the housekeeper Mrs. Krug and the housekeeper's son Hanns. While exploring the mansion, Ruth is dismayed to find a large ape her father used to conduct experiments in the basement. She and the others then gather to learn how the Earlton estate will be divided. Earlton has left his estate to Ruth, but it will go to her uncle Robert in the event of her death. Very small monthly sums are also left to the housekeeper Mrs. Krug and her son Hanns, and these two are very upset about the small amount of the allowance. When Ruth goes to bed that night, a large, hairy hand reaches through the headboard and attempts to strangle her. When she screams, it disappears. Her fiancé and Mrs. Krug arrive at her room, and attempt to comfort her. Ted gives her a sleeping potion, and she falls asleep in a chair in her room while Mrs. Krug stays with her, taking the bed. The hairy hand reappears through the headboard and strangles Mrs. Krug this time, killing her. Ruth awakens and alerts the rest of the household to what has happened. Afterward, Hanns Krug meets with Robert Earlton in secret, who tells him that their plan to kill Ruth Earlton has failed and Hanns has accidentally murdered his own mother. Hanns blames Robert for this, and after mentioning that Robert is actually his father, he strangles him as well, leaving him for dead. Dr. Clayton visits Robert's room, and Robert regains consciousness. He tells Clayton about the plan he and Hanns had to murder Ruth, so that the estate would go to them instead. Clayton rushes out to find Ruth and warn her. She has already been taken by Hanns to the basement though, where he attempts to force the ape to kill her. The ape turns on him instead, killing him. Clayton arrives to find Ruth alive and well. ===== Bose (Chiranjeevi) is a very patriotic man who fights for the rights of the local market workers against Aatma (Sharat Saxena), the nearby underworld don. Seeing his dedication for helping the working poor, the Chief Minister (Gummadi Venkateswara Rao) asks him to enter politics. As a politician, he takes charge of a special branch of commandos and destroys Aatma's illegal operations. In retaliation, Aatma has Bose's sister falsely implicated in a prostitution case, after which she commits suicide on the court steps. Bose resigns from his position and takes revenge on Aatma. Finally, he returns to his old life at the market. ===== Mike Franks (Johnathon Schaech) discovers a strange letter hidden behind a portrait of George Washington while searching through the home of his recently deceased grandmother. The letter states, "I will skin your children and eat them. Upon finishing, I shall fashion utensils out of their bones." with the signature "G. W.", along with a fork presumably made out of human bone. After his grandmother's funeral, her friend Samuel Madison (Myron Natwick) tries to persuade Mike to give him the letter. When Mike refuses, members of a psychotic patriots group, with wooden teeth and dressed in powdered wigs and American Revolutionary War attire begin to stalk the family and they eventually try to break into their house. They demand the letter, but are forced to leave when Mike calls the police. Mike turns to Professor Harkinson (Saul Rubinek), a trusted friend and employee of the local university, for information. Harkinson tells him about "the Washingtonians" and how history has been based on a false image designed to hide the truth, referring to Washington's cannibalism and the fact that Benjamin Franklin is a composite character based on the accomplishments of several other individuals. They are soon attacked by the Washingtonians once again and, although Harkinson manages to escape with the letter, Mike, his wife Pam (Venus Terzo) and daughter Amy (Julia Tortolano) are abducted and taken to Mount Vernon, the home of the killer President. It is here the Washingtonians' murderous and cannibalistic nature is verified, when Mike and his family are taken into a large, opulent dining room and witness a table full of Washingtonians, (including Samuel and other townspeople they had met previously), feast on a mutilated human body. The Washingtonians unveil the secret of their renowned leader. Apparently, during their stay at Valley Forge, Washington and his troops were stranded without supplies and forced to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. Washington relished the taste of human meat, having one man killed each day to satisfy him even after supplies came through. He intended to lead the country on a mission of turning everyone into cannibals much like him. However, before any of the Washingtonians can do harm to Mike and his family, Harkinson and a team of FBI agents break in and kill all of the Washingtonians. Harkinson returns the letter to Mike and asks him to expose the truth to the whole world. In the epilogue, which takes place six months later, the Franks have become vegetarians and to their shock Washington's face on the United States one-dollar bill is replaced with that of George W. Bush. ===== In 1941, a Capelis XC-12 transport aircraft flown by pilot James "Mac" McCarthy (Dick Purcell) flying between Cuba and Puerto Rico runs low on fuel and is blown off course by a storm. McCarthy, unable to pick up any radio transmissions over the Caribbean, hears by a faint radio signal. After crash-landing on a remote island, his passenger Bill Summers (John Archer) and his black manservant/valet, Jefferson Jackson (Mantan Moreland) take refuge in a mansion owned by Dr. Miklos Sangre (Henry Victor) and his wife Alyce (Patricia Stacey). The quick-witted yet easily frightened manservant soon becomes convinced the mansion is haunted by zombies, and confirms this with some of the doctor's hired help. With the help of Barbara Winslow (Joan Woodbury), the stranded group begins to find out what mysterious events are taking place in the mansion. Exploring, the group stumbles upon a voodoo ritual in the cellar. It is being conducted by the doctor, who is in reality a foreign spy, trying to acquire war intelligence from a captured US Admiral whose aircraft had crashed in a similar fashion on the island. McCarthy comes under the doctor's spell but Summers comes to his aid. Information is being transmitted to Barbara, but Summers stops the ritual. The interruption causes the zombies to turn on their master. Sangre shoots the pilot but falls into a firepit and dies. With Sangre dead, all the zombies are released from the doctor's spell. ===== Crazy is the story of a legendary guitar player who emerged from Nashville in the 1950s. Blessed with incomparable, natural talent, Hank Garland quickly established his reputation as the finest sessions player in Nashville. Artists such as Roy Orbison, Patsy Cline, The Everly Brothers, and Elvis Presley all sought Hank’s brilliant playing for their recordings. Moving effortlessly from country, to rock-a-billy, to jazz, Hank was also quickly recognized by the likes of Dave Brubeck, Gary Burton, Joe Morello, and Joe Benjamin. The Nashville scene was a unique place in the 1950s – dominated by a small group of executives and musicians who controlled the studios, labels and unions. Hank, in his arrogance and pursuit of musical excellence, often came into conflict with the business, social and racial culture he found both restrictive and frequently frustrating. Some people say that a near-fatal car accident, which Hank suffered, was a result of tragic response to dreams unfulfilled. Others will say that the subsequent electro- shock therapy, which was ordered by his doctors, may have contributed to ending Hank’s playing career at the age of thirty-one. Four years later his wife dies in her own car accident. Historians have questioned the accuracy some of the movie's points, noting that Garland was a member of Nashville's fabled "A-Team" of session players, with whom he socialized in the 1950s, and who rallied around him in the wake of his accident. ===== Two couples - Betty and Johnny (June Kenney and Robert Reed), and Jeanne and Pete (Joan Lora and Eugene Persson) - are vacationing at sea together. When the ship's captain passes out drunk, they decide to go to a nearby jungle island. As they depart, Capt. Tony (Troy Patterson) awakens and calls out, warning them not to. As they explore the island, Johnny falls into a pit. The others start pulling him out, but look up to see Dr. Balleau (Wilton Graff) and two servants. Balleau orders the servants to help get Johnny out. That night at his house, Balleau tells the couples that he moved to the island "after the war" to indulge his passion for hunting. Both couples want to leave, but Balleau says they can not because wild animals prowl the jungle. Ballaeu makes his wife Sandra (Lilyan Chauvin) show Betty and Jeanne to the guestroom, while Balleau's servant Jondor (Bobby Hall) escorts Johnny and Pete to their room. A bit later, Sandra and houseguest Dean Gerard (Walter Brooke), who are lovers, discuss Dean's latest plan for their escape. Meanwhile, Johnny and Pete go to Betty and Jeanne's room to talk about their situation. They decide to poke about the house. Betty and Johnny are stopped by Sandra and Dean, who take them back to the guestroom. Jeanne and Pete find a tunnel. They hide as a servant walks into a room. When he leaves, Jeanne and Pete go in and discover a vat of bubbling acid. They hide again when the servant returns and are horrified when he reveals a woman's body floating in an aquarium. The servant leaves again. Jeanne and Pete go back to the guestroom to tell the others what they have seen. Dean tells them his escape plan. He and Sandra will slip out of the house, steal a boat, go to the mainland and then come back with help. But as they sneak through the front gate, Balleau, toting a spear, follows. Two days pass. No one has seen Balleau or heard from Sandra and Dean. As Betty and Johnny discuss this, a servant enters the room. They hide as the servant walks through a secret door. When he comes out, they go in. There they discover Balleau and his "trophies" - the mounted bodies of people he has hunted, Sandra and Dean among them. By way of explanation, Balleau tells Betty and Johnny that he was a sniper during the war. At first he detested sniping, he says, but then began to enjoy it, and soon the enjoyment "turned into a lust - a lust for blood!" As Balleau tells both couples that he will hunt Johnny and Pete, Jondor comes in dragging Capt. Tony behind him. Balleau adds Tony to the hunt for failing to bring Balleau sufficient inmates from the "penal island." Balleau says he will hunt only the three men. Betty and Jeanne will stay with him and now that Sandra is dead, he is "looking forward to getting to know [them] better ... much better." Jondor locks the girls in the guestroom. Balleau says that he will carry a crossbow and only three arrows, one for each man, To make things more "sporting", he tosses Tony a pistol and says they will find ammunition in the "Tree of Death." But they find just one bullet. Tony runs off with it, leaving Johnny and Pete to fend for themselves. When Tony attempts to shoot Balleau, the gun will not fire. Balleau has removed the firing pin. He kills Tony. After escaping from the guestroom, Betty and Jeanne enter the tunnel Pete and Jeanne had found earlier. They go into the room with vat of acid, hoping to arm themselves with knives, but a servant comes in. He and Betty tussle and Betty, the daughter of a judo expert, judo-flips the servant into the acid, where he dissolves, screaming in agony. The girls head into the jungle, looking for Johnny and Pete. Balleau and Jondor are still hunting the boys when Jondor falls into a leech-filled pond. Balleau leaves him to drown. Betty and Jeanne find Johnny and Pete. They head for Balleau's house, planning to use his rifles against him. They find rifles, but no ammunition. They are defenseless. Balleau finds the couples hiding in his trophy room. Holding them at gunpoint, he poses them in the tableau they will be in after he has killed them. Suddenly, Jondor, covered with leeches, bursts in. Jondor grips Balleau in a bear hug and, as Balleau screams, impales him on a cross, killing him. ===== The film opens as if it is Jack and the Beanstalk, and finds Warner's famous "jackrabbit" (Bugs), already in the giant's lofty realm, chopping down gigantic carrots. It turns out they belong to a dim-witted giant. The giant is incensed at Bugs invading his "victory garden" and Bugs spends most of the rest of the film trying to elude the giant. At one point he challenges him to a duel and the giant starts pacing off into the distance and is soon over the horizon. Bugs' self-congratulations ("You know, I'm so smart, sometimes it almost frightens me") is short-lived, as the giant comes toward him from the other horizon. Finally, the giant accidentally falls from his sky-borne realm and crashes into the ground, making a huge giant-shaped hole. Instead of being dead, the hard-headed giant simply sits up, dizzy, and invokes a well-known comic catchphrase, "Duh, watch out for dat foist step - it's a lulu!". ===== Sidda Reddy (Jaya Prakash Reddy) is a powerful mafia leader whose right hand is Devudu (Gopichand). Devudu has a lover called Malli (Raasi). Reddy, who also likes Malli, takes her to the bed, which is not liked by Devudu. In the process, Devudu kills Reddy and becomes the leader of the mafia gang. Venkateswarlu (Ranganath) is a fire officer. In an incident, Devudu sets a marketplace on fire and Venkateswarlu rescues it with his firefighting, and at the same time, Venkateswarlu slaps Devudu, as he continues throwing kerosene at the marketplace. Devudu holds a grudge against Venkateswarlu and sends him to jail on a framed charge of murder of Malli's brother Baddu (Suman Setty). G. Seetaram (Mahesh Babu), Venkateswarlu's son, tries to rescue his father from the jaws of police. But in the process, everybody starts asking him for a bribe to do the work. At the end of the day, the police officer and Devudu kill Venkateswarlu. The rest of the story is about how Seetaram's mother (Talluri Rameswari) takes revenge on the people responsible for the death of her husband with the help of her son Seetaram. The criminals involved in the crime of his father's death are killed one after the other by the mother and son in a planned and scientific manner. This film tells about an innocent boy, who, along with his mother undergoes injustice and also loses his father in this process. The mother in this situation plays the role of a trainer and guide to her son, making him strong physically and emotionally, to fight back. ===== Bugs Bunny, disguised as a Martian, hands Marvin the Uranium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator. Animation by Ken Harris. The cartoon opens with the newspaper headlines "Scientists to Launch First Rocket to Moon" and "Heroic Rabbit Volunteers as First Passenger." However, the scene then changes to Bugs literally being dragged across the launching pad to the waiting rocket as he frantically protests against what is to be expected of him, but then immediately becomes cooperative when he sees the rocket being loaded with carrots. The rocket is then launched into space. Shocked by the sudden acceleration of the rocket, Bugs attempts to exit it, but when he opens up the hatch, he is horrified when he sees that the rocket has now already left Earth. When the rocket lands on the Moon, Bugs completely goes to pieces, but quickly regains his composure as he starts to walk on the surface of the moon, contemplating the fact that he is the first living creature to set foot on it, while passing behind a large rock on which the words "Kilroy was here" are written. Another rocket soon lands nearby, called the Mars to Moon Expeditionary Force from the planet Mars, and from it emerges an unnamed Martian (later known as Marvin the Martian), who begins work on something that involves a missile and clearly concerns Earth. Curious, Bugs asks Marvin what he is up to, and Marvin explains he is there to blow up the earth. Bugs is initially not concerned, until he realizes the severity of the situation and steals from Marvin the missile's fuel source, a Uranium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator, a small device resembling, and that operates the same as, a mere stick of dynamite. He shortly has to then deal with Marvin's Martian dog, named K-9, who, as ordered to by Marvin, retrieves it while Bugs is distracted trying to send an SOS to Earth. In one of his classic word switcharoos, and after that through flattery, which the dog is absent- mindlessly, extremely prone to, Bugs successfully gets the Uranium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator back. This prompts an angry Marvin to berate and scold his dog. Bugs quickly arrives disguised as a Martian with a "special delivery from Mars" and hands Marvin the Uranium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator, now wired to a detonator. While Marvin is celebrating the return of the Uranium PU-36, Bugs activates the detonator. The explosion reduces the moon to a crescent. A silhouette on earth resembling Friz Freleng contacts Bugs Bunny, and asks if he has a statement to the press. Bugs, hanging precariously from the edge of the Moon, with Marvin and the dog clinging to him and dangling below, answers that he does, and in his typical Brooklyn accent yells out, "GET ME OUTTA HERE!" ===== In the future, a weapons corporation known as WEAPCO has dominated the known galaxy with their AI driven starfighters. Under the rule of WEAPCO people begin to suffer and perish. A young rebel pilot called Chris Bainfield makes it his duty to free his home star system, known as Spirit, of WEAPCO's control. He hires a mercenary known as Krass Tyler to steal a Firefly starfighter for him. Along with his close friend, Sid Wilson, Chris begins his mission to fight in to Sol and take down the WEAPCO empire. After preventing a WEAPCO frigate from causing Spirit to supernova he begins the liberation of a number of slaves, including Phoebe Lexx who joins him in his quest. Shortly thereafter the pair are lured into a trap set by Kline Kethlan, the commander of WEAPCO's forces. Bainfield dog fights Kethlan who escapes just before Bainfield can destroy his starfighter. Resuming their journey towards Sol, the three allies rescue Phoebe's twin sister, Ursula, before they are attacked by Krass Tyler. The mercenary informs them that it is nothing personal and that he has been paid off by WEAPCO to eliminate the team. Eventually the group arrive at Earth where they battle for control of the planet. With WEAPCO overthrown Bainfield chases Kethlan to Venus where he begs the commander to surrender, so that he does not have to kill him. Kethlan refuses and informs Bainfield that he would prefer to die a warrior's death. The two dog fight for one last time, with Bainfield emerging as the victor. ===== An old woman sends a girl begging in the streets of Paris on a snowy evening. Callous revelers pass her by, and she falls asleep before one donor finally drops a golden Louis in her shoe. A gambler with a sure tip on roulette but no cash borrows the coin to win a fortune for the girl. She wakes, and the two miss each other wandering the streets until the gambler finds the girl dead. ===== A rabbit named Shorty with a fast high pitched voice is running from a cougar named Pete Puma, until he stumbles down Bugs Bunny's rabbit hole. Shorty tells Bugs his problem ("My heart pounded, my legs trembled, I was frozen with fear"), and Bugs agrees to help him out. Bugs then proceeds to play various tricks on Pete who is now outside of Bugs' hole feeling around inside for the little rabbit. Bugs leaves a fake rabbit dynamite decoy which Pete grabs and pulls out of the hole, then BOOM! Bugs goes outside and engages in some small talk with Pete who offers him a cigar ("El Explodo"). After Bugs accepts it (and wisely puts it away before Pete can light it), he asks Pete to stay for tea. He pours tea into two cups, holds up the sugar bowl and asks Pete how many lumps he wants, to which Pete replies "Oh, three or four". Bugs repeatedly hits Pete Puma on the head with a wooden mallet, producing five lumps on his head which is "one too many". Bugs flattens the extra lump with a reflex hammer, then shoves the explosive cigar into Pete's mouth, lights it and runs off before the explosion. Later that day, Pete tries to disguise himself as the little rabbit's mother, prompting Bugs to start the "cup of tea" trick again. Here, Pete tries to outsmart Bugs twice but fails both times, by first suggesting they have coffee instead of tea (the "lumps" gag is predictably repeated), then by showing Bugs he has protected his head with an "Acme Stovelid"; Bugs removes it with his "Acme Stovelid Lifter", revealing the lumps on Pete's head. Shorty enjoys the shenanigans so much that he wants to get involved. As he hops down the road alone, Pete grabs him and runs home to his cave, intending to cook him. Bugs shows up in a costume disguised as Pete's second cousin, Paul Puma. He insists on helping his "cuz" get the fricasseeing off to a good start and asks how many lumps of coal Pete wants for the stove. After Pete decides that he needs a lot of lumps ("A whoooooooole lotta lumps"), he gets "wise" right away, grabs the mallet from Bugs and insists: "I'll help myself". As Pete repeatedly conks himself over the head with the mallet, Bugs & Shorty leave the cave. As they go, Bugs comments that "he's much too smart for us" and imitates Pete's laugh. ===== In South Africa under apartheid, Mehring is a rich white businessman who is not satisfied with his life. His ex-wife has gone to America, his liberal son, Terry (who is probably gay) criticizes his conservative/capitalist ways, and his lovers and colleagues do not actually seem interested in him. On a whim he buys a 400-acre farm outside the city, afterwards trying to explain this purchase to himself as the search for a higher meaning in life. But it is clear that he knows next to nothing about farming, and that black workers run it – Mehring is simply an outsider, an intruder on the daily life of "his" farm. His objective in buying the farm is to make a tax deductible expense. "No farm is beautiful unless it's productive," says Mehring. Plus it is proper for his amorous escapades. Land was a thing of his race. He once visits his farm with his girlfriend, Antonia. One day the black foreman, Jacobus, finds an unidentified dead body on the farm. Since the dead man is black, the police find no urgency to look into the case and simply bury the body on the spot where it was found. The idea of an unknown black man buried on his land begins to "haunt" Mehring. A flood brings the body back to the surface; although the farm workers do not know the stranger, they now give him a proper burial as if he were a family member. There are hints that Mehring's own burial will be less emotional than this burial of a stranger. ===== Udhayakumaran (Vijay) is a college student who does research on subatomic physics. He is offered a research position at Princeton University due to his ground-breaking research papers. However, he declines the offer and becomes a lecturer in his college, where he meets Vasanthi (Simran), and they fall in love with each other. Udhaya later comes to know that she has already been engaged and decides to move to another city. With the help of Basheer (Vivek), he finds a job as a reporter in Chennai. Unfortunately, Basheer dies in a bomb blast, and Udhaya unwittingly gets to meet the people responsible for Basheer's death, who introduce him to their boss Dhananjay Veeran (Nassar), who poses as a crusader with veiled intentions. Udhaya sympathizes with the crusaders and helps build an instrument to break granite slabs, aiding manual labor. Later, he builds a bomb born out of his research and gives it to Veeran to help their cause in supporting laborers. However, Veeran uses the bomb on a train without Udhaya's knowledge, killing many innocent people and framing Udhaya for the bomb blast, who is further arrested for a crime he did not commit. En route from the court, the police vehicle is caught in a puddle, and Udhaya gets a chance to escape. On the run, he stumbles upon Veeran and his accomplice discussing a plot to bomb a school bus, and then, he comes to the realization that Veeran is the culprit. Udhaya manages to save the school kids from the explosion. Veeran arrives and attempts to shoot Udhaya. A fight ensues in which Veeran is thrown into the flames of the wreckage. Udhaya is arrested and tried in court, where he pleads not guilty and is released, embracing Vasanthi as the credits roll. ===== Myles Falworth (Tony Curtis) and his sister Meg (Barbara Rush) live in obscurity on a farm in Crisbey-Dale with their guardian Diccon Bowman (Rhys Williams). This is to protect them from the attainder placed upon their family by King Henry IV of England (Ian Keith) because their father has been (falsely) accused of treason and murdered by the Earl of Alban (David Farrar). When a hunting party comprising the Earl of Alban, the lord of Crisbey-Dale, and another nobleman, Sir Robert, stop at their farm for refreshment, they are repulsed by Myles, who stops them from molesting his sister. This confrontation accelerates Diccon's plans to send them to Mackworth Castle in Derbyshire (based on the eponymous castle), so that they can come under the protection of William, The Earl of Mackworth (Herbert Marshall), a close friend of Myles and Meg's father. In Myles he sees the man who can finally rid England of the evil machinations of the Earl of Alban. Myles is first trained to be a squire, then as a knight, and is finally knighted by the king. He is successful in killing the Earl of Alban in a trial by combat, foiling Alban's attempt to seize the English crown. Myles, having fallen in love with the Earl of Mackworth's daughter while staying at the castle, is finally able to propose marriage to the Lady Anne (Janet Leigh) after he has proven his mettle. The Earl gives his hearty consent, and the two families are joined. ===== The movie starts with a polydactylic baby boy born to Chinnaya (Nassar) from Nagapattinam, who works for Swamy (K. Vishwanath), an astrologer. Swamy writes the horoscope of the baby and understands that the child will grow up to be an intelligent and responsible person but, he also predicts that the child's life will be only 27 years short. He suggests the baby to be named Sarathy but does not inform about the short life. Back to the present in Chennai, Sarathy (Vijay) is an intelligent person who excels in studies and sports and is also liked by everyone around him. He takes care of his mother Thaiyalnayagi (Kalairani) and sister, following his father's death. Suji (Meera Jasmine) is Sarathy's close friend and considers him as her well-wisher. Sarathy runs a restaurant with his friends as part-time and is also involved in real estate transactions earning brokerages. Jo (Ameesha Patel) is Suji's friend who teases her by being closer to Sarathy, revealing the love that she had for him. Reddiyar (Kalabhavan Mani) is a rich but ingenuous businessman. He is into real estate business and cheats many people by allotting improper plots. Sarathy knows about Reddiyar's plans and fight against him supporting the poor people, which creates enmity between Reddiyar and Sarathy. Lawrence (Sanjeev) is Sarathy's friend. He falls in love with Sarathy's sister but is scared whether Sarathy will accept their love. Sarathy happily accepts and also convinces his mother. Sarathy's sister's wedding is arranged. Now, Sarathy is 27 years old. Meanwhile, Suji feels jealous about Sarathy and Jo getting close to each other, but Jo realizes that Suji is in love with Sarathy. Finally, Suji proposes her love to Sarathy, which he accepts. On the day of Sarathy's sister's marriage, Jo explains the love that Suji has for Sarathy and vice versa. Sarathy goes to meet Suji, but Reddiyar has planned to kill Sarathy on the way. Sarathy fights Reddiyar's men, and Reddiyar is left alone. However, Sarathy does not kill Reddiyar and instead makes him understand the value for life and the talks about the positive attitude that one should have. This makes Reddiyar realize his mistake. Sarathy leaves the place to meet Suji but meets with an accident on the way and gets admitted to the hospital with severe injuries. The doctors say that the chances of his survival are minimal, and all his friends cry outside the hospital, but Reddiyar comes to the place. He asks everyone to stop crying and keeps calling Sarathy with a positive energy, which will make him get back to normal. Everyone starts calling Sarathy and his condition improves drastically. Sarathy is saved and recovers. The movie ends with a message that a positive attitude is essential for everyone to succeed and to good men, and even death will revive them, then Sarathy lives 100 years of his wish leads his life happily. ===== ===== The body of a murder victim is being exhumed from under a storage shed in 1950s small-town Wamego, Kansas. The story leading up to the murder is told. Handsome, sociopathic, David, the owner of a local garage, bullies his meek, sensitive piano-playing younger brother, the teenage Jimmy. Their religious, mentally unbalanced mother, Eleanor, attempts to ignore David's behavior; their withdrawn and ill father is about to be placed in a nursing home. When Jimmy shyly announces at the family dinner table that his piano teacher plans to include him in an upcoming recital, David belittles and beats him, ordering him to give up his "sissy" piano and work at the garage, earn money and be a real man. Jimmy finds temporary escape from his family dysfunction by visiting a traveling carnival that stops in Wamego each summer. He forms a platonic friendship with the premiere sideshow attraction, Sandra, an aging but still glamorous lounge singer. Sandra is virtually a captive of the sadistic carnival owner, Frank, who abuses her emotionally and physically. While Jimmy dreams of running away to play piano for the carnival, Sandra has the opposite dream — to escape the carnival and live a normal life. Sandra had a past relationship with David, but when he approaches her again, she makes it clear that she is no longer interested in him and tells him that she won't let him "hurt her" again. David goes home and takes out his frustrations on Jimmy, in a scene where sexual abuse is strongly implied but not shown. It is later revealed that David got Sandra pregnant the previous summer, and when the pathologically jealous Frank found out, he cruelly terminated her pregnancy and mutilated her genitals to make her unattractive to other men. Unwilling to take no for an answer, David confronts Sandra at her trailer, and discovers Jimmy hiding there. David flies into a rage, rapes Jimmy in front of Sandra, and storms out. Sandra consoles Jimmy, who goes home. The next day, the carnival leaves town, its departure coinciding with David's disappearance, which the female police chief, Edith "Ed" Carlisle, begins to investigate. It begins to appear that a murder, presumably of David, took place at his family's home. Meanwhile, the carnival is losing money and Frank's treatment of Sandra is becoming worse, including sending his gang of brutal henchmen to menace her sexually. She resolves to leave and the other carnival freaks bid her goodbye. Jimmy arrives planning to join the carnival, but Sandra, knowing that the carnival is also a dysfunctional environment and not the escape of which Jimmy dreams, sends him home. Frank refuses to let Sandra go and instead chains her up. When Frank comes to see her in her chains, the other freaks help Sandra overpower him, and she strangles him to death with her chains. The freaks hide Sandra from Frank's vengeful henchmen and give her money and a bus ticket to help her escape, but the henchmen capture her in a field and brutally kill her. Back in Wamego, flashbacks show how David came home to find Eleanor comforting the traumatized Jimmy in a locked room. David broke down the door, dragged Jimmy downstairs and started abusing him. Eleanor, praying, took a pair of scissors from a drawer and stabbed David to death. Jimmy and Eleanor then buried the body under the shed. Pearl, a local psychic girl, realizes the location of David's body and digs up his corpse, revealing a hand to Chief Ed. Eleanor, now clearly mentally ill, is taken away by attendants to a mental institution, while Jimmy cries. In an attempt to save his mother, Jimmy tearfully confesses to David's murder. Jimmy was sentenced to life in prison and later released on parole, at which time Chief Ed, who had become a district judge, sealed the case so no record of it exists today. ===== Adapted and based on the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana, the series follows the journey of Rama who goes to an exile of 14 years along with Sita and Lakshman. ===== Rick Penning (Sean Faris) is captain of his high school rugby team whose coach Richard Penning (Neal McDonough) is his father, and whose players indulge in drugs and alcohol. After losing the championship to their rivals the Highland Rugby Team, Rick drinks and drives, resulting in a crash that seriously injures his girlfriend. He is sentenced to a boys' Juvenile Detention Center in Salt Lake City. The manager of the center, Marcus (Sean Astin) puts him on the Highland rugby team much to his chagrin, coached by Larry Gelwix (Gary Cole). He struggles to adapt to this new team's ways. A friend sends him a rugby ball with drugs hidden in the stitching. He uses the drugs until, influenced by something one of his new teammates tells him, he throws the drugs away. He works hard and finds the strength to become a member of the widely admired Highland team. Each day when he arrives at team practice he criticizes the coach for sitting around chatting with different team members and not doing any real coaching. Then it is his turn to sit with the coach and finds himself confessing to the drugs hidden in the rugby ball. The coach deals with it and tells him that his teammates want him to be a coach. He is influenced by brotherhood and can cope with his homesickness. Driving home after a celebration meal, the team are helping a mother and two children with a flat tire when a passing car clips one of the boys. Rick now must deal with the death of his first true friend Kurt (Michael J. Pagan). Rick is released and returns to live with his parents. His father wants him to tell about the Highland team's moves and plays but Rick resists and they argue. His father makes it up by lending Rick the keys to his sports car, and Rick drives to meet up with Tammy (Tyler Kain) and his old friends. They too become angry that Rick won't reveal the Highland team's secrets and a fight breaks out. They plant drugs and alcohol in the sports car and Rick is arrested when the police show up. Tammy tells the police what really happened and Rick is released. Rick finds himself again in the national championship, this time against the former friends on his old team coached by his estranged father. The game is hard fought. Players from his old team try to hurt Rick through cheap shots to collect the bounty on his head. Coach Penning tells Rick if he stays down Rick will end up like him. Rick gets back up and, in the final seconds, scores the winning try for Highland. As the film ends it is shown that in real life, under Coach Gelwix, Highland has been winning almost every year. ===== The protagonist of Strands of Starlight is Miriam, a young woman living a fugitive life in the fictional land of Adria, which is set in medieval Western Europe circa 1350. She has a mysterious gift of healing and suffers persecution because of it. ===== A mysterious, man-sized monster kills a fisherman at sea. Biologist Ted Baxter (Kent Taylor) and Federal Agent William Grant (Rodney Bell) discover the man's body, washed up on the beach and covered with radiation burns. They decide to investigate the strange death. After two young divers are killed by the monster, Ted and Grant decide to go dive in the same location and investigate the area. They discover a glowing radioactive rock being guarded by the monster. Grant shoots it with a harpoon gun, allowing them to escape, but the creature survives. Ted eventually discovers that Dr. King (Michael Whalen), another marine biologist, created the monster and the radioactive rock with a mutating device in his laboratory. Meanwhile, foreign agents try to discover Dr. King's secrets, while Ted and King's daughter Lois (Cathy Downs) develop a relationship. Agent Grant captures the foreign agents after one of them kills King's secretary with a spear gun. Ted finally tells Dr. King that the monster is killing people and that it must be stopped. When King witnesses a ship explode as it passes over the rock, he realizes Ted is right. He destroys his lab and goes out to the ocean to kill his creation using dynamite. Shortly before a timed detonation, the monster grabs Dr. King while he is planting the underwater explosives. Ted, Grant, and Lois arrive just in time to witness the large explosion, which destroys the rock, the monster, and Dr. King. ===== After World War II, four somewhat drunk US Navy sailors steal a Buddha statue from a Japanese village, but as they row back to their ship, they hear that the Navy is cracking down against such thefts, so they hide the statue in a cave. Three of the men are transferred, but the fourth, "Doc" Willoughby, sticks around aboard the submarine rescue vessel USS Bustard, based in Japan, much to the seeming exasperation of his captain, Mike Riley. (In reality, Riley thinks well of Willoughby, despite his occasional antics, and keeps persuading him to continue reenlisting.) Over the next 12 years, Willoughby gets promoted and demoted repeatedly, but eventually rises to the rank of chief petty officer. While on liberty ashore, Willoughby falls for a seemingly demure Japanese girl in a kimono shop, who actually turns out to be a US Navy Nurse Corps officer of Japanese-American descent, Lieutenant Tomiko Momoyama (Kwan). She discovers she was betrothed as a child to a Japanese man named Toshi (Shigeta), who (after seeing her) fully intends to follow tradition. Toshi's uncle turns out to be from the village from which the statue was taken. Willoughby divides his time between trying to return the statue to the village and wooing Tomiko. ===== The citizens of the Needle are all chipped to prevent them from committing violence. When the Seventh Doctor and Mel arrive, they arouse interest as the only people able to cause harm... ===== Professor Millard Wyman (John Carradine) sends a crew of two men, Paul Whitmore (Allen Windsor) and Craig Randall (Robert Clarke), and two women Lauri Talbott (Sheila Noonan) and Dale Marshall (Phyllis Coates), down to ocean depths never before explored. But, there's a technical problem during the launch. The diving bell breaks free of the cable connecting them to the surface and loses contact with the surface. The mission is believed lost. But the crew, having survived their ordeal, don their scuba gear and leave the bell. Instead of reaching the surface, they surface in a cavern. The crew members explore the cave and find a skeleton, then a disheveled old sailor named Matheny (George Skaff) who tells them that he and another sailor suffered a shipwreck fourteen years prior and has been living in these caves ever since. He claims there is no way out and a volcano provides air from the surface. Meanwhile, up on the surface Prof. Wyman's younger brother builds another bell and launches it in an attempted rescue mission. However, with the old man in the cave starting to leer lecherously at the women, and the volcano growing more unstable, the second mission may not find them in time. The old man reveals to the women that he murdered the other sailor years ago, increasing their apprehension. Just as he is about to assault one of the girls, the volcano erupts and the old man is crushed under falling rocks. The stranded crew of the diving bell make their way up toward the surface and are rescued. ===== In the Louisiana Bayou town of Marsh Island, two farmers (Royal Dano, John Davis Chandler) discover the mauled, dead body of a local young woman. Sheriff Aaron Whitaker (David Janssen) is called. The victim's temperamental brother Lawrence Burrifors (Geoffrey Lewis) arrives at the crime scene and jumps to the conclusion that the girl's lover committed the murder, a man whose name her brother does not know. The town's Dr. Drutan (John Beradino) examines the body and concludes that the girl died from a blow to the head. The sheriff investigates the crime and local residents have a variety of theories, including the belief she was killed by wild dogs. A posse forms to track down the wild dogs with little success. Burrifors continues to insist the killer to be his sister's mysterious lover while the sheriff, in turn, is suspicious of him. The girl's sick and dying father Hugh Burrifors, interviewed by the sheriff, warns him of the "Loug Garog". The sheriff does not understand the French term. The sheriff's investigation soon takes him to the plantation home of the wealthy Andrew Rodanthe and his sister Louise (Bradford Dillman, Barbara Rush). They are the last of a local family dynasty. Andrew, who the sheriff suspects had an affair with the victim, claims to have been suffering an attack of malaria the night the girl was killed. The sheriff, suspicious of the temperamental brother Lawrence after he assaults the town doctor, who turns out to be the mysterious lover, puts him in jail. While there, the full moon rises again and Lawrence and the sheriff's deputy are killed in a vicious attack after the steel bars of the cell are torn from the wall. With the town's residents fearful and the sheriff without assistance, Andrew Rodanthe volunteers to become deputy. Andrew and the sheriff return to Hugh Burrifor's house and discover the old man has created a voodoo potion that gives off a vapor meant to repel the loup-garou. Rodanthe inhales the potion and goes into what appears to be an epileptic seizure. He is taken to the hospital. While there, Andrew's sister Louise tells the sheriff she can speak French fluently and would talk to Hugh Burrifor about the unexplainable term "Loug Garog". While speaking with the old man, Louise solves the puzzle. "Loug Garog" is a mispronunciation of "Loup Garou". Translated into English the term means "werewolf". Transformed into a werewolf, Andrew violently escapes the hospital and becomes the subject of a manhunt. As a posse gathers, Louise runs to the mayor, telling him that her brother is sick and that there are drugs that can help him. At her and Andrew's home, Louise talks to Sheriff Whitaker about werewolf folklore. She reveals a family secret, that her grandfather used to suffer from unusual spells of sickness, implying he was also a werewolf and Andrew's curse was inherited. Louise returns to her plantation home alone and Andrew, still in his werewolf form, enters the house. Louise flees to the barn. When the werewolf follows she attempts to set him afire, then returns to the house. Andrew escapes the fire and pursues Louise. She eventually shoots him just as the sheriff returns. After he dies, Andrew returns to his human form. ===== A young and reckless criminal, Jim (Don Durant), stows away on his brother Chris Johnston's (Bill Cord) boat after killing two men interrupting his gun running. As they sail out to the Sulu Sea they are caught in a terrible storm and are shipwrecked off a beautiful island that is inhabited by a secretive all female village of pearl divers. Though the lonely and beautiful women of the island are friendly and flirtatious with the two brothers (the only remaining survivors), the village elder Queen Pua (Jeanne Gearson) is cautious and hostile, wanting the two off the island as soon as possible. Chris falls in love with one of the island beauties, Mahia (Lisa Montell), while Jim, being a wanted man, seeks to escape before the naval ship sent to rescue them arrives. Terrified of being recognized and executed for his crimes, Jim fixes one of the islanders' broken boats and lets his brother and his forbidden love in on his plan. But before they can leave, the black- hearted criminal is overcome by greed and steals the islanders' precious pearls, injuring a native in the process. Once out to sea Chris discovers what his sibling has done and tries to stop him in a fight on some jagged rocks. Jim tries to get away, but he gets tangled in the boats ropes and falls to the sea, where the shark kills him, finally punishing him for his crimes. ===== Former U.S. Army major Paul Krenner (James Griffith) plans to conquer the world with an army of invisible soldiers and will do anything to achieve that goal. With the help of his hired muscle, Julian (Red Morgan), Krenner forces Dr. Peter Ulof (Ivan Trisault) to perfect the invisibility machine Ulof invented. He keeps Ulof's daughter, Maria (Carmel Daniel), imprisoned to keep Ulof in line. The nuclear materials Ulof needs to better his invisibility machine are extremely rare and kept under guard in government facilities. Krenner arranges the prison break of a notorious safecracker, Joey Faust (Douglas Kennedy), to steal the materials he needs. Of course Faust will do the jobs while invisible. Krenner offers Faust money for the jobs and Faust expresses his grievances against working for him. Faust tells him that he will sing like a canary if he is returned to prison, but Krenner informs Faust that he is wanted dead or alive, so Faust reluctantly complies. However, when he meets Krenner’s woman, Laura Matson (Marguerite Chapman), he slowly charms her into a double cross. Faust continues attempting to escape and tries to get one over on Krenner. It looks as if he may have the edge on Krenner when Faust attacks Krenner while invisible. However, Dr. Ulof’s guinea pig dies and, during the second time he is invisible, Faust uncontrollably reverts from invisible to visible and back again. Despite these drawbacks Faust forges ahead, intent on breaking free from Krenner's control. Dr. Ulof reveals to Faust that both of them are dying from radiation poisoning as a side-effect of the invisibility machine. He then convinces Faust to stop Krenner. Faust and Krenner fight in the lab until an accidental nuclear explosion kills them both and puts an end to Krenner's plans for world conquest. ===== The story begins with a dramatisation of the Italian manned torpedo raid on Alexandria (1941) in which two British battleships and were severely damaged. The British are worried that this new tactic will give the Italians naval supremacy in the Mediterranean, with the primary target for the Italians being the Royal Navy base at Gibraltar. To counter this threat, Bomb disposal expert Lionel Crabb (Harvey) is posted to Gibraltar. He creates an initially very small team of divers to intercept the Italian attacks and defuse the bombs. Meanwhile, from Algeciras in neutral Spain, an Italian expert on underwater operations, Antonio Tomolino (Foà), is secretly watching the British base in Gibraltar and planning new attacks. After the Italians mount a failed attack upon a cruiser in Gibraltar, Crabb and his divers recover one of the manned torpedoes and begin to repair it, with the new somewhat stringent Petty Officer Thorpe (James) coming in to take over physical and diving training. After a further series of attacks against ships in Gibraltar harbour and an attempt to recover secret documents from a wrecked aircraft, Crabb decides to visit Algeciras to discover where the Italians are operating from. After following a man with an Italian tattoo to an interned Italian ship, the Olterra, he discovers that the ships hold is being used as a workshop and base for the operations with an underwater door being used for the manned torpedo's and frogmen, which leaves them undiscovered by Spanish authorities. Crabb reports the discovery of the Olterra to his superiors but under the laws of neutrality, he cannot arrange an attack without top level authority. Meanwhile, the Italians plan a major attack on a British convoy. Crabb decides to ignore orders and with the manned torpedo repaired he and another diver manage to infiltrate the docks at Algeciras launching a pre-emptive strike on the Olterra destroying the ship, workshop and the crew. The next morning, with the convoy leaving Gibraltar, Thorpe informs Crabb that for his bravery in this operation he has been awarded the George Medal, commenting to his men "You all deserve the ruddy medal!". ===== When 12-year-old Pamela goes on vacation with her family to a bed and breakfast, the girl who lives next door tells her the "true story" of the Tooth Fairy: Many years earlier, the evil Tooth Fairy slaughtered a countless number of children to take their teeth, and now she has returned to kill Pamela and anyone else who gets in her way. The Tooth Fairy pursues the victims unrelentingly, which leads to a gruesome collection of events. ===== This novel is the story of the Delaney family. The Delaneys led complex and frequently scandalous lives; their strange relationship with each other closed their circle to all outsiders; the world in which they lived was sophisticated, gay, and sometimes tragic. Maria Delaney was a beautiful, successful actress, the wife of Sir Charles Wyndham. Niall Delaney wrote the songs and melodies that everyone sang and played. Celia their sister, generous and charming, took care of their father and delighted in Maria's children. Between Maria and Niall there existed a strange affinity—sometimes physical, sometimes spiritual. They were both subtly aware of it, and so was Sir Charles. Perhaps it was this that impelled Maria's husband to exclaim bitterly: "Parasites, that's what you are. The three of you. You always have been and you always will be. Nothing can change you. You are doubly, triply parasitic; first, because you've traded since childhood on that seed of talent you had the luck to inherit from your fantastic forebears; secondly, because none of you have done a stroke of honest work in your lives but batten on us, the fool public; and thirdly, because you prey on each other, living in a world of fantasy which bears no relation to anything in heaven or on earth." Category:1949 British novels Category:Novels by Daphne du Maurier Category:Victor Gollancz Ltd books Category:Novels about actors ===== It begins with Lucy, on a night in 1921. She is the only child of an Anglo-Irish land owner on the coast of County Cork. It starts during the Irish War of Independence, when Loyalist Protestant landowners caught in the battle between the IRA and the British army had their houses burned. The place is under martial law and Captain Gault is disturbed by young arsonists from the nearby village. When he fires a warning shot with his old rifle, he injures a boy in the shoulder. Out of fear, the family plans to move to England. Lucy is not told why her family wishes to move and longs for the house she was kept from and the sea close by. On the eve of their departure, she hides in the woods. Due to a series of events, her parents are led to believe that she drowned in the sea. By the time she is discovered, her parents are gone. She thus gets what she wished for, to live in the house, being taken care of by the house servants turned caretaker-farmers. Lucy lives a very lonely life, reading books and keeping bees. She feels very guilty about running away and thus feels that she deserves her loneliness. When another character, Ralph, tries to relieve her of her sad life, she feels that she cannot let him love her without, one of the characters opines, getting forgiveness from her parents. Her father returns after the Second World War, having spent the previous years in Italy and Switzerland, too late to salvage her happiness. They settle into an uneasy companionship, with too much unspoken. Having lost the love of her life, she forms a bond with the person who was wounded by her father. Lucy spends many years visiting the asylum where the person is incarcerated in his confusion and his silence. Lucy in old age sees people with phones to their ears and hears on the wireless about the Internet, and wonders what it is. ===== New York City in the 1920s is where gambler "Honey Talk" Nelson (Dean Martin) crosses paths with bookie "Jumbo" Schneider (Sheldon Leonard). Nelson has two choices, cement shoes or "fixing" a horse race in Maryland. Naturally, Nelson heads to Maryland with his cousin Virgil Yokum (Jerry Lewis) tagging along. Once in Maryland, Nelson falls for the owner (Marjie Millar) of the horse that has been chosen for the "fix". Virgil has also fallen in love, with the horse's veterinarian (Pat Crowley). Nelson decides that love should prevail and refuses to go along with the plan. Meanwhile, an English jockey (Richard Haydn), who is to ride the horse, is prevented from performing his job by Schneider's mobsters and Yokum winds up riding the horse to victory. ===== Supposedly filmed in 'Schizophrenoscope' ("the New Split-Screen"), it concerns Superintendent Quilt of Scotland Yard's attempts to retrieve a 'Mukkinese Battle-Horn' stolen from a London museum. Along the way he meets characters not dissimilar to Eccles, Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister from The Goon Show. ===== The plot finds Nancy, Bess, and George investigating a mysterious boy from India. The boy, Coya, works for a traveling circus, and is treated poorly by his guardian, Rai, also a native of India, who is in charge of the circus. Coya runs away from his abusive guardian and seeks asylum at the Drew home in River Heights. Soon after his arrival, the girls begin investigating property owned by the unusual Miss Anita Allison. They encounter a house "with no insides," and a hidden tunnel. The property mysteriously catches fire, revealing a hidden cache of jewels. Nancy traces Coya's parentage and uncovers a sinister kidnapping plot involving both Miss Allison and Rai. The climax also reveals a secret about the ivory charm, and its mysterious powers. ===== Brian MacLean (James Cagney) irritates fellow bush pilots Johnny Dutton (Dennis Morgan), Tiny Murphy (Alan Hale Sr.), Blimp Lebec (George Tobias), and British expatriate Scrounger Harris (Reginald Gardiner) by outcompeting them for business in rugged Northern Ontario, Canada in 1939, as the Second World War is beginning. Dutton, whose ambition is to start his own airline, flies by the book, but MacLean is a seat-of-the-pants kind of pilot, mirroring the differences in their personalities. Dutton saves MacLean's life after he is struck in the head by a still-moving propeller by transporting a doctor under dangerous flying conditions. MacLean is grateful and joins Dutton in a temporary partnership to help Dutton earn the seed fund for his airline. When Dutton rejects MacLean's warning about his girlfriend Emily Foster (Brenda Marshall), MacLean marries her in order to save Dutton from wrecking his life. Dutton, however, does not know this and abruptly ends their friendship. Dutton impulsively gives his savings to charity and enlists in the Royal Canadian Air Force. the NA-64 Yale flown by Cagney's character Among the bush planes that were featured in the production was the Noorduyn Norseman seen touching down, and the Fairchild 71C above it Yale aircraft used by Cagney's character. Located in the Air Museum outside of Dunnville, Ontario, Canada. Later, after hearing Winston Churchill's "We shall fight on the beaches" speech on the radio, MacLean and the other bush pilots enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force, only to discover that they are considered too old for combat. They reluctantly agree to train as flight instructors for the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Their commanding officer is none other than Dutton. MacLean, with his brash and fiercely independent nature, clashes with the military way of doing things, and he is court-martialed and dismissed from the service for flying too low, resulting in a cadet being severely injured. For revenge, he and "Tiny" buzz the airfield when renowned Canadian First World War ace Air Marshal William "Billy" Bishop (playing himself) is speaking during the group's graduation ceremony. "Tiny" blacks out while pulling out of a dive, and his plane plummets into the ground, killing him. MacLean loses his pilot's license as a result. Later, when two transport aircraft crash, killing all 44 ferry pilots aboard, there is an urgent need for pilots to ferry a group of unarmed Lockheed Hudson bombers from Gander, Newfoundland to Britain. The flight instructors are assigned the task, but their numbers have to be supplemented with civilian pilots. MacLean uses "Tiny" Murphy's papers to participate. Dutton recognizes him, but as Emily has told him why MacLean married (and abandoned) her, they reconcile and Dutton permits him to fly. Dutton commands a flight of five. Nearing the coast of the British Isles, they are attacked by a German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter. First, Blimp Lebec is shot down. Then after Scrounger, MacLean's navigator, is killed, MacLean uses his flying skills to crash his unwieldy bomber into the nimble fighter, sacrificing himself to save the others. ===== The play takes place in London, primarily in the home of Morose. Morose is a wealthy old man with an obsessive hatred of noise, going as far as to live on a street too narrow for carts to pass and make noise. He has made plans to disinherit his nephew Dauphine by marrying. This is due to the schemes and tricks Dauphine has played on him in the past. To combat this, Dauphine concocts a plan with Cutbeard, Morose's barber. Cutbeard presents Morose with a young (and supposedly) silent woman to marry. When Morose meets Epicœne, he tries to find out if she's really a silent woman, testing her obedience. He tells her not to succumb to the temptations of the court and tells her about the virtues of silence. Under the assumption that his fiancée, Epicœne, is an exceptionally quiet woman, Morose excitedly plans their marriage. Unbeknownst to him, Dauphine has arranged the whole match for purposes of his own. At the same time there is an alliance of women with intellectual pretensions called the Ladies Collegiates. They are married women who live away from their husbands and speak their minds. They talk about how women can use sex to control their husbands. Truewit, hoping to secure his friend's inheritance, attempts to persuade Morose that marriage would not be good for him. Truewit says that no matter what, Morose will find himself unhappy in marriage, regardless of if she is pretty, ugly, rich, poor, or even if Morose loves her. Truewit tells Morose that it is not the women's fault; all of them are corrupted. He also tells Morose to kill himself instead of getting married. The couple are married despite the well-meaning interference of Dauphine's friend Truewit. Morose soon regrets his wedding day, as his house is invaded by a charivari consisting of Dauphine, Truewit, and Clerimont; a bear warden named Otter and his wife; two stupid knights (La Foole and Daw); and an assortment of Collegiates. The house is overrun with noise and clamor, much to Morose's chagrin. Worst for Morose, Epicœne quickly reveals herself to be a loud, nagging mate. Mistress Otter has a dominant personality compared to her husband. She has the same characteristics as Katherine from The Taming of the Shrew. She is intimidating and in charge of domestic resources. She yells at him in front of Truewit and his friends and she tells him he's sullying her image. It appears that she had great options in life but she ended up settling for him. Desperate for a divorce, Morose consults two lawyers (who are actually Dauphine's friends Cutbeard and Otter in disguise), but they can find no grounds for ending the match. Finally, Dauphine promises to reveal grounds to end the marriage if Morose agrees to give him his inheritance. The agreement made, Dauphine strips the female costume from Epicœne, revealing that Morose's wife is, in fact, a boy, and therefore their marriage cannot be upheld. Morose is dismissed harshly, and the other ludicrous characters are discomfited by this revelation; Daw and Foole, for instance, had claimed to have slept with Epicœne. ===== Nozomi is a beautiful former actress who moves back to Japan from New Zealand. Upon arriving, she meets her fellow high school student neighbor Ryōtarō Shiba, and decides he needs to join the high school boxing club. ===== Skyhawks, Inc. was a family-run air transport and rescue service based at San Marcos Field in Southern California, and headed by widower Mike "Cap" Wilson. Cap Wilson learned how to fly during World War II, during which he achieved the rank of Colonel. Cap's father, famed aviator Pappy Wilson, had been a World War I flying ace. A warm and encouraging father, Cap had 17-year-old fraternal twins named Steve and Carolyn. He also sponsored two foster kids: 14-year-old Baron "Red" Hughes and his 9-year-old sister Cynthia, usually referred to as "Cindy", though she was also nicknamed "Mugs". The Wilson crew also included Cap's girlfriend. Maggie McNally. Joe Conway was the Skyhawks' chief mechanic. The team saved troubled charter planes, rescued helicopter pilots, transported air freight, even ran secret government missions. San Marcos Field also was the home base of the Skyhawks' unscrupulous competitor, Buck Devlin, and his gang of pilots. ===== Gary Webster (Alexander D'Arcy), a nightclub manager, flies a group of women from New York City to dance in his club in Singapore. While flying over the Pacific Ocean, their plane catches fire, splits in half, and plummets into the ocean; oddly enough, no one in Gary's group is killed. We next see the group a few days later, suffering from dehydration on a life raft, before they finally spot a small island and stagger to dry land. Shortly thereafter, they discover fresh water and decide to go exploring. They are quickly relieved to find a cabin, but delight turns to horror when they open the door to discover a dead man hanging from a gigantic spider web. According to his journal, the man was a Professor Green researching and mining for uranium, but he feared something terrible was about to happen to him. There's no indication how long the professor planned to be on the island, but the women estimate there is enough food to last them about a month. That night, Gary proceeds alone out onto the island where he is bitten by a giant spider and turns into some type of spider-man beast. He flees into the woods, leaving the women to wonder what has happened to him. The next day, seemingly possessed by uncontrollable violent urges, Gary kills one of the girls. The remaining women, still unaware of what has happened to him, have no idea that he is the one who has done this. Twenty-eight days pass, and the women are running low on food when they spot a ship on the horizon. They are unable to signal it before it leaves, but two men arrive in a rowboat with supplies for the professor. They soon find the women, who tell them the professor is dead. As they all wait for the ship to return, they celebrate their last night on the island with a wild party. One of the men sneaks off to rendezvous with a woman, but both end up being killed by Gary. Finally aware of Gary's fate, the remainder of the group hunts him down with torches until he flees into quicksand and dies. Yet before he dies, he releases his spider eggs, which are sent off into the island. ===== In Hill's prologue, a scientist, Dr. Eric Zinthrop (Michael Mark), is fired from his job at a honey farm for experimenting with wasps. The founder and owner of a large cosmetics company, Janice Starlin (Susan Cabot), is disturbed when her firm's sales begin to drop after it becomes apparent to her customer base that she is aging. Zinthrop has been able to extract enzymes from the royal jelly of the queen wasp that can reverse the aging process. Janice agrees to fund further research, at great cost, provided she can serve as his human subject. Displeased with the slowness of the results, she breaks into the scientist's laboratory after hours and injects herself with extra doses of the formula. Zinthrop becomes aware that some of the test creatures are becoming violent and goes to warn Janice, but before he can reach anyone, he gets into a car accident. He is thus temporarily missing and Janice goes through great trouble to find him, eventually taking over his care. Janice continues her clandestine use of the serum and sheds 20 years in a single weekend, but soon discovers that she is periodically transformed into a murderous, wasp-like creature. Eventually, Zinthrop throws a jar of carbolic acid at her face, and another character, using a chair, pushes her out of a high window, the impact killing her. ===== ===== The Stooges play Ted Healy's children who refuse to go to sleep unless they are told a bedtime story. Healy first tries singing a comic version of The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere which ultimately fails putting the young lads to sleep. Healy's date, the Good Fairy (Bonnie Bonnell) then tells them her own bedtime story, courtesy of a musical revue. The trio eventually turn in for the evening, only to have Curly request a second bedtime story. Healy and the Good Fairy then proceed to tell the children about The Woman in the Shoe. When that fails to work, a frustrated Healy smacks the three lads over the head with a rubber mallet, knocking them unconscious. ===== Billy is a boy who resides in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan who brings home numerous animals and spends time with his two best friends, Bruce and Murray. Billy winds up finding two great horned owls, which join his larger pet collection. The first bird, Wol, is larger and lighter in colour with a bold personality and was found by Billy and his friends under a bush after a storm. Soon afterward, Billy finds Weeps, a smaller mottled brown owl in a barrel filled with oil. When Billy witnesses children throwing stones at Weeps, who is unable to fly, he trades his scout knife for him. Unlike Wol, Weeps has an anxious disposition and sits on the handlebars of Billy's bicycle due to his inability to fly. Billy has a number of adventures with Wol and Weeps, including tough times and happy moments. When Billy and his family move to Toronto, Ontario, he entrusts the owls to Bruce. ===== The Legend of Himiko is probably based on an ancient Japanese tale told in the Chinese history book Sanguo Zhi. The nation of Yamatai is under threat from the overseas kingdom of Kune (probably based on the nation of Kunekoku). In an attempt to stave off an invasion, the people of Yamatai attempt to install a Queen to rule over their kingdom, which is to be chosen by the mysterious Bokka. However, the Kune army attacks Yamatai before the selection of the Queen can be completed, and the Bokka disperse the six queen candidates across the nation. The Bokka themselves take shelter in a newborn girl named Himiko and the pendant she is wearing and transport her to modern times, where she is found by Masahiko Kutani. Several years in the future, Himiko and Kutani attend high school together. When the two are wandering around an archeological dig, Himiko's pendant activates, sending both back into ancient Japan where they are found by Imari, one of the queen candidates, and Iga within Kune's place in Yamatai, three years after Kune's initial attack. Both Himiko and Kutani learn about the Bokka and what relationship they have with it. The six queen candidates also finally all join back together, for the first time since they were dispersed when Kune first attacked. They eventually fight against Shikara, the governor-general of Yamatai and the son of the king of Kune, in order to free Yamatai from Kune's rule. ===== Phoenix, a Chinese girl, comes to the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1918 to marry Lau Tat-Tung, first son of Lau Ah Leong. Lau Ah Leong is a very prosperous merchant in Hawaii. Despite Phoenix's dreams of a good life as a rich merchant's wife, she soon learns that reality is not so golden—Lau Ah Leong has many conniving wives who control the family. While she fights to provide her children with a good life in this environment she learns more about Lau Ah Leong, who is the focus of the book. ===== Secombe plays the part of Harry Flakers, a man who has a big win on the football pools. He and his friend Spike Donnelly (Milligan) decide to go to the same shabby seaside boarding house that they have always patronised for their summer holiday, but this year all the other guests (including two young women out to marry money, a dodgy investment advisor and a master forger and assistant) are intent on taking the fortune off them in one way or another. Ultimately the forgers manage to substitute fake five-pound notes for the real ones that Flakers keeps in his suitcase, but before they can abscond with the money one of the girls is given cash by Flakers to buy some cigarettes, and accused of passing false currency when the forgery is detected. A grand chase follows with half the characters pursuing the other half through a waxwork museum in which the true crooks have taken refuge. Justice is served when the chief forger boasts of his crime in front of what he thinks are two waxwork policemen, but who turn out to be real members of the force. In the final scenes Harry and Spike marry the two women. There are sequences featuring a night out at the theatre where a stage hypnotist mesmerises Flakers and the girl Christine into performing an operatic duet, he singing soprano and she baritone, and a scene in which Harry Secombe wordlessly mimes out an entire heart operation being carried out by a nervous surgeon. ===== A few months ago Dan had to make a choice. Go to Geneva with his parents for a year, board at school or move into a house with his uni student bass-playing aunt, Jacq, and her friend, Naomi. He picked Jacq's place. Now he's doing his last year at school and trying not to spin out. Trying to be cool. Trying to pick up a few skills for surviving in the adult world. Problem is, he falls for Naomi, and things become much, much more confusing. As Dan fumbles through the process of forming a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, he also learns about making pesto, interpreting the fish tank scene from the film Romeo + Juliet, why almost all birds are one of the 48 shades of brown, and why his best course of action is just to be himself. ===== Emily is a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl who lives with her mother Susan. Emily never knew her father. According to her mother, he was a "tom cat"—a tourist who wandered into town one summer and was never seen again. Susan is struggling to forget the past. She hasn't spoken to her fervently religious parents for years, not since she shamed the family by falling pregnant at fifteen. Emily actively pursues a friendship with father-figure Stephen, who spends his days fixing boats at the harbour. But Stephen has his own troubles, constantly haunted by the past, unable to keep the loss of his wife and baby daughter from his thoughts. Stephen's sister Elizabeth is married to the town policeman Carl. Elizabeth suspects Carl is being unfaithful but is scared to uncover the truth. Her son Joel has a secret love of his own. When a Bible turns up with an intriguing inscription, Emily is the first to realise that hoping for change is not enough. ===== When he enters The Nag's Head for a drink, Del Boy is surprised to see his old school friend and business partner, Jumbo Mills, who emigrated to Australia in 1967, back in Peckham. Before he left, Del had given Jumbo his last £200, and by a way of returning the favour, Jumbo offers Del the chance to renew their old partnership by helping to run his car business back in Australia. Believing his opportunity to become a millionaire has finally arrived, Del accepts the offer. But things soon go awry. First, Albert refuses to leave, having already spent most of his life travelling the world with the Royal Navy and wanting to settle down in Peckham during his retirement. Rodney, too, is unable to go, after his criminal conviction for possession of Cannabis results in him being denied an immigration visa. Regardless, Del is still keen to go, and hands ownership of Trotters Independent Traders over to Rodney. The two have a fierce row, where Rodney accuses Del of interfering when he had opportunities to be a success and using family ties as the excuse, and Del retorts that having to look after Rodney since he was a child after their mother's death had stopped him realising his own dreams. Rodney storms out of the flat in tears, with Del refusing to back down, and Albert completely disgusted by the row. Later that night, Albert suggests to Del that he should go to Australia and become a millionaire while he has the chance, which means that Rodney will have to learn to grow up. With his mind made up, Del phones Jumbo to confirm what time he will be arriving. But instead, Del turns down Jumbo's offer, reluctantly admitting that he cannot leave his family behind. As Albert goes to bed, Rodney returns home to apologise to Del for the row they had earlier, and to tell his older brother that he needs to go to Australia. But Del tells Rodney that he's already turned down the offer. The Trotter brothers then talk about how Rodney was right when he told Del during their earlier argument, "The real opportunity lies here." Britain is in a bad way, people want a good bargain, and they turn to men like the Trotters, who will be there, and that this time next year, they will be millionaires. The Trotter brothers make up, Rodney goes to bed happy, and Del secretly laments his lost opportunity for wealth by singing "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?". ===== In the late 1930s, Rupert Kathner and Alma Brooks began a movie-making spree that took on the Hollywood barons, a corrupt Police Commissioner and the cultural cringe, all in their passionate pursuit to make Australian films. On the run from police across thousands of miles, they would stop at almost nothing to get their films made. ===== Frank Merrill, a Great Lakes pilot, loses his life in a storm and his wife, Edith, to support her child leaves for the city where she steals and is imprisoned. Three years later, upon her release, she takes her child from the state orphanage and goes to another city where she secures employment in a department store. She marries the superintendent, Jim Roberts. Mabel, who served time with Edith, is freed and arranges with Mickey Bill to enlist the aid of Edith in a robbery under threat of exposure. The burglary is committed, and, when Mabel is trapped, Edith, fearing a revelation of her past, says that she is responsible. In a trap laid by Detective Jordan to get Mabel the truth comes out and Edith's past is laid bare to her husband. He forgives her and the thieves are rounded up. ===== Katrina (Emily Barclay) is a 19-year-old single mum who's planning to get away with murder. Katrina lives in a world of petty crime, fast cars, manicures and blow-jobs. A master manipulator of men living at home with her failure of a father in suburban Golden Grove, Katrina will stop at nothing to get what she wants – even murder. When her father threatens to contact Social Services and take away her child, Katrina sets in motion a plan to wreak suburban mayhem that will leave a community in shock and make Katrina infamous in a way even she never dreamed of. It is loosely based upon the notorious murders by Mark Valera, and later his sister Belinda van Krevel and her then-partner Keith Schreiber, of Frank Arkell and David O'Hearn, and Jack van Krevel, respectively. ===== Azhagu Sundaram (Dhanush) is a village bumpkin who comes from Tirunelveli to Chennai to earn money to buy gold bangles for his beloved mother Meenakshi (Archana). He gets entangled in the big bad world of dons and goondas and is unable to get back home to see his mother. On the other hand, Meenakshi lands up in Chennai in search of her son without even knowing his address or whereabouts. Meenakshi bumps into Shwetha (Meera Jasmine), a journalism student who takes pity on her, takes her home, and promises to help her find her son. Azhagu is now known as Parattai in Chennai and is taken under the wings of Khader Bhai (Nassar), a tea shop owner. Parattai is forced to take the arival as gang wars erupt and single-handedly he wipes out Deva (Adithya), Kesavan (Kadhal Dhandapani) and Suri (Aryan), all dreaded criminals in the city. On parallel lines, he never sees his mother and finally accompanies her dead body to the crematorium, thinking it is an orphan's corpse. He dances with others, offers flowers, and finally after her body is charred, he realizes that it was his mother. ===== Abdullah runs a motorcycle workshop with a few workers. He also gives casual legal advice to the locals. A computer science student named Indhu develops a crush on him and tries woo him, although Abdullah has nothing of it. In a massive street protest by lawyers across the city, Abdullah, in altered appearance, kidnaps Judge Vedhachalam, after introducing himself as ‘Citizen’. Later on, Abdullah proceeds to kidnap Collector Santhanam by posing as freedom fighter Sundaramoorthy. In both kidnaps, Abdullah mentions ‘Attipatti’, which seemed to render his victims speechless. With these two high-profile kidnappings, the case is handed over to CBI, led by Senior Officer Sarojini Harichandran. Sarojini finds out that both kidnap victims worked together in Mayavaram division some years ago, and was involved in a riot that happened in Attipatti. However, a check with Mailadhurai sub-collector’s office and Nagapattinam collector’s office found that there is no town or village in the area named Attipatti. She then visits the main collector’s office in Tanjavur and is shocked to find out that the village Attipatti existed in records before 1973, but not in the years after that. She becomes certain that the kidnapper too has a link to Attipatti. Meanwhile, Abdullah becomes irritated with Indhu who keeps longing for his affection. He scolds her and says that she doesn’t know who he really is and the pain he endures in his heart. Through an information given by the Tanjavur office, the CBI team track down a former employee of the local government which Attipatti was under. He tells them to visit Lutheran Chapel’s Father Louis who knew every single person of Attipatti. In a visit to the Lutheran Chapel, Sarojini and her team meet Father Kuriakose who inform them that Father Louis had passed away 10 years ago, but left a box to be handed over to whichever government body that come to the church and ask about Attipatti. After reading the letter in the box, Sarojini instructs digging near the coastal area where Attipatti once located. She and her team is horrified to find hundreds of dead bodies buried deep under. They are presumably the former inhabitants of Attipatti. Buried with them is also a tombstone bearing the names of all who perished. After a quick verification with the last census, they found out one name is missing in the tombstone, a five year-old named Arivanandam. Father Kuriakose informs Sarojini based on church records, a boy named Anthony was baptised on the same year the atrocity happened, and that he eventually went on to obtain Law degree. Sarojini concludes that Arivanandam and Anthony are the same person and he is Citizen, and her further investigation leads her to Abdullah. With the CBI officers prepare to ambush Abdullah in a mosque, he manages to escape via a secret route. Sarojini discovers Citizen’s secret operation room within the mosque. There she finds out Citizen’s next target is DGP Devasagayam. However, at the same moment, Citizen had already kidnapped the DGP. The CBI officers receive information that Citizen is hiding in Tada forest and go after him. In the forest, Indhu comes to meet Abdullah and reveals she already knew he was Citizen some time ago and that she still likes him in spite of that. CBI officers arrive at the forest and after some chase, finally manage to arrest Citizen. In the trial, a flashback scene appears where Citizen tells the court what happened in his village, Attipatti. It was a hamlet of some 700 inhabitants surrounded by the sea. Therefore, it is often flooded by the rise in water levels, causing deaths. The area’s MLA had promised to built a wall in exchange for votes. However it was never built. When the villagers, led by Citizen’s father, Subramani, go the collector’s office to ask about its status, the collector turned them away saying a wall cannot be built in that area as the number of people is too small. The villagers later found out that the Collector, together with the MLA, the DGP and the Judge had taken for themselves some 150 million rupees allocated by the government to build the wall. After that, when the four of them visited Attipatti, the outraged villagers embarrassed them by forcing them to eat moldy rice and pouring water on them. In response, the four officials vowed to make Attipatti disappear from the map. One night, they arrived at Attipatti with some men, caught all the villagers, tied them on a boat, tortured them and pushed them to the sea, killing all except Arivanandam. As the scene switches back to the trial, Citizen explains he didn’t kidnap the MLA because he had already been punished after losing in the election. With the judge, DGP and collector in the witness stand, Citizen tells the court death penalty or life in prison is too soft a punishment for them. He says corruption exists because government officers want to provide a luxurious life for their family members. He suggests to strip the wealth and citizenship of the three and all their immediate and extended family members. The film ends with the court releasing Citizen on the grounds that he fought for the good of the country. ===== Marudhu (Shaam), a Tamil man is an orphaned ship mechanic and sailor and works on ships. After multiple years he fulfills his desire of returning to TamilNadu as his Ship reaches Rameshwaram and halts 90 days for repair and reloading. Marudhu wants to give up his sailing life and settle down there. He develops a liking for Nancy (Kutty Radhika), who sells fruits and other items to sailors on ships that have arrived at the port, but she still holds a candle for the captain of a ship Mukundan (Arun) that docked there three years ago. Though Nancy had proposed to him three years ago, he declined stating that 17 was a very young age to marry. He told her to wait for him or marry someone else at her will. before leaving, He had promised her that he would return in a year, but three years later, Nancy has still not given up hope. Marudhu befriends and helps Nancy search for Mukundan, but when he reveals that he loves Nancy, she distances herself from him. They reconcile and become friends. All hope is lost to find Mukundan as they see the captain junior, now as the first officer of another ship. The captain junior reveals that the captain's ship was destroyed in a blast. Soon, Marudhu's ship is scheduled to leave to Africa on Christmas night. Marudhu can decide to re-join the ship or leave work by then. All of them pressurize Nancy to leave her ideas about Mukundan and marry Marudhu. After a very long thought, she agrees by the night of Christmas Eve, and arrangements are made for the wedding next day, but Mukundan returns, surprises Nancy and Marudhu, and finds him kissing her hand in the crowd. He decides that he is the best for her. She is in a dilemma whether to choose Mukundan or Marudhu, and finally selects the former, leaving mixed feelings of joy and sorrow. Marudhu leaves India in his ship, seeking more journeys and promising never to return to his home of Tamil Nadu. ===== Phaedra (Sophia Loren) is a poor Greek sponge diver on the island of Hydra. She works from the boat of her boyfriend, Rhif (Jorge Mistral), an immigrant from Albania. She accidentally finds an ancient Greek statue of a boy riding a dolphin on the bottom of the Aegean Sea. The statue brings pride to the city of Hydra and has been lost for around 2000 years. Her efforts to sell it to the highest bidder lead her to two competing individuals: Dr. James Calder (Alan Ladd), an honest archaeologist who will surrender it to Greek authorities, and Victor Parmalee (Clifton Webb), an aesthete and an unscrupulous dealer in historic artifacts. Calder and Parmalee each try to win Phaedra's cooperation. She works in concert with Parmalee, while developing feelings for Calder. When she seems to waver, Rhif decides to make the deal with Parmalee work. The film reaches a happy conclusion, with virtue rewarded, the statue celebrated by the people of Hydra, and Phaedra and Calder in each other's arms. Parmalee, a man with no apparent national loyalties or heritage, sets course for Monte Carlo. ===== Murthy (Prashanth) earns his living taking the blame for the mistakes of other people, and so the jail is his second home. Dhanushkodi (Raghuvaran) has sworn to kill ex-collector Ramanathan's (Vijayakumar) son Santhosh (Praveen Gandhi), and so, Ramanathan has transferred Santhosh to Mauritius while telling the world he has run away. Wishing to save his son, he hires Murthy to act as him, hoping Dhanushkodi would kill him instead of his actual son. Murthy too accepts the gig since his lover Preeti (Jyotika) is Ramanathan's niece. In the climax, Santhosh supports Dhanushkodi for killing his father, but Dhanushkodi kills Santhosh. The film ends with Murthy taking the blame for killing Santhosh and surrendering himself to police. ===== Subramaniam alias Right (Sundar C) is a rowdy in North Chennai. He runs a separate gang and also works as a sidekick and right-hand man to a big don named Qaasim Bhai (Judo. K. K. Rathnam). Qaasim Bhai uses Right and his gang as professional killers whenever required. The ACP Ravi kumar (K. S. Ravikumar) believes in his own type of law by eliminating criminals instead of wasting time by the court and other procedures. Divya (Jyothimayi) a student, surprisingly enters into Right's life and takes shelter in his house. However, things change after she enters his life; both of them fall in love. At a situation, there arises a clash between Right and Qaasim Bhai. Right's friend Balu (Bose Venkat) kills Qaasim Bhai's son Nassir (Vikas Rishi) for ordering a trucker who rams a convoy which killed innocent children instead of only killing the intended target. Unfortunately, Balu is killed by Qaasim Bhai for killing his Nassir. After seeing Balu's death, Right decides to change his lifestyle. Parallel narration is the comedy track of Naai Shekar (Vadivelu), who wants to become a criminal and Divya's supposed uncle. For Right's surprise enters a corrupt ACP named Gopinath (Prakash Raj). He is on a hell bent quest to eradicate crime. He dislikes Right's attitude to leave the underworld and threatens Divya, who is molested in prison. After coming to know of this, Right decides to eliminate all of his foes once and for all. He hatches a plan and orders a sniper shooter (Vichu Vishwanath) to kill the police inspector of the station. He also orders a trucker (G. K.) and kills the lady inspector. Right kills Gopinath and then plans to kill Qaasim Bhai for Balu's death. Qassim Bhai arrives at the hotel, where he sees his wife's wristwatch in the bedroom, which was previously gifted to him by the corrupt MLA (Delhi Ganesh). Qassim Bhai mistakenly kills the MLA for having affair with Vaani. Right then strangulates Qassim Bhai when he arrives at the basement to board his car. Finally, Right arrives at the dock for a getaway with Divya only to be killed by a battalion of cops due to the betrayal by Sashi (Sashikumar), his own fellow gang member. ===== Vasu belongs to a lower-middle-class family and is irresponsible and untrustworthy. Viji is from a traditional Telugu family and is an ambitious and career-oriented girl. Vasu and Viji meet up, and one day, he follows her on her two-wheeler. She is so bugged by him that she fails to notice a vehicle ahead. Though he cautions her, she ends up having an accident. Vasu admits her in the hospital, but Viji holds him responsible for her accident. Both of them are at loggerheads and bicker constantly. Vasu leaves for Chennai in order to prove himself to his father, who is constantly criticising his irresponsibility. Meanwhile, Viji gets a job at Chennai and moves into the same apartment complex as Vasu. The rest of the story follows Vasu's progress and deals with relationship between Vasu and Viji and whether or not their attitude for each other changed. Viji falls in love with Vasu, but he acts to hate her because she made him and his whole family separated. So in the middle, something happens, and they both end up loving each other. Vasu also got back together with his family. ===== The lives of two young women collide in Victorian England when a group of thieves concoct an elaborate scam to defraud a young heiress of her inheritance. The story alternates between the twisting back alleyways of Dickensian London and the cloistered gloom of a Gothic mansion in 1862. ===== In 1465, honorable but penniless Scottish knight Quentin Durward agrees to go to France to find out if the beautiful young heiress, Isabelle, Countess of Marcroy, would be a suitable wife for his aged uncle (that is, if she is as rich as is claimed). The marriage has been arranged by Charles, Duke of Burgundy, for his ward to cement an alliance with Scotland, but she wants nothing to do with it, so she runs away and seeks the protection of Charles' great rival, Louis XI, King of France. Quentin pursues and manages to foil an attempted robbery by brigands under the command of Count William de La Marck, though Isabelle continues on her way unaware of her protector's identity. Nearing the court of King Louis, Quentin tries, but fails, to save the life of a gypsy. However, the dead man's brother, Hayraddin, is grateful for his efforts. Louis, who had ordered the man's hanging as a Burgundian spy, and distrusts such honest men as Quentin, orders him to leave France. However, the Scotsman is not easily deterred. He sneaks into the heavily guarded castle and awakens Louis in his bed with a dagger at his throat. Louis is impressed and enlists Quentin in his service. Upon the unexpected arrival of Count Phillip de Creville, a Burgundian ambassador seeking Isabelle, Louis orders Quentin to guard her and to keep her presence secret. During the time they spend together, she and Quentin begin to fall in love. Having lied about Isabelle being there, Louis commands her to depart. She tells him that she will seek sanctuary with an old friend, the Bishop of Liege. Louis concocts a plan to have De la Marck kidnap and forcibly marry Isabelle to keep her strategically important lands out of Burgundian hands. He has Hayraddin, who is a spy in his employ, take the information and a large bribe to De la Marck. Louis provides Isabelle with a detailed itinerary (the better for De la Marck to find her). He also lends her a few guards, including Quentin, so that when they are killed, it will divert any suspicion away from him. Hayraddin is also sent as a guide. However, when he discovers that Quentin is to be one of the victims, he warns the Scotsman. The three manage to escape the trap and reach Liège, though Quentin is wounded. When he has recovered, he finally tells Isabelle of his obligation to his uncle, which prevents him from courting her himself, and leaves. De la Marck attacks the castle, captures Isabelle, and kills the bishop when he refuses to marry them. Hearing the sounds of battle, Quentin rescues his love. He slays De la Marck in an unusual duel in a burning bell tower, in which they swing from the ropes used to ring the church bells. Meanwhile, the Duke of Burgundy arrests Louis when he comes to continue peace negotiations, accusing him of orchestrating the murder of the bishop. However, Quentin arrives and exonerates the King, providing as proof De la Marck's severed head. Out of gratitude (and in France's best interests), Louis tricks Charles into letting Isabelle decide whom she will marry. Quentin has received news that his uncle has died, so he too is free to follow his heart. ===== The plot develops around a mercenary named Emerald "Deadeye" Flint, who takes up a seemingly simple task to escort a cargo ship, transporting the nearly worthless delivery of sulfur, through quiet waters. Shortly after the beginning of the voyage, the protagonist becomes the sole hostage after an anarchistic group of Shogunate mercenaries raid the convoy. However, he is released by their leader, Hóng Lóng, who is a well-known arch-enemy of, and has formed a love–hate relationship with the protagonist after helping him escape prison. Emerald "Deadeye" Flint is soon picked up by a freighter and dropped off in Magellan where his first mission is to bring himself and an attache to Emerald's boss, El Topo's base in a rusty old ship named 'Hiob'. After the player completes several missions as repayment to El Topo for the failure of the escort mission, the player is ordered to move to another location to look for a mercenary to assist him in obtaining the black box of the submarine Big Fat Mama. Eventually the player's ship is replaced by a faster scout called the 'Gator'. As the player continues to progress through the main story line his ship is replaced two more times, first by the slightly sluggish Atlantic Federation bomber 'Zorn', which introduces the player to a ship with significantly greater firepower. Finally the player ends up in a prototype EnTrOx bomber called 'Succubus', which is the fastest and most advanced submarine in Aqua. The Succubus gets confiscated from EnTrOx after their CEO is impeached and the company dissolved to end their monopoly on and control over Aqua's energy, transport, and oxygen resources. After several other missions, the player encounters a mysterious mothership during a simple recon mission that is traveling at higher speeds than any other submarine in Aqua. As the game progresses, they encounter more and more scouts of similar make, dubbed Bionts, due to the ships being of a bionic build where pilot and machine are fused together. In one mission, the player is required to paralyse a Biont scout (using EMP weapons) and allow the group to analyse the ship. Near the end of the game a great war breaks out between the Bionts and humans. During the war, the player's last mission is to escort Hóng Lóng who sacrifices herself in order to destroy the main control entity of the Bionts called Survion. ===== South Boston teenager Jason Tripitikas is a fan of martial arts films and awakens from a dream of a battle between the Monkey King and celestial soldiers in the clouds. He visits a pawn shop in Chinatown to buy wuxia DVDs and discovers a golden staff. On his way home, Tripitikas is harassed by some hooligans, whose leader Lupo attempts to use him to help them rob the shop-owner Hop, who is shot by Lupo. Hop tells Tripitikas to deliver the staff to its rightful owner and Tripitikas flees with the staff. He is cornered on the rooftop before being pulled off the roof by the staff. When Tripitikas regains consciousness, he finds himself in a village in ancient China that is under attack by armored soldiers. The soldiers see his staff and attempt to seize it. He is saved by the inebriated traveling scholar Lu Yan, a supposed "immortal," who remains alert and agile even when drunk. Lu tells him the story of the rivalry between the Monkey King and the Jade Warlord. The Warlord tricked the King into setting aside his magic staff, Ruyi Jingu Bang, and transformed the immortal into a stone statue, but the King cast his staff far away before the transformation. Lu ends the tale with a prophecy about a "Seeker" who will find the staff and free the King. Just then, they are attacked by the Warlord's men again, but manage to escape with the help of Golden Sparrow, a young woman. She reveals that her family was murdered by the Warlord, against whom she has sworn revenge. Meanwhile, the Warlord, upon learning about the staff, sends the witch Ni-Chang to help him retrieve it in exchange for the elixir of immortality. Tripitikas, Lu and Sparrow meet a strange man dressed in white who takes the staff away from them. Lu fights with the man (later revealed to be the Silent Monk) for the staff until the latter realizes that Tripitikas is the Seeker, and joins them in their quest to free the King. At the tea house Ni Chang interrogates the owner and kills a worker using her whip and speaks of her hatred for men. The owner's wife hands her a dagger used by Sparrow. As the four travel to Five Elements Mountain, Lu and the Monk teach Tripitikas kung fu along the way. After crossing a desert, they encounter Ni Chang who discourages Tripitikas and Sparrows love for each other. Ni Chang offers the boy return to where he came from in return for the staff, he declines. Lu asks of Ni Chang intentions, she tells him she will get the elixir of immortality for the staff. After a battle and escape, Ni Chang shoots Lu with an arrow. Tripitikas's team takes refuge in a monastery, where they learn that Lu is actually not an immortal as he failed the test, and only the Warlord's elixir can save his life. In desperation, Tripitikas goes to the Warlord's palace alone to exchange the staff for the elixir. Ni Chang leads Tripitikas inside. The Warlord asks Tripitikas to duel Ni-Chang to death, since the former can give the elixir to only one of them. Tripitikas is overpowered but manages to disarm the Ni Chang of her whip. Sparrow and Silent Monk and monks from the monastery arrive to join the battle. Ni Chang tries to claim her prize but is interrupted by Sparrow. Sparrow hits Ni Chang back but gets kicked. Ni Chang flies at Sparrow to scratch her but gets laid onto the palace floor. While the witch is distracted, Tripitikas manages to grab the elixir and tosses it to Lu, who drinks it and recovers. The Monk is mortally wounded by the Warlord and passes the staff to Tripitikas, who uses it to smash the King's statue. The King is freed and the Monk is revealed to be actually one of the King's clones. Before Ni Chang can kill Sparrow, Lu kicks her out onto the palace balcony. After being hit around by Lu, Ni Chang is enraged and jumps onto Lu who hits her back and grabs hold of her and kicks her into the air, she falls onto the balcony railing breaking it and falling into the valley. Ni-Chang attempts to use her hair to strangle Lu and climb up, but he cuts her hair before she can get up and she falls to her demise. After another long battle between the King and the Warlord, the latter is eventually stabbed by Tripitikas and falls into a lava pit to his death. However, Sparrow succumbs to her wounds. The Jade Emperor, having returned from his meditation, praises Tripitikas for fulfilling the prophecy and allows him for one wish, which he asks to return home. Tripitikas finds himself back in the present. He overpowers Lupo and drives the other hooligans away. Hop survives being shot and claims that he is immortal (hinting that he is actually Lu). Before the film ends, Jason is delighted to meet a woman who resembles Sparrow. Tripitikas continues honing his kung fu skills while Lu narrates the King's search for truth. ===== ===== A king went on a sea voyage. His ship was blown to an island, where they were attacked by lions who killed many of the King's men. They eventually come to a garden with fountains of gold, silver, and pearls, with a large castle and lake nearby. The Lake warned them that the seven-headed serpent- king of the island would soon wake and bathe in it; it would devour the men alive if they were found. The only way they could limit their punishment was to spread their clothing over its path, as the softness would appease it. When it discovers the men and what they have done to soften his path, in exchange for their lives the serpent demanded twelve youths and twelve maidens every year, or it would destroy their country. For many years, brave youths and maiden volunteered to save their country, yet all perished. The king and queen in the meantime had no children. One day, an old woman from the Spinning Convent offered the queen an apple that would give her a child. The queen ate the apple, and threw the peel into a pasture where a mare ate it. She had a son, and the mare a foal. When the prince and the horse were grown, the horse said the sacrifice would soon ruin the country and had the prince ride it to the Spinning Convent where the abbess was spinning. She told him to take cotton and go by a secret tunnel to the serpent's palace. There, he would find it sleeping in a bed, hung with bells, and with a sword over it. The sword was the only one that could kill the serpent; it would regrow a new blade for every head, if it broke. He was to stuff the bells with cotton and then wound it in the tail. It would put its heads up, one at a time, and he should cut each one off. He obeyed her and killed it. The animals of the island chased him, but be escaped. ===== K (Shinji Takeda), a young Japanese debugger and free-lance programmer (also Techno LPs collector in his free time), is a vigilante who non-fatally shoots wrong-doers as he encounters them in his daily life. Before each shooting, he puts on a pair of thick glasses. The local media quickly names the mysterious attacker "Four-eyes" (Le Bigleux in the original version, lit. "the poor-sighted") based on the police composite. Hinano (Hinano Yoshikawa) is a seventeen-year-old girl who works part-time as a hairdresser. She lives with her older brother Roy, a police officer (Tetta Sugimoto) assigned to the "Four-Eyes" case. While in the subway, she notices a young man secretly filming other passengers, and, intrigued, begins to follow him. Later, she asks her friend and co-worker Naomi (Kaori Mizushima) to join her investigation into the strange young man. She finally approaches K, and they quickly become friends. He invites her to his apartment and shares his interests of trance music and video games with her. Hinano is suspicious, but she relents, and finds herself in the middle of a romance with the unconventional young man. In the meantime, Four Eyes is still at large, and Roy's investigation is not closer to finding the shooter. Hinano witnesses one of K's shootings, and is conflicted about what she should do with this knowledge. Hinano confronts K, and K explains that he modified his pistol to be inaccurate, presumably so that the bullets don't actually hit its target. However, later on K accidentally kills one of his victims - a man who was breaking up with a girl for a different girl. In a second confrontation, K reveals that he uses the thick glasses to cause his victims to hold still, and so that he himself cannot see his victims clearly. He admits that he would not be able to shoot his victims if he looked them in the eye. In addition, he takes video because of a desire to see what is going on in the world, not just look. Despite having much video footage of people, he says it is hard to see. But K explains to Hinano that he is willing to give it all up, and refers to Four-Eyes as someone he can separate from, which puts Hinano at ease. K is visited by a low-ranking yakuza member (Beat Takeshi) who comes to pick up K's handgun which was apparently on loan, but it is accidentally fired into K's lower abdomen. K does not go to the hospital, but instead meets Hinano and walks around with her. K asks Hinano to meet him at the top of the tallest building in Tokyo. Hinano waits at the top of an observation deck, but K, succumbing to his wound, sways dangerously by the curb of a busy street. In the last sequence, Hinano is walking down the street. Her hand is grabbed; she looks up and sees K's smiling face. The ending is ambiguous, since it is not clear whether K died. It should be pointed that the international version, including the Japanese one, features seven minutes of additional footage, and possibly a more explicit ending compared to the original cut. ===== The film opens with the birth of Baba (Rajinikanth), who is a . Baba grows up as an atheist and hot- blooded man, but he is a Good Samaritan. His lifestyle includes consuming alcohol, smoking substances, and chewing tobacco. His mother (Sujatha) and maternal uncle (M. N. Nambiar) are ardent devotees of Mahavatar Babaji (the Mahavatar Baba who is supposed to be 2000 years old and who lives in the Himalayas). Chamundeswari (Manisha Koirala) stays in the neighbourhood of Baba's residence who often quarrels with Baba but eventually falls in love with his style and falls for his attitude. Baba involves in a physical feud with the son (Riyaz Khan) of the state Deputy chief minister Ippo Ramaswamy (Ashish Vidyarthi). Ramasamy is the current leader of a party in the ruling coalition. (Even though he has only 30 seats, he feels irritating to be inferior to CM) Ramaswamy demolishes Baba's colony. When Baba is about to go into a fight with Ramaswamy, Baba's mother urges him to maintain calm and rebuild the lost colony it by working hard. Baba joins as a labour in a shop and earns money. Chamundeswari tells Baba that she is not willing to marry a daily labourer. Then Baba realizes that so far he has been only answerable for his mother. And if he gets married, then he has to live for wife and kids and would become answerable to them. He would not be able to help the society as he might become selfish after marriage. He feels that prema (love) is maya (illusion) and immediately breaks up with her. At that time, a weird looking sadhu named Divyananda Bharathi (Sayaji Shinde), comes to him and tell him that it is time for getting enlightened. Baba is taken to the Himalayas where he meets the real Baba. He gets frightened by the atmosphere and wishes to return to Chennai. The real Baba grants seven wishes to Baba. He can use any of these wishes anytime he wishes to utilize. Baba is sent back to Chennai but still could not believe that he went to the Himalayas met the real Baba. He uses that mantra to test the power by wishing a flying kite to come and fall in his hand. He waits for a few seconds and decides that it was all his illusion. Later the kite follows him to his house and falls on his hand. He feels that it is coincidental and tries the mantra again to a different kite and wishes it to fall on his lap. He goes into his house and closes all the possible entries into the house. But the kite makes its way and falls on his lap. Meanwhile, Chamundeshwari tells her side of the story and reveals that she was forced to disagree to marry Baba after being threatened by her mother that her family would burn themselves alive if she were to marry Baba. Throughout the rest of the movie, she keeps waiting for Baba and for a chance to reunite with him. Baba's third wish is to make a popular woman, Neelambari (Ramya Krishnan), ask him what the time is. His fourth wish is to get lakhs of money. He makes his fifth wish (to develop his locality's infrastructure) to test his uncle's words. It is only after this wish comes true that he realizes the existence of God. In the meantime, Ramaswamy comes to know about it. He and another corrupt politician call a Magician (also Guruji) (Amrish Puri), to foil Baba's magical powers. The sixth wish is used to revive a newlywed Japanese neighbour fighting for his life. Purushottaman (Bharatimani), Ramaswamy's boss and the current CM of Tamil Nadu, wants to become the permanent CM of the state using Baba's boons. He also tries to kill Baba, but this attempt fails due to Babaji's blessings. Then comes the state general election. Baba's associates Annamalai (Goundamani), Perusu (Delhi Ganesh), Samundi (Karunas), Kathirika ( Crane Manohar) urged him to use the final wish to become the permanent CM himself as the state would be great under him. But Baba uses the last wish to Kanthan, an old honest party member of Ramasamy (who had always been sidelined) to become next CM with a single greater majority. Then, by the wish, Ramasamy's paralysed father (the first leader of the party) wants to prove that the older generation is better as his son is reckless. He gives his party command to Kanthan, telling him to ask for 120 seats (assembly majority is 118) in the current coalition and obviously break the coalition. Ramasamy then attacks Kanthan and is dismissed from the party. The elections come, and Kanthan becomes CM. Guruji asks Ramaswamy and Purushottaman to bring the chain in Baba's neck and his backbone. Their attempt gets foiled, ending with getting thrashed by Baba. When Baba is about to kill them Divyananda Bharathi stops him. But, in the fight Baba's mother gets severely wounded. She advises Baba to leave the place and ascend in himalayas and dies. Once wishes are used up, Baba has the choice of living with Babaji at the Himalayas or returning to his life in the material world. But when Baba is just about to ascend to the Himalayas, the villains kill the loyal CM. Baba turns back and the film ends with the tag "To be continued....". ===== The film essentially follows the story of the Soviet original, with Rathbone and Domergue replacing two Soviet actors in roles as space-station monitors of the primary action. The rest of the film stars the remaining Soviet players, dubbed. In the revised telling, it is 2020 and the Moon has been colonized. After traveling 200,000,000 miles, the first group of men land on Venus, where they find a prehistoric world in which the crew are attacked by various monsters, plants, etc. ===== Four cheerleaders from the Happy Valley High Hamsters are blamed by a group of Church Ladies for the invasion of "Internet smut" into their children's bedrooms. The Church Ladies hire Stephen, a gay teacher from the local Parochial Reform School, to teach the cheerleaders a lesson by training a group of evil Catholic school girls. In the other side, Mr. X, an evil mastermind is using the cheerleaders as guinea pigs to test his Internet Zombie Domination software. So the cheerleaders turn to their arch social enemies, the computer geeks, to help them learn Ninja abilities and defeat the evil Catholic Girls, Stephen and the mysterious Mr. X. ===== The story starts with Donald and his nephews reading an ad about the Oolated Squigg company and its second annual contest. The first prize is a south seas cruise on an ocean liner, which Donald wants to win. It will be difficult, since Gladstone Gander also wants the prize. The rules say there is no limit for the number of entries each contestant may submit, so Donald intends to pick all entry forms to make sure Gladstone and his luck won't stop him. Picking the entries won't be as easy as it's originally thought. The company decided to send the 10,000 entry forms inside squigg-shaped balloons through Duckburg. Still determined to get all the raffle tickets within the balloons, Donald tries to grab them as soon they are released. Unfortunately, it causes Donald to float away with the balloons. The nephews point out a balloon floating near Gladstone, who doesn't want to make the effort of lifting his arm to get it, saying that either a bird will pop the balloon for him or it simply doesn't have the winning ticket. Eventually, Donald seems to have caught all the balloons, which, as he points out, must have been placed together via a thermal inversion, meaning they must be floating above a place with a low temperature. The place happens to be the Money Bin. Scrooge McDuck, fearing the balloons could be another plot of the Beagle Boys trying to steal his money, shoots them down. As a multitude tries to get the entry forms, Scrooge, who doesn't know about the contest, tries to get them out of Killmotor Hill. When he hears about a contest, the idea of paying more taxes because of the prizes horrifies Scrooge to the point where he agrees to give the balloons to the first one who claims them. Donald, who was under all the balloons, claims them all for himself and heads for the Oolated Squigg company to claim his prize. As they arrive at the company, the contest organizers are shocked by the idea of one person having all the tickets, but Huey, Dewey, and Louie say there are only 9,999 of the 10,000 ballons. Donald doesn't like the way it sounds, specially with Gladstone in the vicinity. One of the organizers says that a single entry got stuck in the factory and never was released. Donald tries to get it before Gladstone, but trips and accidentally kicks the ticket right to Gladstone's hands. Donald asks what Gladstone was doing there, since he had no entries, and he says the last year's winner gets to draw the winning ticket for this one. Hearing this, Huey, Dewey, and Louie figure a way to make Gladstone's luck work against him. They submit only one ticket in the name of Donald. All others are for Gladstone. While Gladstone is picking the winning ticket, the nephews comment about Gladstone's luck beating the odds. That's when Gladstone figures out their plan: They've put the odds for him and against Donald so Gladstone would be beaten by his own luck. The plan seems to work, as Donald wins the cruise and Gladstone gets a one-year supply of oolated squiggs as the second-placer. While trying to enjoy his "prize", Gladstone thinks about the contest and deduces that losing a contest is bad luck, regardless of for or against whom the odds were. Then he reads an article in the newspaper about the cruise ship getting grounded on an iceberg, and he later finds a diamond ring eaten by a squigg. The story ends with Donald on the iceberg, having nothing to eat except squiggs recently fished from there. ===== Matthew Poncelet has been in prison for six years, awaiting execution after being convicted and sentenced to death for killing a teenage couple. Poncelet, held in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, committed the crimes with Carl Vitello, a man who was sentenced to life imprisonment. As the day of his execution comes closer, Poncelet asks Sister Helen Prejean, with whom he has corresponded, to help him with a final appeal. She decides to visit him. He is arrogant, sexist, and racist and does not even pretend to feel remorse. He affirms his innocence and insists Vitello killed the two teenagers. Convincing an experienced attorney to take on Poncelet's case pro bono, Sister Helen tries to have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. After many visits, she establishes a relationship with him. At the same time, she gets to know Poncelet's mother, Lucille, and the families of the two victims. The families do not understand Sister Helen's efforts to help Poncelet and claim that she is "taking his side." Instead they desire "absolute justice," his life for the lives of their children. Sister Helen's application for a pardon is declined. Poncelet asks Sister Helen to be his spiritual adviser through his execution, and she agrees. Sister Helen tells Poncelet that his redemption is possible only if he takes responsibility for what he did. Just before he is taken from his cell, Poncelet tearfully admits to Sister Helen that he had killed the boy and raped the girl. As he is prepared for execution, he appeals to the boy's father for forgiveness and tells the girl's parents that he hopes his death brings them peace. Poncelet is executed by lethal injection and given a proper burial. The murdered boy's father attends the funeral ceremony; although he is still filled with hate, he soon begins to pray with Sister Helen. =====