In Thailand, an architect and his brother capture a gangster wanted by the authorities, a ruthless man named Killer. However he escapes from prison and seeks revenge by killing the brother's family and holding his girlfriend hostage in Japan. Although they catch up with him, they are blackmailed in that if they don't let Killer free, the girlfriend will be killed. Soon after arriving in Japan they are helped by a rival veteran crime boss who wants to oust Killer the gangster for good and dominate his operations.

It leads to a climax scene where Killer's gang are invaded on a construction site, complete with diggers and machinery used in the battle.

Jeannie McLean lives in rural Vermont and inherits some money from her Scottish-born grandfather whom she was looking after in his old age. She decides to travel to Scotland to see her ancestral country. On the journey by air and train, she finds herself continuously sitting near Stanley Smith, a brash washing-machine salesman, whose pushy ways help her through various difficulties. She finally reaches Edinburgh (during the Festival).

At her hotel, Jeannie is romanced by Lord James MacNairn, an impoverished landowner, who has heard that she has money. When she catches out Stanley in a lie, she breaks off their friendship and accepts James' attentions. Stanley still follows her around, with a pretty French redhead in tow, including taking seats right behind James and Jeannie at the ballet, and inviting them to join them in a restaurant.

James takes Jeannie to see Loch Lomond and to a family wedding and to his family home - a huge castle. However, he is restricted to a very small wing of the castle with his housekeeper Miss Cathie, with the rest of the castle open to the public.

James asks Jeannie to marry him, but when he learns that she has spent all her inheritance, he confesses he originally wanted her for her money but now really does love her. But now knowing that he is also broke, she turns him down. Jeannie returns home to Vermont, but Stanley, having made a major sales coup, tracks her down and proposes to her.

John "Hans" Lobert runs a training camp in Florida for baseball's New York Giants. Every year, he evaluates the 18- to 22-year-old hopefuls to pick the best for a minor league contract. All have dreams and talent, but the elimination whittles them down to a lucky few who will get the $150-a-month contract.

Lobert's niece comes down from the home office in New York and finds herself attracted to one of the players, the tall, quiet Adam Polachuk, a Polish-American from Pittston, Pennsylvania. Polachuk, the best prospect at third base, is trying to earn a spot on the team without his father knowing about it. His father, who knows nothing about baseball, thinks Adam is attending school. His father finds out about Adam's attempt to make the Giants just before the best of the recruits square off against the Brooklyn Dodgers' rookie squad.

The elder Polachuk is persuaded by manager Lobert to let his son play in the game before taking him home. Polachuk is the star of the game for the Giants both offensively and defensively as the Giants rally to win the game.

Luisa, daughter of Rico and Elsa Molina, returns to Costa Rica from school in the United States to find that her parents have arranged for her to marry Pepe Castro, a family acquaintance whom she has never met. Pepe has also recently returned from the States, bringing with him his girl friend, Celeste, who plans to work in Costa Rica and become acquainted with Pepe's parents. When Pepe confesses he has not yet told his father about her, Celeste becomes suspicious, prompting him to tell her about the situation with Luisa. The Castros come to visit the Molinas for the formal introduction of the couple, but Pepe arrives wearing dark glasses and faking a bad cold. Once alone with Luisa, Pepe insists that he is sickly and later, at the Gran Hotel Estrada, Jeff Stephens, an American coffee buyer, learns that his evening flight has been canceled and to pass the time, takes a stroll around the plaza. During a kind of traditional flirtation promenade, Jeff meets Luisa and whisks her off to the El Sestéo nightclub, where she spots a very healthy-looking Pepe dancing with Celeste. Luisa runs out of the club followed by Jeff. As it is fiesta time, they go on a Ferris wheel ride and begin to fall in love.

Back at his hotel, Jeff meets his old friend Pepe, who tells him about the predicament he is in without mentioning Luisa's name. The next morning, at breakfast, Jeff comes to serenade an elated Luisa and sends her flowers, asking her to meet him at his hotel by noon. As they walk to lunch, Luisa sees both Pepe and his parents approaching from different directions and makes her escape by jumping on a carnival float on which Celeste is appearing as "The Spirit of the Melon". Later, still feigning illness, Pepe takes Luisa dancing, and they meet Jeff escorting Celeste. Jeff pretends he doesn't know Luisa, and when Celeste discovers that Luisa is Pepe's intended, she tells her she can have him. Both sets of parents are also at the club and are introduced to Celeste and Jeff. Jeff reveals to Luisa's American-born mother that he, too, is from Kansas. After Celeste realizes that Luisa's father thinks she is still enamoured of Pepe, she pushes Pepe to tell him the truth. Later that night, Jeff drives Luisa home, and she invites him to a New Year's Eve party. Father Rafael, who has come to visit the family, sees the couple embrace, and when Luisa goes indoors for a coat, Jeff tells the priest that he is in love with her. Doubting their sudden love, the priest tells Jeff about the conservative courtship traditions of Costa Rica.

The next day, Jeff begins to have doubts about the validity of his relationship with Luisa due to the differences in their backgrounds. At the New Year's Eve party Pepe and Luisa are thrown together, and he tells her that Jeff is leaving and is waiting in the lobby to say goodbye. After the couple part, Luisa disappears. Her concerned father phones Pepe's father, and they agree to meet at the hotel. There the fathers learn that Pepe has checked in with his new bride. Both fathers assume Pepe and Luisa have eloped and are stunned to discover that Pepe has actually married Celeste. Pepe tells them that Jeff and Luisa are in love and that she may have left with Jeff. The fathers find out that Jeff is still in town and is at Luisa's house. When they arrive there, they find Mrs. Molina calmly knitting. She tells them that she has given her and her husband's consent for the boy from Kansas to marry the girl from Costa Rica.

''Boxer from Shantung'' follows Ma Yongzhen and Xiao Jiangbei. Ma and Xiao are manual laborers busting their tails in Shanghai at the beginning of the film, and Ma's first encounter with the crime lord Tan Si - who shares power in the city with Boss Yang, who has the Four Champions fighting for him - starts him off on the underworld influence ladder. Step by step, he earns the respect of everyone he meets, either with his strength of character or by beating them up. When he gets a really big break by defeating a Russian strongman, he indulges himself in a fancy cigarette holder, much like the one Tan Si uses. However, he is mindful of his humble beginnings, and of the fact that times are still tough for many in Shanghai. He shares his good fortune with his old fellow wage slaves, and when they assist him in his various extralegal activities, he lectures them on the futility of trying to extort money from people who simply don't have any to spare.

The tea house that Ma and his underlings frequent employs a singer, Jin Lingzi, and her uncle, who provides the music. Ms. Jin's hopes that Ma's arrival will mark a turn for the better for conditions in the crime-plagued city are dashed when she ascertains that he isn't different enough from the other bosses she's seen rise and fall. She begins contemplating leaving the city.

Tan Si is ambushed and killed by Boss Yang. Ma finds Tan Si's body and is subsequently invited by Boss Yang to discuss business in a restaurant. Ma's followers warn him that Ma might be ambushed during the meeting. Ma decides to go anyway. He calls his friend and cart driver Xiao Jiangbei, gives him 100 dollars to leave the city as he is worried about his friend, who is too friendly and naive for the gangster lifestyle. In the restaurant, Yang has all the waiters and customers thrown out and replaces them with his own men. Ma arrives, observes the situation and slowly starts the conversation with Yang. He quickly tells Yang that he only came to the meeting to kill Yang. Suddenly the men Yang had placed in the restaurant start attacking Ma und hurt him with an Axe, that gets stuck in his torso. Despite his injury Ma - with the help of his own men, who arrived to help their boss - fights all of Yang's men and incapacitates them -including the four champions. Ma then kills Yang. One of Yang's men, who has survived the fight, attacks Ma and kills him. Ma's killer is then finished off by Ma's men.

The film ends with Jin Lingzi, her uncle and Xiao Jiangbei leaving Shanghai on a train.

Yun Fei Yang is the viciously bullied orphan who takes on the unpleasant tasks at a formidable kung-fu school. Constantly mocked by the other students of the school, Yun counts as his only friend the daughter of the resident master. Any internal wrangling between the various members is put to one side when a swordsman from a rival clan reminds the master of the duel he must take part in once a decade. Unfortunately the defending clan chief is well aware that his rival is more powerful than himself. The expected defeat is further complicated when a wandering swordsman arrives on the scene and joins himself to the injured party, immediately adding to Yun's woes. The ensuing series of confrontations and intrigues soon reveals the individual motives that the numerous parties all have and the role they play in the fate of the martial world. After finally understanding his own past and upbringing, Yun is ready to take on the mantle of avenger for his school and win back the respect that his colleagues have lost. With fighting skills that had been taught to him by a shrouded figure, Yun steps out of the shadows and reveals himself to be anything but the harassed orphan that everyone enjoys picking on. However to have any kind of hope against his nearly superhuman foes, the young fighter must uncover the secrets of his clan's 'Silkworm Technique' and transform himself completely.

The Qianlong Emperor is not the legitimate successor to the throne since at birth he was exchanged with the Yongzheng Emperor's newborn daughter. He learns the truth when two senior members of the Red Flower Society, a subversive anti-government secret organisation, contact him years later, hoping that the emperor will help them in driving the Manchus away. To hide the truth about his heritage, the emperor orders the two men to be killed, although one of them escapes and is captured again later. The Red Flower Society's chief Chen Jialuo turns out to be Qianlong's younger brother, and the two of them develop a tenuous relationship as the society's members attempt to rescue their captured comrade. They unleash an elaborate plan to kidnap the emperor in exchange for their comrade, and hope to persuade the emperor to join their cause. When the exchange takes place, Qianlong must ultimately continue impersonating a Manchu in order to remain in power as ruler of the Qing Empire. Qianlong's chief lieutenant, Zhang Zhaozhong, is bound and determined to wipe out Chen Jialuo and the Red Flower Society. His opportunity comes when a martial arts contest is scheduled to be held.

A woman lies dying in a women's prison after giving birth and recounts to a pickpocket how she ended up there after her husband was murdered by thugs, one of whom also raped her. The pickpocket agrees to raise her daughter to seek revenge, but in hopes of breaking the cycle of violence she hands the infant girl over to a Shaolin monastery for women. 'Pure Lotus' Liu (Angela Mao) grows up to be a troubled young woman who skips out on Buddhist lessons, but excels at kung fu. She's kicked out after killing several thugs and rejoins the pickpocket, where she discovers the truth about her parents. Using her kung fu and deadly scorpions, Lotus begins a systematic hunt for each of the men who assaulted her family and ends up joining forces with government agents to uproot rebels, two of whom are her targets.

Meng Hu (Don Wong) and Capt. Chow Lung (Lo Lieh) are local supercops who are cracking down on crime with a vengeance. That is, until several fighters get the drop on Chow who ends up dead. Meng blames himself and retires from crime fighting to become a pathetic drunk, drowning in shame. He finds work at a brothel for a time, until a patron's abuse of one of the girls causes him to interfere despite his refusal to fight. After being wounded, he stumbles to the doorstep of a martial arts school run by Magistrate Chen (Chui Chung Hei). Hoping to stay away from conflict, Meng finds work there, but trouble finds him anyway. A white-haired master named Chung Tung (Chang Yi) tries to bribe Chen into letting opium smugglers into the city. Chen refuses and has acupuncture needles thrust into him that will kill him unless removed by Chung Tung who hopes to control the magistrate. Pushed to the limit, Meng finally comes up with a plan to help beat Chung Tung and save Chen. Sadly, Chen believes his son and daughter are giving into Chung Tung and he removes the needles himself. With nothing holding them back, Meng and Chen's offspring leap into action to take out this pack of drug pushers.

The cartoon starts with Tom watching clips of himself attempting to catch Jerry, the first of which is from "Part Time Pal" where Tom chases Jerry until he is hit in a wall and Jerry then proceeds to eat a corn as Tom drags it and gives chase. Jerry escapes by knocking down all milk bottles, and Tom later pauses the clip. The next clip is from "Nit-Witty Kitty" in the scene where Tom is eating cheese on a seesaw and Jerry throws a bowling ball on the seesaw and Tom is hit in the head by the ceiling until the ball hits him and Tom pauses this. The clip after that is from "Johann Mouse" where Tom slides into the stairs to get Jerry, but he is hit in the window and falls, Tom rewinds this in slow-motion reverse and checks the heights and measurements of the disaster. Jerry comes out of his hole and sees "The Yankee Doodle Mouse" clips, he smiles and drags out a bag of popcorn and brings out a telescope to watch the clips. The final clip is from "Heavenly Puss", in the part when Tom tries to catch Jerry before Tom was hit by a piano. Tom rewinds the clip to where he just begins pulling up the carpet, and he replays the scene a second time. When Jerry starts laughing, Tom turns from making his calculations and spots the laughing mouse. He chases Jerry, but hits his head on a wall.

Tom nails Jerry's mouse hole shut, and decides to make a mouse trap to catch Jerry (using footage from the 1955 short ''Designs on Jerry''). Jerry gets out of his mouse hole and finds the trap. He modifies a measurement on the blueprints in order again to make the trap fail (like he did in ''Designs on Jerry''). The trap is set, but the safe contraption (a part of the trap meant to get him) hits Tom instead. Later, Jerry films a flattened and bandaged Tom ripping the blueprints he used for the mouse trap.

In 1976, secretary Mary Ann Singleton visits San Francisco from Cleveland, Ohio, and impulsively decides to stay. She finds an apartment at 28 Barbary Lane, a small complex owned by the eccentric, marijuana-growing Anna Madrigal. Mary Ann befriends the other tenants of the building: hippyish, bisexual Mona Ramsey; heterosexual lothario Brian Hawkins; Michael Tolliver, a sweet and personable gay man known to friends as "Mouse"; and Norman Neal Williams, the tenant of the rooftop shed. Mary Ann gets a job as secretary to Edgar Halcyon, the abrasive, wealthy owner of the advertising agency where Mona works as a copywriter. Mary Ann finally gives in to the advances of ad exec Beauchamp Day, who is unhappily married to Edgar's socialite daughter DeDe, but he is unable to perform when in bed with Mary Ann. Edgar is dying, but has not told his family; he meets Anna in the park and they begin an extramarital romance. Beauchamp deliberately leaves Mary Ann's scarf in his car to be found by an attention-starved DeDe, who has sex with Lionel Wong, an 18-year-old delivery boy. Mouse meets handsome gynecologist Jon Fielding, and finds that he does not want to engage in casual sex with anyone else. He wins $100 in an underwear dance contest, but loses Jon over it. Jon confirms DeDe's suspicion that she is pregnant. Black model D'orothea Wilson arrives from New York, hoping to resume her romance with Mona; Anna is heartbroken when Mona moves in with D'orothea without saying goodbye. Norman is secretly investigating Anna on behalf of Mona's mother. Columnist Carson Callas blackmails DeDe into sleeping with him, in exchange for which he will not reveal her pregnancy. Beauchamp's renewed attentiveness to DeDe wanes, and she decides to keep her baby. At the baths, Jon has sex with a man he has not met before—Beauchamp. Mona discovers that D'orothea is really Caucasian, and has been darkening her skin to help her modeling career. As Edgar is dying at home, DeDe and Beauchamp tell him he is going to be a grandfather. Mary Ann has been spending time with Norman, but discovers that he is a child pornographer. When she confronts him, he slips and falls off a cliff. Mary Ann finds his file on Anna, and destroys it.

The story begins a couple months after the end of ''Tales of the City''. Michael ("Mouse") Tolliver and Mary Ann Singleton go on a cruise on the ''Pacific Princess'', thanks to money given to her by her former boss, Edgar Halcyon. While on the cruise, Mary Ann begins a relationship with a handsome amnesiac, while Mouse rekindles his relationship with Jon who has now distanced himself from the "A Gays" because he got fed up with their elitist and shallow ways. Mary Ann then begins to devote her time to helping her boyfriend figure out why he lost his memory. Signs point to a traumatic event he had while reporting on a story for his newspaper. What they find out is explosive and risks shaking the foundations of San Francisco elite society. Meanwhile, Mouse becomes extremely ill and is hospitalized, profoundly affecting his relationship with Jon.

It is now 1985 and much of the action is set in the Russian River area north of San Francisco. Here, successful businessmen from around the globe gather at Bohemian Grove for a three-week encampment of male bonding, while downriver from them, events at Wimminwood, a lesbian music and arts festival, threaten the relationship of DeDe Halcyon-Day and D'orothea Wilson.

Returning characters include Mary Ann Singleton, who is having difficulty balancing her commitment to her career as a local talk show hostess with her obligations as a wife to Brian and mother to Shawna, the child of her friend Connie, who entrusted the girl's care to Mary Ann on her deathbed; Michael Tolliver, the romantic gay man who has recently tested HIV-positive and is taking AZT to combat the threat to his immune system; and Anna Madrigal, the transgender landlady who mothers her tenants at 28 Barbary Lane on Russian Hill and is fighting to preserve the historic wooden steps of the lane.

New characters include Thack Sweeney, who meets Michael during a tour of Alcatraz and Wren Douglas, a plus-size model whose best-selling self-help book offers hope to overweight women. There is also a focus on a previously minor character, Roger "Booter" Manigault, DeDe's stepfather and a member of the Bohemian Club, who accidentally stumbles into Wimminwood and is held captive by one of its more militant organizers. Brian's college-aged nephew Jed also makes an appearance as a young Reaganite more interested in getting into Harvard Law School and making money than having fun.

Set in 1988, three years after the previous novel, the tenants of 28 Barbary Lane have all left to pursue their lives. Recognizing that it has been a long time since she took a vacation, the building's landlady Anna Madrigal decides to travel to Greece to meet with her daughter Mona Ramsey on the island of Lesbos. During her time there, Anna develops a romantic fling with Stratos, a local man, while Mona explores the island and its lesbian pilgrims. Upon learning that Anna has contemplated staying in Greece, Mona urges Anna to sell the boarding house at 28 Barbary Lane and enjoy herself with Stratos.

In San Francisco, Mary Ann Singleton and her husband Brian Hawkins have moved to a condo in the Russian Hill high-rise The Summit with their adopted daughter Shawna. Mary Ann revels in her local stardom as the most recognized television talk-show host in San Francisco. However, the sudden call from television producer Burke Andrews, her old boyfriend, changes everything when he offers her a job as the host of a new, nationally syndicated talk show in New York City.

Meanwhile, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver and his boyfriend Thack Sweeney have purchased a home together. Michael continues to co-own his nursery Plant Parenthood with Brian while monitoring his scheduled AZT dosages to keep his HIV infection in check. After the death of his father, Michael's conservative mother Alice has also begun contacting him frequently, developing a close relationship with Thack. Michael, however, resents the way she ignored his deceased lover Jon up until his death from AIDS, and her lack of true validation of his life in San Francisco. Thack urges Michael to become involved in the gay political movement, especially ACT-UP, though Michael prefers to focus on what time he has left. Thack and Brian have become close, but Thack has developed a distaste for Mary Ann, much to Michael's frustration. However, Michael admits that he feels Mary Ann has been keeping her distance, believing that she may be trying to spare herself the pain of his one day succumbing to AIDS.

Brian continues to immerse himself in his role as partner at the nursery and as a househusband to Mary Ann and father to Shawna. He remains unaware of Mary Ann's job offer until an obvious blind item in the local paper suggests that Mary Ann is being courted for New York. Mary Ann reveals to Michael that she plans to take the job, but has since fallen out of love with Brian. She hopes to get a divorce in order to spare Brian the embarrassment of moving from his home and friends to follow a relationship that she feels has outlived itself for both of them. She also feels that this way, Brian can continue his work at the nursery and take care of Shawna while she can seek the kind of relationship she has always wanted. She asks Michael to keep it a secret until she can break the news to Brian.

However, Brian is enthused by Mary Ann's move and obliviously begins making plans to leave San Francisco and start again in New York. While discussing the future with Michael, he mistakes Michael's discomfort over Mary Ann's secret for hurt over his leaving. At Brian's insistence, Michael reluctantly reveals Mary Ann's intentions, which devastates Brian. After he confronts her, Mary Ann is furious with Michael, who feels trapped between his friendship with both of them. Brian stays with Thack and Michael for the time being, and Mary Ann accepts the new position and begins making preparations for her move to New York by the end of the month, including rubbing elbows with famous fashion designer Russell Rand (relatively known to be a closeted homosexual by the LGBT community) and his celebrity wife Chloe.

As Michael reflects on the toll of the AIDS crisis, the deaths of his friends and former lover, and sees the continued deterioration of the once vibrant gay men in his community, he begins to wonder if he has the luxury to be unpolitical. A sudden purple growth on his leg underscores that he may not have much time left. Mary Ann invites him to a black-tie event to reconcile, where they run into the Rands. While alone, Russell makes a pass at Michael, who rebuffs him while calling Russell a coward for hiding his sexuality from the public, contributing to the stunted political progress the gay community is experiencing while trying to draw more attention and resources to the AIDS crisis. When Mary Ann learns of their altercation, she scolds Michael, and he angrily breaks from her, feeling that her interest in stardom has replaced her ability to recognize the social justice issues at hand.

Michael goes in for treatment and finds, to his relief, that the growth on his leg was only a bruise from when he bumped into a picnic table days earlier and is not Kaposi's sarcoma; he has not yet developed AIDS. He writes a letter to his mother, finally urging her to accept the life he has built in San Francisco and to respect his wishes for him to be buried in San Francisco should he die before her. Anna Madrigal returns from Greece, and the three men have dinner with her. Anna consoles Brian and urges him to talk with Mary Ann one last time before she leaves and receive closure for his own well being. She also reveals that she has chosen to stay in San Francisco despite her feelings for Stratos. As Mary Ann prepares to move, she spends the day with Shawna and gives her a suitcase full of her birth mother's personal effects. Mary Ann reflects on her original distaste for Connie, Shawna's birth mother, and now has nostalgia for their "tacky, Midwestern" origins in their hometown of Cleveland. Brian returns, the two have a quiet reconciliation, and Brian urges Mary Ann to make peace with Michael before it's too late.

The novel ends a few months afterward; Brian and Mary Ann have amicably divorced, Mary Ann's transition to New York has been a success, and Brian and Michael continue working at the nursery, with Brian finding that he has new prospects as a once more single, available man.

The novel represents Maupin's return to the ''Tales of the City'' characters some 18 years after the sixth book in the series was published. As well as further developing familiar characters, it explores the differences between the San Francisco of the 1980s, bearing the brunt of the developing AIDS crisis, and the city in the first decade of the new millennium. The realities of aging, both distressing and graceful, is a major theme of the book – as well as the generation gap between gay people from the 1970s and 80s and gay people from the 2000s.

In a departure from the third-person style of the original ''Tales'' sequence, ''Michael Tolliver Lives'' is narrated in the first person by the title character. In the book's opening pages, Michael Tolliver is middle aged and still alive in living HIV-positive for over 20 years now in the year 2006. Michael encounters a half-remembered old flame, prompting him to reflect on his status as a survivor of both the HIV epidemic (which killed many of his peers in the 1980s and 1990s but is now a more treatable chronic illness thanks in part to better medication) and of a San Francisco that has transformed due in large part to the dot com boom. Characters from the original series include Anna Madrigal, the one-time landlady of 28 Barbary Lane; Brian Hawkins and his now-adult daughter Shawna, a pansexual aspiring writer; and Brian's ex-wife Mary Ann Singleton. New characters include Michael's much younger partner Ben, and his transgender co-worker Jake Greenleaf.

Much of the plot's tension derives from the impending death of Michael's elderly mother in Florida, a test case of changes in attitude since she refused to accept Michael's homosexuality in the second ''Tales'' book. Several chapters involve a secondary plot thread concerning Michael's relationship with his brother Irwin. Eventually Michael finds himself forced to choose between being present for his mother's last days and attending to an aging Anna, described in the book as part of his "logical" (as opposed to "biological") family.

The pace and tone of the film is immediately made clear with an opening fight in the woods as Wah-jee (Cheung Lik) and his uncle (Sham Chin-bo) attempt to flee from ruthless fighters led by Mien Tsu-mun (Chan Lau). The pair make it to a Buddhist temple, but the uncle dies after Tsu-mun and his thugs break in. A fighter turned monk named Huang (Yeung Chak-lam) manages to kill most of them. Once recovered from his wounds, Wah-jee is put to work at the temple, making soy milk runs into town and cleaning out the smoke-filled oven. He spends time with two junior monks and trades friendly kung fu blows with Tsui-jee (Jeannie Chang), the attractive soy milk seller.

Tsu-mun returns to the area with two martial brothers (including Bolo Leung). Fed up with the torturous regimen of chores at the temple, Wah-jee leaves but overhears Tsu-mun's plans to kill Huang and decides to warn his mentor. A fight ensues that Wah-jee survives only after he is forcibly pulled away by Tsui-jee's father (Fan Mei-sheng). At this point, Wah-jee learns that his own father died at the hands of a silver-haired fighter (Hwang Jang-lee) who belongs to the same group as Tsu-mun. Three martial brothers initially escaped Jang-lee's attack, but now only Tsui-jee's father remains. Wah-jee, Tsui-jee and her father go into hiding where Wah-jee begins to master the 36 Deadly Styles just in time to face Jang-lee.

There is also a smaller parallel plot interwoven with the previous one involving a brother of Jang-lee (Mark Long) who heads off to a Tibetan temple to seek out a kung fu master named Kaung Wu Chun (Jack Lung) in order to get the manual of 36 Deadly Styles.

A man named Gene finds himself cast into a new world by a powerful godlike being. Gene has been changed in such a way that he has every talent needed to survive this new world, including the ability to understand the language of its inhabitants. Gene is rescued from the seemingly endless oceans of this new world by a passing ship that is similar to the looks of a Viking galley. Aboard the ship he makes himself useful as best he can while meeting new friends and enemies. Eventually they come to an island where a mysterious creature who some see as a friend, and some see as an enemy, joins them aboard their ship to help deal with the threat of war from their neighboring kingdom known as Koph. The creature, utilizing his sorcerer-like abilities is employed by the other country known as Nanich to help aid them in the war, but will the sorcerer, and his magic be enough to save the land of Nanich from being overrun by Koph?

The leader of the Kong Tung clan is Yen Chan Ying (Mark Long), a ruthless warlord who is master of 26 styles which gives him a tremendous advantage over normal martial artists. One day a proud man dares to step forth and speak against Yen Chan Ying's villainy. Sadly, the man's fighting skills are not as immense as his bravery and he goes down to Yen Chan Ying like so many others before him. The man's family members deliver his infant son to the nearby Abbot (O Yau Man) who in turn takes the baby to the well-to-do clan of Chen Yung (Jack Long), an honorable Kung Fu instructor who owes the baby's father a debt of gratitude. The Abbot informs Chen Yung to raise the boy as a warrior to take revenge on his father's killer, and hands him a special book to train him in the Iron Body style. One day while Chen Yung labors over the kids training, he leaves his family unprotected. This allows Yen Chan Ying to kill the rest of his clan. The obsessed Chen Yung now plans to use the kid, now called Tiger, to take revenge for not only himself, but Tiger's father as well. The kid quickly grows into a young man who displays considerable invulnerability and martial arts abilities.

Chen Yung keeps training Tiger intensely until his 18th birthday, and all this hard work has left him cold. Tiger doesn't have a normal life like most young men as he is constantly focused on Kung Fu. He winds up leaving Chen Young's palace and exploring the life in the nearby village. Chen Yung's daughter, Lin Erh (Jeannie Chang) follows him into the town. Meanwhile, Yen Chan Ying crosses paths with Chen Yung in the woods, and the two elders fight for supremacy. Yen Chan Ying kills his opponent and when Tiger hears about this, he promises to eliminate the killer of his adopted father. Lin Erh also pledges her life to seek justice for her father's death. Tiger asks the Abbott for advice, and the Abbot sends him to Tai Shing Temple to seek out the legendary manual of Kung Fu. With it, his skills would even over power the great Yen Chan Ying. Inside the temple are numerous death traps and one must use their ingenuity and martial arts skills to make it through the maze-like interiors. No one has ever made it through the Tai Shing Temple alive. Tiger was trained since birth to become a super human fighting machine and he must use every skill that he has learned if he is to make it through this temple of doom and secure the mystical Kung Fu manual!

Mr. Tsan is a doctor and master of Wing Chun who can trace his martial lineage back to the style's founder. He is grudgingly persuaded by Fei Chun, his lead student, to teach kung fu to Cashier Hua, a patient hiding out at his residence. Hua had previously overheard a businessman named Mo and several of his men plotting to take over the town by killing the head of the town. Unfortunately, Hua made the mistake of warning Mo's wormy henchman, Master Yao and a trap was set that nearly cost the poor cashier his life. Whilst in hiding, Hua sends Fei Chun to warn the town head. Ignores the advice, the town head is later attacked by Mo's men, although it is unclear whether he escapes or is killed after a protracted fight.

Meanwhile, Tsan runs Hua through an elaborate series of Wing Chun training sessions before he falls victim to a vicious trap set by Mo who has learned of Hua's whereabouts. With nothing left to lose, Hua, Fei Chun, and Tsan's niece split up to use specific Wing Chun styles against Mo's leading fighters. Trouble mounts when it is discovered that Fei mixed up the fighter's names and each of Tsan's students have to improvise in order to win against their opponents.

The film portrays a conflict between a eunuch and two descendants of loyal ministers who are incriminated by the eunuch.

As a child, Yung witnesses the murder of his parents by three kung fu masters. His father, a Ming loyalist was kicked out of his political post and now a Ming traitor named Tin Erh Keng (portrayed by Chang Yi) and his two lieutenants magnificently ride in on horseback to finish them off. Sammo Hung and Hau Pak-wai do most of the dirty work in a gruesome fight to the finish. Yung's mother dies wearing a bracelet with bells on it and this becomes an important plot device throughout the film as years later, he carries the bracelet and its sound reminds the killers of their deed. The child finds his way to Shaolin and patiently waits outside until admitted and is later accepted as a student by one of the elder monks. The training is painlessly short compared with other Shaolin tales and consists of carrying buckets up stairs, leaping out of pits, and actual combat training. One important skill is his ability to puncture objects with his fingers, as his main foe shares the same ability. Although the 'Bronzemen' make an appearance as statues, Yung has no trouble leaving the temple ready to find the killers and make mincemeat of them.

With his backstory told, Yung now becomes the nameless hero who wanders into town and aids the afflicted while searching for the killers. An unexpected foe comes in the form of a woman named Hsiao Yun-erh (Polly Kuan), Tin's adopted daughter. She challenges Yung in one of the better teahouse confrontations. The match is unresolved, although Yung has the upper hand in more ways than one. Ultimately, Yung has to deal with Hsiao, figure out a way to get past a wild kung fu multi-man formation known as the Tien Lo Set, and defeat the lieutenants in order to challenge Tin himself.

A Greek artisan from Antioch is commissioned to cast the cup of Christ in silver and sculpt around its rim the faces of the disciples and Jesus himself. He travels to Jerusalem and eventually to Rome to complete the task. Meanwhile, a nefarious interloper is trying to convince the crowds that he is the new Messiah by using nothing more than cheap parlor tricks.

Hibbert, an imprisoned innocent, is caught up in the jailbreak of his cellmate Scarlatti, engineered with the assistance of another man, Burks. Forcing Hibbert to accompany them, Scarlatti and Burks make for the Florida Everglades, picking up Scarlatti's girlfriend Carlotta on the way.

In the Everglades the four encounter a miraculous golden stairway extending into the sky. Ascending, they find a pool defended by a blue flamingo, which is killed by Burks. Another stairway leads them to the land of Khoire, a strange and mysterious paradise. There a man named Patur exposes the true nature of each by means of a crystal mask. He warns them that they will be transformed in accordance with those natures within a day, and must leave Khoire.

Scarlatti and Carlotta's alteration is horrible, and they are consumed by a huge beast; Burks agrees to become a blue flamingo, taking the place of the guardian of the pool, in the hope of some day being readmitted to Khoire. Hibbert is little changed. Returning to the mundane world, he undertakes to find certain persons who can help him gain his own readmittance to Khoire, having fallen in love with one of its denizens, Mareth of the Watchers.

After discovering that Shaolin is linked with Liu and the Eight Swordsmen - all rebels, Emperor Yong Zheng orders General Kim and his cannon squad to lay waste to the Temple. With little warning, Kim's soldiers begin to fire on the Temple, causing massive death and destruction. Despite the severity of the situation, the abbot orders that the only way students may leave the Temple is by passing through the hall of 18 Bronzemen, in keeping with Temple tradition. Students pour into the hall, ill-prepared to face the rigors of the Bronzemen.

After agonizing over his loss of judgment, the abbot rushes to open another escape route by holding up an enormous stone while students rush underneath. Unable to save himself, the abbot gives the final copy of the famed "18 styles" of kung fu to his trusted student Siu (Carter Wong). Having escaped, Siu and the remaining students and teachers hide from their Manchu pursuers while plotting to kill the Emperor. As one attempt fails, their hopes are set on a final plot, of which the success or failure rests upon a fellow Shaolin monk-turned-traitor.

In Japan of the Tokugawa Ieyasu period, a young ninja named Genbu wantonly kills samurai and other government officials, leaving his clan to face the blame. When they hunt him down, Genbu and his wife Akane sail to China both to escape their wrathful kinsmen and for Genbu to complete his revenge by finding the last man he holds responsible for his father's death.

That man, Fukusa, leads a peaceful life as a mirror maker under the name of Uncle Fu. He has a young protégé, Sun Jing, a smug martial artist who constantly tries to prove himself by taking up every opportunity to fight. Jing also constantly teases his lecherous servant Chee and takes few things very seriously. When he sees his surrogate father attacked, Jing immediately rushes to his aid, but after several clashes he finds out that he and the ninja are evenly matched.

It is revealed that Genbu's father was not killed by his clan members; he died as a hero in a rebellion instead. Ashamed of his own cowardice in escaping to China years before following that attempted uprising, Fu makes peace with Genbu. But before their final encounter, Fu took poison to restore his honor by his own death. Fu asks Genbu to kill him in order to spare him the last agony, which promptly leads to a misunderstanding between Genbu and Jing. The two battle each other to the top of Jing's family temple and eventually settle their differences just in time to face The Magician, a spiritual boxer whose son Jing has insulted in the course of the movie.

The film ends with Jing and Genbu killing the Sorcerer, with some unwitting assistance from Akane and Chee. The latter promptly tempts fate by claiming the better part of the credit for this victory, prompting Genbu and Jing to teach him a lesson.

Shibli Bagarag, a Persian barber, and Noorna, an enchantress, are given the quest of shaving the tyrant Shagpat, who by the power of his magical hair holds his city in thrall. Along the way Shibli acquires a magic sword and meets a series of exotic creatures, including a talking hawk and several genies.

The second paragraph of the book provides a capsule summary of the story: "''Now the story of Shibli Bagarag, and of the ball he followed, and of the subterranean kingdom he came to, and of the enchanted palace he entered, and of the sleeping king he shaved, and of the two princesses he released, and of the Afrite held in subjection by the arts of one and bottled by her, is it not known as 'twere written on the finger-nails of men and traced in their corner robes?''"

Setting

SunAge is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, in which relentless total war between Earth's nations (subtly hinting to a nuclear war) have turned the planet into an irradiated wasteland, forcing the surviving humans to shelter in habitational domes to survive. However, with the passing of years, contact with most domes was lost, leaving the Federal Dome as the last one standing. It's discovered this was due to the assaults of the self-titled Raak-Zun, humans supposedly mutated from prolonged exposure to the irradiated Earth. The Federacy was able to survive so far due to the skills of their hardened commanders, whom must pass the trials of the "Blooding", a live-fire graduation exercise that involves open conflict with the Raak-Zun, to earn their rank.

Federacy Campaign

Six months following his successful graduation from the Blooding, Commander Ethan tardily returns to the Federal Dome to find it under siege from the Raak-Zun, whom breached through the tunnel system. Fighting off the invaders to the tunnel base, Ethan discovers the presence of both an unknown alien material as well as Raak-Zun mutants whom have overrun the tunnel base. Ethan learns that the science expedition responsible was mostly eliminated, but he discovers tracks leading to the surface within the wasteland, leading him to believe that the lead scientist, Lex, and her team have escaped the Raak-Zun onslaught. Despite orders from his commanding General to return to base and not intervene (as Federal High Command had decided to take the matter personally), Ethan goes rogue and conducts a rescue of Lex and her team, only for the General to arrive and arrest Ethan, being later revealed the arrest was to prevent his summary execution for disobeying orders. However, on their way home, the Federal Dome is attacked once again. Ethan marshalls his forces to push away the Raak-Zun again, only to discover a deactivated intergalactic portal that was being researched by Lex and her team.

Under orders from the General, Ethan and his company cross the portal to end up in a lush jungle world, in which the Federals name it "Elysium", but are shortly attacked afterwards by a force of extraterrestrial machines that Lex name "Sentinels". Ethan, Lex, the General and the Chief Engineer whom had been aiding Ethan all traverse the portal, but are forced to abandon it as it explodes from being destabilized beyond repair. Ten days after settling themselves in Elysium, Ethan picks up a distress call only to discover the Raak-Zun have also mysteriously managed to arrive to the new planet. Discovering a second portal from the salvaged Raak-Zun logs, the Federal forces fiercely engage the Sentinels and destroy their Mainframe to shut them down, but as they fly to the second portal they are intercepted by airborne Raak-Zun cyborgs whom shoot down most of the airforce, capturing Lex in the process. In a final confrontation that even involves the Federal forces using nuclear warheads to push through heavy defenses, Ethan and the General back the Raak-Zun tribal leader, Slavemaster Sauk, into a corner, using Lex into a hostage situation. The General proposes to let Sauk leave to Earth and his people in exchange for Lex, in which Sauk agrees and the General keeps his end of the bargain. The Federals start establishing themselves into Elysium, but still all aware that the conflict is all but over.

Raak-Zun Campaign

It is revealed Sauk, as he returns to his tribe, is immediately arrested by the orders of the Great Oracle, whom perceives him as a heretic and predicts he may provoke the "day of severance", leading to a possible Raak-Zun civil war. Sauk's brother Madok attempts pleading for Sauk's release, but it's denied until Federal forces launch a raid at the monolith where Sauk is imprisoned. After fighting off the invading humans, Madok gains the permission from the Oracle to release Sauk and allow him back to the tribe under strict watch from Grull, Madok's loyal Golgotha. When a border outpost is attacked while Madok conducts a massive assault to the Federal Dome, Sauk takes the chance to lead a counterstrike and restore his honor until he comes across a strange pit, thriving with luminous yellow tentacles. Despite Grull's warning, Sauk allows himself to be taken and swallowed by an aberration, believing it's a manifestation of the mutant god Raak, and then transports his forces to Elysium, where he engages both Sentinel and Federal forces and takes the General hostage for interrogation, reminding the General's folly of letting Sauk alive when he kept Lex hostage.

Grull returns to Madok to warn him of Sauk's betrayal, as the Raak-Zun stay divided between Sauk and the Oracle's followers, and Madok leads his forces alongside Grull in an attempted crusade to eliminate Sauk before the Oracle grows too weak. However, the attack is failed as Madok and Grull are captured and brought before Sauk, whom then kills Madok by tearing his heart apart, letting Grull leave to take the corpse back to Earth for burial. Sauk's forces push though the remaining Federal defenders to an underground Sentinel facility entrance at the same time Grull fights back the Federal forces at the shrine where Sauk was first arrested, to bury Madok. However, the Oracle also passes away after being long drained by Sauk's aberration. At the underground site, Sauk discovers that the aberration is actually an enormous being imprisoned by the Sentinels. Securing it, Sauk discovers he must sacrifice himself to ascend into the aberration, which he does. The aberration awakes and starts draining life out of Elysium.

Sentinel Campaign

With multiple Sentinel installations and mainframes falling, the lead Sentinel AI activates the last remaining Mainframe and pushes back the Raak-Zun invaders from within the underground facility while directing it's drones to observing and capturing a target specimen, revealed to be Ethan. Ethan is captured, wiped of his memories and transformed into a Symbiont, whom spearheads the counterattack on both Federal and Raak-Zun forces, forcing Lex and the Chief Engineer to retreat to Earth, destroying their portal in the process. The Symbiont also activates a series of mainframes turned into detonators as a safety measure to destroy Elysium, identified as 'Trap 757'.

Afterwards, the Symbiont manages to establish contact with the stranded Sentinel drones on Earth allowing them to repair a portal on their side, allowing the Symbiont to travel to Earth in pursuit of a Parasite, revealed to be the aberration which had gripped Sauk and the Oracle, being discovered as an interplanetary being that travels between planets, leeching life and twisting lifeforms to perform it's bidding, essentially creating the Raak-Zun. As the Symbiont fights through Federal and Raak-Zun forces, the Federals under Lex and the Chief Engineer discover the Parasite bursting itself within the Federal Dome, attempting to escape Elysium, learning Trap 757 is an anti-Parasite trap, and thus order their remaining forces to stand down, allowing the Sentinels to overcome the Raak-Zun defenders and force the Parasite away and back to Elysium, which detonates in time to destroy it. With their function fulfilled, the Sentinels, including the Symbiont, deactivate themselves, becoming inert.

In the aftermath, as the Raak-Zun remainders scatter and the Federals rebuild their dome, Lex investigates the deactivated Symbiont, determining it's been attempting to access a certain data file that the leading Sentinel AI constantly attempted to erase, but the Symbiont replicated itself non-stop. As Lex access the file, discovering Ethan is the Symbiont, the safety protocols are broken. Because of this, the Symbiont awakes, it's breathing sound indicating Ethan had returned.

;Act I In 1924, Weill is visiting a friend in Europe, and Lenya is sent to meet him. They are immediately attracted to each other and their subsequent romance and marriage follow the course of events in pre-World War II Germany. Weill collaborates with Bertolt Brecht, and the two write ''The Threepenny Opera'', among other important works. But Brecht's ego and politics cause a rift, and the two part. Weill and Lenya divorce and later remarry. As the Jewish Weill becomes a popular and successful composer, Weill and Lenya are forced to leave Germany.

;Act II Now in the United States, Weill has successful musicals produced on Broadway, such as ''Lady in the Dark'', and also spends time in California. The couple have an open marriage – both have other romantic interests; and Weill is a workaholic. But they remain with each other until his death in 1950. Lenya, although devastated at his loss, is urged to return to the stage in Weill's ''The Threepenny Opera''.

The musical uses songs written by Weill for stage musicals such as ''One Touch of Venus'', ''The Threepenny Opera'', ''Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny'', ''Street Scene'', ''Knickerbocker Holiday'', and ''Happy End'', as well as individual songs.

The story opens with a flashback from the hero's earlier life.

The main character "hero", is a child whose father has disappeared. Before his mysterious departure, Hero's father gave him a watch, telling him to keep it safe. At this point, the game leaps to the present and Hero suddenly receives a letter stating that his father has just died. In honor of his father's wishes for him to become a Robo Commander, Hero sets out to do so - despite knowing nothing about robos. He eventually manages to join up with a group of bounty hunters known as the "Steel Hearts", where he meets Ernest, Harry, and Marcia. A fellow member of the Steel Hearts, Harry, teaches Hero how to command robos and helps him receive his license, which allows Hero to battle with robos legally. After a few minor errands, Hero and company discover the self-guided Robo known as 'Rahu'. Later, after passing a test and obtaining a Class "S" license, Rahu's past is revealed and Hero finds out that Rahu is an invisible organic being who had accidentally been fused with a toy robot.

Before the time of the domed city, the world was attacked by a powerful entity - now known as Rahu. Eventually, Rahu came to possess a child's toy. This toy was very similar to a Robo. By popularizing Robo battling, the government gave the people a way to fight the entity. Rahu was soon damaged enough to be driven into dormancy for a long period of time, but has now awoken. Hero and the rest of the police force leave the safety of the dome to defeat Rahu again, along with the organization known as the Z-Syndicate, who are trying to control the entity for their own ends. After defeating the syndicate, Hero meets an old friend of his father's, and the brother of Marcia of the Steel Hearts, a spy named Sergei. He originally joined the Z Syndicate to stop Rahu, but was forced to work with Oboro, who wanted to control Rahu for his own means. Eliza and Isabella, two other members of the Z Syndicate, also wanted to control Rahu. Sergei showed Hero an old recording of his father's last message to him. In the recording, Hero's father explains that he left to form the Z-Syndicate in an attempt to inform the people of Rahu's impending attack. The other members soon lost sight of his vision and betrayed him in an attempt to the seize control of the Syndicate and Rahu. Hero, Harry, and Marcia eventually defeat Rahu, ensuring the world's safety - for a while.

In the opening stages of the war, Black Bolt ordered a strike on America led by Gorgon. Although the initial mission was only to order the return of the Terrigen crystals, Jolen, a young member of the Inhumans who has plant like powers, kills innocents in a concert hall. The Inhuman task force attempts to flee the scene, but they are stopped and defeated in battle by the Fantastic Four. Gorgon surrenders and takes the blame for the unnecessary casualties and is turned over to O.N.E. While in captivity, Gorgon is exposed again to the Terrigen mists by an American scientist. The second transformation is more disastrous, turning Gorgon into a feral beast. Black Bolt then leads a contingent of Inhumans to rescue the mutated Gorgon, attacking the Pentagon and reclaiming the crystals. S.H.I.E.L.D. responds to Black Bolt's attack by sending Marines who have been exposed to the mists to assault the Inhuman capital on the moon, Attilan. These Marines possess abilities on par with the Inhumans, but are also dying due to cellular instability.

In the last issue of ''Silent War'', the Marines again assail Attilan and are repulsed. In reality, this battle was a feint designed to allow one Marine to explode within the confines of the city, destroying lunar Attilan. Black Bolt's mad brother Maximus infects the Inhuman race, taking Medusa as his queen. Luna, who was responsible for freeing Maximus from his psychic prison, goes to Black Bolt asking him what she should do. Black Bolt opens his mouth to answer. The final page of the issue is completely black.

A car carrying four lady lawn bowlers on its way to Nhill is involved in an accident on a deserted road in rural Victoria. Locals, not knowing where the accident was, or who was involved, embark on a journey to assist.

In August 1500, Andrea Orsini (Tyrone Power), an artistic minor nobleman who is equally skilled with the brush, the sword, words, and women, serves the Machiavellian Prince Cesare Borgia (Orson Welles) as a soldier. Pleased with Andrea's ability to "follow my mind and keep his eyes fixed on the ultimate goal", Borgia selects Andrea to accomplish an intrigue: arrange the marriage of his widowed sister, Lucrezia (whose husband he has just had assassinated for the purpose), to Alfonso d'Este, the son of the Duke Ercole d'Este of Ferrara. By doing so, Borgia will remove Ferrara as an impediment to conquest of central Italy. In being selected, however, Andrea earns the enmity of Don Esteban Ramirez (Leslie Bradley), an ambitious mercenary captain and rival.

Andrea travels to Venice to sell some of his paintings to raise money for expenses. He meets the lovely Camilla di Baglione (Wanda Hendrix), young wife of the elderly Count Marc Antonio Varano of Citta del Monte, and smitten with her, gallantly gives her a painting he was haggling to sell for a hundred ducats. Soon after, an assassin attempts to kill Andrea, but he thwarts the attack and spares the assassin to learn who hired him: the Duke Ercole d'Este. He hires the assassin, Mario Belli (Everett Sloane), as part of his own entourage. Resuming the mission, Andrea stops to visit the farm of a blacksmith's widow, reputed to be hiding gold stolen by her bandit son. She is actually his mother (Katina Paxinou), and he is in fact Andrea Zoppo, not the noble Orsini he pretends to be. The reunion is a rocky one, because the mother does not approve of her son's evil ways. Belli spies on them through a window. Andrea continues to Ferrara, where he succeeds in arranging the marriage by intimidating the duke and flattering Alfonso.

Andrea's next mission, again chosen over Don Esteban, is as ambassador to Citta del Monte, with orders to help Borgia conquer the mountaintop city by spring, using a romantic conquest of Camilla to facilitate a "correct" elimination of the elderly count (Felix Aylmer). Borgia secretly hires Belli to spy on Andrea and report if his loyalty wavers. Andrea learns that when the old count has a problem to solve, he climbs to a high precipice looking out over the landscape. Belli is delighted because it would make it easy to kill the count, but Andrea is moved by the older man's wisdom and love for his people. Camilla, despite her suspicions of Andrea, grows to admire his artistic soul as he paints her portrait. When Borgia, through Don Esteban, orders the count to allow passage of his army and to supply troops for it, the count defies him with the support of his people. Andrea changes sides to join his cause but Belli, a self-professed "born traitor", gives notice to Andrea and returns to Borgia. The count reveals to Andrea that he married Camilla only to protect her after her father died, and has treated her as his own daughter. He is mortally wounded in an ambush and rout of the vanguard of Borgia's army and Andrea takes up the defense.

After three months of repelling assaults, the city is at its last extremity. Don Esteban offers Camilla terms that are generous to her and her people, but would require her to surrender Andrea to Borgia. In love with Andrea, she rejects the terms, but Andrea gives himself up to Don Esteban at the price of putting the terms in writing. At a triumphal dinner with Camilla, who has begged him to spare Andrea's life, Borgia hauls in Andrea, tortured by Don Esteban, and exposes "the noble Orsini" as a peasant. He brings Andrea's mother to confirm it. Borgia orders his death by starvation but Belli, now a lieutenant in Borgia's service, protests and demands to gouge out Andrea's eyes in front of everyone and make him a blind beggar. However, Belli has secretly remained loyal to Andrea and fakes the disfigurement, and Mother Zoppo takes her son home. After Borgia moves on to another campaign, Andrea and Belli plot to free the imprisoned Camilla and help the people retake their city. Belli aids Andrea in entering the castle to rescue Camilla, but the signal for the citizen uprising is given before they can make their escape. Andrea kills Don Esteban in single combat, but is about to be killed by another officer after Andrea stumbles over Esteban's corpse. However, Balgioni, an officer, weary of killing for Borgia and an admirer of Andrea's, recognizes and spares him. The uprising sparks widespread resistance to Borgia, and after his fall, Andrea and Camilla are married.

Dr. Jeremiah Morley is concerned about an imminent nuclear war. He organizes an expedition of scientists and has them use a large atomic-powered tank-like boring machine, called the Cyclotram, capable of drilling down deep through the Earth's surface in order to find an underground environment where humanity could escape and survive a future nuclear holocaust.

The expedition (Andy Ostergaard, Dr. Lindsey, Dr. Bauer, Dr. Paxton, and Dr. Coleman) begins after government funding has fallen through, and they are bailed out at the last minute by private funding from newspaper heir Wright Thompson, who insists on going with them as a lark. Romantic rivalry soon develops between Ostergaard and Thompson for Lindsey, and during the dangerous underground expedition two lives are lost to the perils of their adventure.

In the end the scientists accomplish their goal and find an enormous underground expanse with a plentiful air supply, its own large ocean, and phosphorescent light. However, all the lab rabbits brought with them give birth to dead offspring. Through autopsies, it is discovered that this strange underground world has somehow rendered the rabbits, and hence any other life form, sterile. Dr. Morley is deeply depressed by this news. When an underground volcano suddenly erupts, he fails to enter the safety of the Cyclotram and quickly perishes.

The Cyclotram, carrying the remaining survivors, enters the underground ocean to avoid the eruption. They soon find themselves rising toward the surface of the upper world, having been caught up in a strong, upward-moving ocean current. They eventually break the surface near an unknown tropical island.

Jack Flynn is driving down a highway at night looking at a bracelet he bought his teenage daughter Carol for her birthday, when his truck hits a massive spider thread. The next morning, Carol is concerned that her ne'er-do-well father did not come home the night before. She convinces her boyfriend Mike to assist in a search. They find his crashed truck and the bracelet. Thinking he may have taken shelter in a nearby cave, they investigate. In the darkness of the cave, they step off a ledge and fall onto the gigantic web of an enormous tarantula, which emerges to attack them. They escape and make it back to town.

The sheriff does not believe Carol and Mike about the giant spider, but their science teacher, Mr. Kingman, persuades him to return to the cave with large amounts of DDT. They find Jack's body, drained of fluids, and spray DDT throughout the cavern to flush out and then kill the spider...or so they think. The apparently lifeless body of the spider is taken back to town to the high school gym, where Kingman wants to study it, concerned that whatever conditions created it may produce a whole race of giant spiders. A group of teenagers uses the gym to practice rock and roll numbers they are going to play for a school dance. The music awakens the spider and it crashes through the wall of the gym. The janitor, stopping to call the sheriff, is killed.

The spider terrorizes the town, killing a number of people before heading to Kingman's house, attacking his wife and son. Kingman, in his car, gets the spider's attention and lures it outside of town before escaping and doubling back to confirm that his wife and son are safe.

The spider is spotted returning to its cave. The sheriff and Kingman use dynamite to seal the spider in, but then discover Carol and Mike had gone into the cave to retrieve the bracelet her father had bought her as a final memento of him. A crew is put to work digging into the cave through its ceiling. Kingman acquires a couple of large electrodes from the power company and runs cables to some power lines. In hopes of escaping the spider's reach, Carol and Mike proceed onto a narrow ledge, which collapses behind them, leaving them trapped. The spider descends on a strand of web to get at them. The townspeople arrive and toss one of the electrodes to Mike. Kingman and Mike use the electrodes to electrocute the spider, which falls, impaling itself on stalagmites. Dynamite is again used to seal off the cave, and the sheriff remarks with satisfaction that even should the spider return to life again, it will be trapped and starve to death. However, Kingman fears that curious scientists may again dig up the spider in hopes of studying it.

In a final battle with Bullseye, Daredevil's last word before his death was "Mapone". Ben Urich, covering the story for the soon-to-be-defunct ''Daily Bugle'', sets out to unravel Matt Murdock's one remaining secret: Mapone. It is revealed that, several years before his death, Matt Murdock's role as Daredevil took a considerably darker turn for the worse. Wilson Fisk, the former Kingpin of Crime, returned to New York City from exile in another country after brokering a deal with the federal government. Daredevil approached Fisk at a restaurant and demanded he leave immediately, saying that while he made a deal with the government, he made no such deal with him. When Fisk refuses, a violent fight ensues in which Murdock gains the upper hand and kills Fisk, telling onlookers that he had exhausted all other options in dealing with him.

Urich begins his investigation by attempting to track down one of Murdock's former lovers, the spy turned Avenger Natasha Romanova, better known as the Black Widow. He begins by asking at a bar that Natasha once fought in, and while the bartender is of no help to him, he receives a written message telling him to go around back. He does so and is greeted by none other than superspy Nick Fury who tells him that Natasha has been dead for several years. Urich asks Fury if he knows what "Mapone" means, but he claims that he doesn't. Urich presses Fury for more information, but Fury quickly vanishes without a trace.

Next, Urich is assigned to cover Murdock's funeral, but instead of doing so, he decides to tail a car leaving the funeral. The car stops at a children's soccer game, where the driver is revealed to be Murdock's former lover Elektra Natchios, a former assassin now trying to live a normal, stable life with her son (of whom Murdock is the father). He asks her if she knows what "Mapone" means, but she also claims to have no idea. She threatens to kill Urich if he ever goes after her again.

Urich meets with Mary Walker-Stamos, a former enemy of Daredevil better known as Typhoid Mary; she is currently a successful television actress in control of her mental state. She says that she does not know what "Mapone" means and that she wants Urich to leave her alone. She also has twin sons who are strongly implied to be Murdock's. Urich next contacts another of Murdock's former lovers, Maya Lopez, the former superhero known as Echo who is now a college professor. She too claims not to know the significance of Murdock's last words.

Urich is next alerted of Bullseye's death and visits the crime scene; Bullseye wrote the word "Mapone" in his own blood on the wall. While it initially appears that Bullseye was murdered, Urich quickly deduces that the death was actually a suicide as Bullseye caused the bullet he fired to ricochet around the room before hitting him in the head.

Urich next visits Frank Castle, the notorious vigilante better known as the Punisher who is currently incarcerated at Ryker's Island Maximum Security Prison. He asks Castle if he knows what "Mapone" means, and he replies that it meant that Murdock had dirt on Bullseye; what it means specifically, Castle refuses to say. The Punisher uses this opportunity to escape custody.

Urich visits the supervillain Bushwacker, currently in critical condition at the hospital. Before he can get anything out of him, however, the supervillain Bullet comes barging in intending to kill Bushwacker; in his rampage, he throws Urich out the window. Before Urich can fall to his death, a figure dressed as Daredevil rescues him before returning to kill Bullet.

Urich awakens in the hospital with his adoptive son Tim at his side. It is here revealed that years ago, Tim was the son of a criminal who Daredevil was trying to apprehend; the man brutally beat Daredevil as Tim tearfully begged him to stop. To save Daredevil, Tim was forced to electrocute his father to death, after which Murdock comforted him and brought him to Urich, knowing that he would be a good father to him. Urich tells his son that what Murdock did for them is a true example of what a hero does.

Urich next meets with Leland Owlsley, a former enemy of Daredevil known as the Owl who has now returned to his previous position as a stock investor. Owlsley is far from reformed, however, as he is shown to possess the mask Murdock was wearing when he died in a glass box as a trophy; he threatens to kill Urich if he comes back. Urich is next contacted by another of Murdock's former enemies, Zebediah Killgrave, better known as the Purple Man. Walking into the meeting, however, Urich sees that the Purple Man has recently been shot dead by the Punisher who quickly departs. It is also revealed that the Punisher killed Owlsley earlier that same day (most likely moments after his meeting with Urich).

Urich next visits the Church of the Hand in search of answers, but he quickly becomes a target once he mentions "Mapone". He is targeted by the Hand's ninjas before being rescued by the new Daredevil, who seems to be apprehensive of taking part in such a major fight. He receives aid in the form of the Punisher, who eliminates a large number of the Hand alongside "Daredevil" before once again vanishing. "Daredevil" goes over to relieve Urich, but it is shown that he was killed by stray Hand arrows. "Daredevil" unmasks, revealing himself to be Urich's son Tim.

It is revealed that at some point Murdock began training Tim to be his successor, teaching him how to fight as well as instilling in him the values he learned from various figures over the years. Murdock told him that the spirit of his own mentor, Stick, has been reincarnated into the world and will come to serve as Tim's mentor in time. After Urich's funeral, Tim takes out his frustrations in his private gym before being visited by the Punisher who explains that "Mapone" was a source of guilt for Murdock. Tim asks Castle if perhaps he is the reincarnation of Stick meant to serve as his mentor, but he has no idea what Tim is talking about. Before leaving, he warns Tim not to go down the wrong path or else he will kill him.

Tim next settles down for a drink at a bar, joined by Peter Parker who he previously met at his father's funeral. Parker leaves abruptly (his Spider-Sense had gone off) and Tim is given a written message to go around back where he is met by Nick Fury. Fury expresses his sympathies over Urich's death and offers Tim a file detailing what or who "Mapone" is. Tim rejects him, tossing the file into a nearby fire and returns to the bar.

Back at the bar, a young, red haired woman is accused of hustling the men she has been beating at games of pool; the accusations quickly turn violent with Tim interfering. While Tim holds his own, the woman is shown to have beaten most of the men down before taking off her glasses, revealing herself to be blind; she claims that her mother told her that her blindness was the only thing her father ever gave her. She introduces herself to Tim as Mapone Romanova, the daughter of Matt Murdock and Natasha Romanova. The story ends with Mapone telling Tim that most people simply call her "Stick".

A consortium of spacefaring races, including humans, recruits Mesklinites, the centipede-like natives of the high-gravity planet Mesklin, to explore Dhrawn. The recruits include Barlennan and Dondragmer, respectively the Captain and First Mate of the ''Bree'', a merchant vessel of Mesklin, which in ''Mission of Gravity'' sailed to Mesklin's south pole to rescue a probe sent by humans. Now, thanks to institutes of learning set up on Mesklin, the natives have produced capable explorers who can go where other races cannot.

Barlennan is in command of the main base on Dhrawn while Dondragmer commands a "land cruiser", the ''Kwembly''. This is a tracked vehicle about 30 meters long, 6 meters high and the same wide. It is designed to move like a large worm on independently steerable trucks. The power is supplied by self-contained fusion generators but the controls are simple pulley-and-rope systems using Mesklinite materials which the crew can repair by themselves. There are several more cruisers, and each has audio/video links for communication with satellites.

The humans and others are on a satellite in synchronous orbit above the explorers on the ground. Unfortunately, the planet's slow rotation means that they are about 10 million kilometres above the surface, and signals take over 30 seconds to travel to the satellite. Real-time conversations are therefore impossible.

On the satellite are linguist "Easy" Hoffman and her son Benj, who is both an engineer and a linguist. Both speak fluent ''Stennish'', the Mesklinite language, and have formed close personal relationships with the explorers on the surface. They are later joined on the satellite by Ib Hoffman, Easy's husband and Benj's father.

One of the cruisers, the ''Esket'', has apparently suffered a catastrophe and all the crew have vanished, much to Easy's dismay. The cruiser's communicators still function, but all they show are views of a deserted ship.

In reality, Barlennan is executing a complicated deception. A wily negotiator who successfully coerced the humans into setting up a College to teach science to the Mesklinites in ''Mission of Gravity'', he has been secretly arranging for an independent Mesklinite colony to be set up on Dhrawn using the ''Esket'' as a base. This has been proceeding successfully for several months.

Soon, however, the ''Kwembly'' is in very real trouble. As the planet warms, the complex phase transitions of water and ammonia mixtures at these low temperatures mean that a frozen lake can melt in seconds, carry the ship off in a flood, and equally suddenly leave it hung up on large rocks, unable to move as the liquid around it freezes again, trapping some of the crew below the surface in their protective suits.

A few of the ''Kwembly'''s crew are dispatched to report on the condition of the surroundings, but come across one of the crew from the ''Esket'', who is doing likewise in one of the dirigibles that Barlennan is clandestinely using to move his men and matériel around. He momentarily appears on a screen and is recognized by Easy. While the other humans believe that she is mistaken, Ib begins to suspect that something underhanded is going on.

The Hoffmans would prefer to deal honestly with the Mesklinites, but they have to deal with the prejudices, not only of fellow humans with political motives, but with the more paranoid of the non-human supervisors of the mission. Having an inkling of what Barlennan is really after, to have his people learn to fly starships and eventually explore the galaxy in their own right, Ib finally convinces the human administrators that they should treat the bug-like creatures as equals rather than hired hands.

The novel ends with the Mesklinite colonies receiving clandestine help and communication with the Hoffmans, but it is not revealed whether Barlennan's machinations remain secret from the other humans.

When police raid a house in Poughkeepsie, New York, they discover over 800 videotapes shot by serial killer Edward Carver, which present a visual record of his murders, filmed in full from the point of abduction to the postmortem mutilation of the victim. Despite the volume of evidence, Carver is careful not to be shown on film unless fully disguised, leading to police and law enforcement beginning an investigation into his whereabouts and the whereabouts of his victims.

The first tape records the murder of his first victim, an eight-year-old girl whom he abducts, rapes, and murders. After the success of his first crime, Carver becomes more meticulous. He convinces a couple, the Andersons, to give him a ride, before clubbing the man and subduing the woman with chloroform. He then performs a Caesarian section on the woman, placing the severed head of her husband inside her womb before sewing her up, waking her, and filming her reaction. Carver shows himself in the CCTV footage of another gas station, using sign language to reveal the location of the bodies.

Carver's next victim is teenager Cheryl Dempsey. He murders and mutilates her boyfriend Tim and imprisons Cheryl in his basement, abusing her sexually, physically and psychologically as his "slave". Cheryl's mother Victoria appeals to her kidnapper in a televised statement. He goes to see her, offering to help while filming her. Victoria realizes that he is her daughter's captor and stands shocked as he laughs and flees.

With his crimes gaining a rising level of attention, Carver changes his ''modus operandi'' and begins targeting sex workers while posing as a police officer; he is dubbed the "Water Street Butcher". The police investigating the murders are led to officer James Foley; because Foley has a history of purchasing sex, is mentioned in eyewitness statements, has no alibi and has matching sperm samples, he is convicted and sentenced to death in 1996. Foley continues to plead his innocence and refuses to make any plea deals. He is executed by lethal injection on September 9, 2001. Days later, his former partner finds a map in his mailbox with the location of another body. The real killer had presumably taken Foley's sperm from a fertility clinic and framed him. Foley is exonerated of the murders on September 12; but because of the proximity to the September 11 attacks, this goes unrecognized by the public.

After another murder, the police reverse-engineer the killer's map search and Cheryl is discovered in his empty house. She is rescued but is irreversibly damaged from her ordeal, suffering from malnourishment and harming herself in secret. In an interview, she identifies with her captor and defends him, saying that he loved her. Two weeks later, she dies by suicide. Her body is exhumed after its burial, with a tape left in her empty coffin. The investigators ponder where Carver is and assert that he will watch the documentary. A post-credits scene shows a restrained woman being filmed by Carver, who says she will be allowed to live for as long as she does not blink.

In Santa Monica, California, a pair of Mormon missionaries—by-the-book Elder Farrell (Lucas Fleischer), and his soon-to-leave companion, Elder Lozano (Ignacio Serricchio)—proselytize until they are caught between a gang drive-by shooting targeting nearby thugs. The shootout kills one thug and wounds another, Carl (Lamont Stephens), whom Elder Lozano saves. After being released from the hospital, Carl tracks down the two missionaries, thanking Lozano for saving his life, who gives Carl a Book of Mormon.

Later, the missionaries notice an unconscious street preacher lying behind a Dumpster. Despite Farrell's hesitation, the missionaries bring the man—later identified as Louis (Jo-sei Ikeda)—to rest in their apartment. Meanwhile, Carl, who has been reading the Bible and Book of Mormon, is eager to be baptized and begins taking lessons from the missionaries. While they do so, the missionaries ask their next-door neighbor, Holly (Rachel Emmers), to check on the homeless preacher in their home. Upon their return, they have dinner with Holly and Louis and continue to do so for a few days.

In this time, the missionaries learn that Louis once was a preacher who lost his congregation due to alcoholism and that Holly—a struggling actress—acted in a few adult movies, her parents back home discovering and cutting off contact with her as a result. Elder Farrell promises that God will never stop loving her regardless of her mistakes.

At a local ward luau, another missionary interviews Carl for baptism, teaching him the story of Ammon, a missionary who teaches a group of people to give up their weapons and bury them deep in the ground, vowing never to use them again. The night before his baptism, Carl buries his weapons in the yard and Elder Lozano baptizes him the following day.

As Carl is confirmed a member of the LDS Church on Sunday, his younger brother, Todd, seeks retribution for the death of Carl's friend. The gang responsible for the shootout corners Todd and stabs him to death. The police inform Carl and his grandmother Mae of Todd's death later that day. Carl digs up his weapon and hunts down the man responsible for Todd's death with fellow gang members. Though they find the man, Carl reneges his desire for vengeance and lets him live, leaving another gang member to kill the man to Carl's dismay. Distraught, Carl returns to the ocean in which he was baptized, throwing his gun into the wake.

At night, Elder Lozano awakens to find Elder Farrell's bed empty with evidence indicating he was with Holly. The following morning, Farrell sobs during breakfast, realizing the consequences of his sexual indiscretion with Holly. Farrell confesses his mistake to the mission president, who sends a replacement missionary in a van to take Elder Farrell home. Prior to his leaving, Lozano finds Farrell locked in the bathroom, having slit his wrists in a suicide attempt. Lozano and other missionaries rush Farrell to the hospital.

In the hospital, Holly repeats Elder Farrell's words to him that God will love him regardless of his mistakes. After his release, Elder Farrell prepares to return home dishonored. Drawn to a Lutheran Church “living Nativity” display nearby their apartment, he cries as he holds the Nativity scene's baby Jesus.

In a mid-credits scene, Louis preaches a lively sermon to a packed congregation in a meetinghouse that he acquired from a widow.

Jenny Smith owns a modest neighborhood beauty parlor that is hugely popular with the folks who reside on her street, but mom-and-pop businesses are failing and a corporate giant has been clamoring to set up shop on the block. Despite formidable pressure from the Department of Water and Power, Jenny refuses to accept the offer made for her shop and decides to test her luck against the DWP in the local courthouse.

The story takes place in Prague during the reign of Charles IV, when Charles Bridge was built in Prague and the unique Prague Astronomical Clock was built. Kuba comes to the capital from the countryside with his Goat and carry a load of eggs as a raw material for the construction of Charles Bridge. A poor student Matěj comes to Prague to study with Master Hanuš. Kuba and Koza stay in Prague for the construction of the bridge. Here Kuba sees Maca for the first time and immediately falls in love with her. Máca is a city girl of plump shapes, who supplies forged nails for the construction of the bridge. When Kuba causes the scaffolding on one side of the bridge to fall because he was carving a statue of Maca from the supporting beam, he is expelled by the workers and his Goat. Both are taken care of by Master Hanuš himself, who is looking for a good carver for the Astronomical Clock statues and is interested in Kuba's art of carving from wood. Poor Matěj, who is the target of ridicule by other students due to his poverty, also studies with Master Hanuš. He has gained the trust of his teacher and is overseeing the plans of the Old Town Astronomical Clock. Because Matěj has nowhere to sleep, he finds Faust's house in Prague, already abandoned at the time. Thanks to his classmates' constant ridicule, he succumbs to the lure and picks up a silver tolar in Faust's house so that he can fit in with his other peers. However, they deceive him and in an unguarded moment destroy the Astronomical Clock's plans. The unsuspecting Matěj hands over the plans back to Master Hanuš. The big surprise of Master Hanuš is when the Prague councilors discover damaged plans and demand punishment of the culprit. Matěj is thrown into the prankster for one day and because he does not know what he would do wrong, he decides to avenge Hanuš. When Master Hanuš and Kuba Astronomical Clock complete, they will not reap any respect or recognition. The Chinese offer Master Hanuš to build such an astronomical clock with them as well. Witnessing this discussion is Matěj, who in the meantime signed his contract with the Devil and writes a letter to Prague councilors. He entrusts the executioner of Mydlář to blind Hanuš. Hanuš wants to take revenge for this "gratitude" and the astronomical clock stops by the famous touch into the machine. Kuba, as his assistant, is commissioned to repair the astronomical clock under the threat of execution of Maca if he fails to do so in time. Kuba will open the astronomical clock at the last minute, but will not have time to run to the execution site. Later it turns out that Koza swapped with Maca and she was hanged. But then the goat falls from the gallows and it turns out that she had an iron tube in her throat all the time, so she didn't hang herself.

The Collection is caught up in the war between the Draconians and the Mim. As Bev tries to ensure they stay neutral, it becomes apparent that the Draconian Ambassador may have other motives for seeing her...

Act I

The play opens upon a strikingly colorful scene of Hase-dera at the height of cherry blossom season. Princess Senju is praying at the temple for her late father and for Kotarō, her fiancé by an arranged marriage, who has gone missing.

Kotarō (actually Benten Kozō in disguise) then appears with an attendant (his fellow thief, Nangō Rikimaru in disguise), and the couple go into a nearby teahouse on the grounds; Senju has never before met Kotarō, and so has no reason to know what he should look like. Meanwhile, Akaboshi Jūzaburō, another thief, is discovered attempting to swindle money intended for the memorial service from members of Senju's party. A scuffle erupts and the group rushes into the teahouse where Benten Kozō is attempting to obtain from Senju a valuable gold incense burner which was a gift to her from Kotarō's family. Tadanobu Rihei, yet another thief who is disguised as an anonymous ''rōnin'', drives them away and diffuses the situation

Believing that it is somehow her possession of the incense burner which has brought such violence and trouble to her and her party, Senju gives it to "Kotarō" for safekeeping. The pair then leave the temple for Mt. Mikoshi-ga-take as Rihei and Rikimaru fight for the 100 ''ryō'' stolen from the memorial service.

Act II

Senju and "Kotarō" hike up the mountain for some time, Kozō treating her quite nicely and playing the role of her fiancé. However, when she insists upon heading more directly and quickly for his home, he loses the disguise and announces his identity to her, explaining that he was named Benten Kozō after his home, the island of Benten-jima. His possession of Kotarō's flute, Chidori, being what originally convinced her that he was her betrothed, he concocts an explanation of how he came to obtain it. He explains that Kotarō came to him as a poor and ill traveler who asked him to safeguard the flute and to exchange it for the incense burner, just before he died. In truth, Benten Kozō took care of Kotarō before killing him for his money and taking the flute.

Betrayed and overwrought, Senju throws herself into a ravine, as a voice is heard from off-stage, announcing a desire for the golden object. Nippon Daemon, a great thief respected by all others, appears and demands that Kozō join him, and gather a band of other thieves for him. In exchange, he explains, he will allow Benten to keep the incense burner.

In the following scene, Senju is seen to have survived, and comes across Akaboshi Jūzaburō, who is preparing to commit ''seppuku'' (suicide) for his failure to rob her earlier. The two console one another, though in the end Senju throws herself once again into the ravine, killing herself. Jūzaburō returns to his preparations, but is stopped by Tadanobu Rihei, who gives him the 100 ''ryō'' stolen from Senju's followers, and convinces him to join him; thus all five thieves are united.

Act III

The climatic act of the play takes place inside the Hamamatsu-ya, a cloth and clothing shop run by Hamamatsuya Kōbei and his son-in-law Sōnosuke. Benten Kozō enters the shop, disguised as a high-ranking young lady seeking to buy wedding clothes, along with Rikimaru who acts as the lady's retainer.

One of the most celebrated elements of this play lies in the acting skills required to act the role of the low-class manly thief who is in turn acting as a classy, refined young woman. As most kabuki actors specialize only in male or female roles for their entire careers, a skillful performance of this scene serves as a dramatic demonstration of an actor's abilities.

The "lady" is shown a number of silks and brocades possibly suitable for her wedding dress, into which she inserts a small piece of cloth and then removes it, sticking it into her kimono. Noticed by Kōbei, she is accused of stealing, and a scuffle erupts. Rikimaru (as the lady's retainer) manages finally to mediate, with the help of the shop's neighbor and a few others. He shows a receipt from another shop for the scrap of fabric, proving it was not stolen from the Hamamatsu-ya. In the course of the fighting however, the "lady" suffered a blow to her head, for which Rikimaru then demands 100 ''ryō'' as recompense. As the pair prepare to leave with their illicit gains, however, a man by the name of Tamashima Ittō (Nippon Daemon in disguise) emerges from the backroom and points Kozō out, noting that the cherry blossom tattoo peeking out under his sleeves reveals him as a man.

Discovered, Kozō removes his outermost kimono, reveals his tattooed arm, and begins to explain his true identity, in one of the most popular monologues in the kabuki repertoire. Rikimaru also removes his samurai disguise, and Tamashima, acting outraged, offers to cut off the thieves' heads. Kōbei instead takes pity on them, and lets them go, even offering some plaster or salve for Kozō's injury.

The pair leave, and walk along the streets taking turns carrying the disguises and discussing how to split the money. This serves to introduce some levity and ease the narrative out of the emotional climax of the scene, helping to prepare the audience for the twists and emotion of the following scene, the true climax of the play. Tamashima Ittō is invited into the back room of the shop for a drink, perhaps in part in thanks for pointing out the thieves.

The next scene takes place in this back room. Drunk, Tamashima draws his sword and reveals himself as Nippon Daemon in a rousing speech, before demanding Kōbei hand over all the money in the shop. Though Rikimaru and Kozō have made off with 100 ''ryō'', the entire ordeal was a ruse to help Daemon earn Kōbei's trust, and to get himself into the back room. Sōnosuke throws himself between the two, offering his own life instead of that of his father-in-law; Daemon stops, noting that he once had a son who would be roughly Sōnosuke's age. The two older men begin to talk about their pasts and come to the realization that not only is Daemon Sōnosuke's true father, but Kōbei is in fact Kozō's true father. Both men, for differing reasons, lost their sons at a crowded ritual ceremony at the Hase-dera over a decade prior, and agree to forget about Daemon's criminal scheme as they thank one another for taking care of one another's sons, though Kōbei does ask that Daemon attempt to turn all five of the thieves away from their lives of crime.

Kozō learns through this exchange that Kōbei was once a retainer of the Koyama family to which Princess Senju belongs. If Kōbei can return the stolen incense burner, he'll be reinstated as a samurai. As the police descend upon the shop, Kōbei offers Daemon a set of formal clothes ordered several days prior by the thieves.

Act IV

''Inasegawa Seizoroi no Ba'' (“Act IV: Inase River Monologues) by Toyokuni Utagawa III, 1862
---- From left: Sanjūrō Seki III as Nippon-daemon, Kumesaburō Iwai I (the future Hanshirō Iwai VIII) as Jūzaburō Akaboshi, Shikan Nakamura IV as Rikimaru Nangō, Gonjūrō Kawarazaki I (the future Danjūrō Ichikawa IX) as Rihei Tadanobu, and Uzaemon Ichimura XIII (the future Kikugorō Onoe V) as Benten-kozō Kikunosuke. The single scene of the fourth act takes place on the banks of the Inase River where, surrounded by the police and clad in formal kimono, all five reveal their identities and life stories in celebrated monologues. They then overcome the police and flee.

Act V

The final act takes place at the Gokuraku-ji, where Kozō battles the police while searching for the lost incense burner. One of his band, who informed on him to the police, steals away the incense burner, and after a long battle, Kozō commits suicide on the roof of the temple gate, seeking to atone for all his crimes.

The transition to the next scene is likely one of the largest, and most famous, ''keren'' stage tricks in kabuki. The entire roof tilts backwards and out of the way, revealing Nippon Daemon standing on a veranda within the temple gate. He stands and watches the police search for him. Two of the thieves appear, convey the news of Kozō's death, and then attack him, explaining that they were policemen in disguise the entire time.

Daemon throws off the attack, and spots Aoto Fujitsuna, the top official after whom the play was originally named, on a small bridge down below. Aoto explains that his men found the incense burner in the river, and intend to return it to its rightful owners. Relieved, Daemon resolves to ask to be arrested, but Aoto generously offers to instead let him be at least until the end of the memorial service of the late ''shōgun''; Daemon promises to turn himself in later in the day, and leaves.

As described in a review in a film magazine, three members of the chorus of a Broadway show, Sally, the worldly-wise chorine in search of a sugar daddy, Irene, the dreamer, sought after by one of the Broadway wolves and also by a fine young chap, and Mary, an innocent little Irish girl who almost gets singed by the Bright Lights. Sally's wealthy protector sees in Mary a new beauty and falls for her. Sally is dazzled and resents the attitude of her sweetheart who is a plumber. Irene succumbs to the lure of the Broadway wolf but, in a moment of goodness, he sends her home before it is too late. She marries the other fellow but they are killed when a train hits their honeymoon automobile. Sally's genuine grief and real love for her moneyed friend coupled with her unmasking of his real character, together with Irene's sudden death, so impress Mary that she says Broadway will never get her. Leaving the sordidness behind, she returns to her plumber sweetheart and settles down.

Professor Forster is a distinguished scientist on an expedition with the spacecraft ''Arnold Toynbee''. He determines that the innermost satellite of Jupiter, Jupiter V, is a parked spacecraft from "Culture X", an ancient race of reptiles from outside the Solar System. Culture X coexisted with insectoid Martians, and settled the smaller rocky planets and moons throughout the Solar System apart from the Moon of the Earth. Jupiter V is discovered to be a spherical metal vehicle with a diameter of 30 kilometers. It contains an art gallery with millions of exhibits. One of the art objects is a depiction of a member of Culture X, which Forster dubs "The Ambassador".

It becomes clear that "The Ambassador" was intended explicitly for Mankind. Culture X predicted that intelligent life would develop on Earth and eventually achieve space flight; the statue is a message of greeting and goodwill spanning the gulf of time between its creators' ancient extinction and the arrival of the space travelers from Earth.

A science writer, Randolph Mays, arrives with his pilot and his secretary. Forster takes advantage of a loophole in space law and claims salvage rights to Jupiter V in the name of the World Science Organization. Mays tries to steal "The Ambassador" and other art objects, but Forster turns Mays' companions against him, forcing him to return the stolen items.

Along the Venetian seaside, on the morning of September 8, 1943, Alberto Innocenzi, junior NCO of the Royal Italian Army is shocked when (in response to the separate surrender signed by the Badoglio government in Cassibile) the former allies of the Wehrmacht surround and take by storm the base where he's stationed. Innocenzi, along with some disbanded soldiers, manages to distance the German troops and is thoroughly shocked when, contrary to his plan of finding a higher echelon to which to report, most of the men accept the fact that the war is over for them and "everybody should just go home".

This reaction at first angers him, but in the end he joins army engineer Ceccarelli and sergeant Fornaciari in discarding their uniforms for civilian clothes and heading southwards for a veritable odyssey along the Italian "boot", cut in two by German and Allied occupation and wracked by partisan warfare, bloody reprisals, German press-ganging and other perils. The trio meets a band of anti-fascist guerrillas but decline to join them (while an Italian army captain they met along the road does). Later Innocenzi, caught in the "everybody for himself" mentality which seems to dominate the landscape, succumbs to the temptation of abandoning his mates to help a sultry black marketeer smuggle a load of flour to Rome, as she needs a driver and does not have room for any other passengers. The deal goes awry due to a mechanical failure in a rubble-strewn town where the famished populace plunders the lorry, and after some recriminations and a brief scuffle, Innocenzi rejoins his companions. They witness the killing of a rookie, a naive Italian soldier who tried to protect a Jewish girl during a German roundup; finally they manage to reach Fornaciari's rural home.

The former sergeant is delighted of having returned to his young wife, children and old father and offers Innocenzi and Ceccarelli hospitality for the night; his wife reveals that the family has been hiding a former U.S. POW who escaped from the Folpiano prison camp to protect him from the fascist militia patrols and Fornaciari, albeit grudgingly, accepts to keep protecting him. After a darkly humorous polenta dinner (served farm-style with salsa over a wooden table, where Innocenzi and the U.S. officer end up arguing over the right of reaching for the sausage length placed at the table's centre) they all go to sleep but a nighttime fascist patrol breaks in and manages to find the Allied serviceman. Amidst the children's cries and his wife's weeping, Fornaciari is hauled away toward a grim fate, and Ceccarelli and Innocenzi flee the premises without being able to help.

The couple manages to reach Littoria (now Latina), where Innocenzi's widowed father lives alone and offers Ceccarelli (who is Neapolitan) to stay a few days before resuming his travel south. Innocenzi is shocked when his father introduces him to a fascist party leader who is recruiting men for the army of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana, the fascist puppet state instituted by the Germans after the liberation of Benito Mussolini from his Gran Sasso exile. His father angrily responds to his objections, citing the misery he's living in and all the sacrifices he incurred to allow make him to study and become an army officer; a deep rift is created between father and son, and Innocenzi asks Ceccarelli to take him south to Naples as well, to which the engineer happily consents.

However, Naples is in grimmer conditions than Rome, directly on the line of fire after the Allied landing at Salerno, barely kept under control by brutal German detachments who round up able-bodied men to send them to Germany as slave workers. To reach the city the duo passes through a roadblock manned by fanatical, hungry fascists; Ceccarelli, generously chooses to sacrifice a suitcase of delicacies he was meant to deliver to the wife of his commanding officer (who had signed his dismissal on health grounds due to his persistent stomach ulcer). The situation (with the offering readily accepted by the roadblock patrol) causes Innocenzi much panic, having had raided the case during a night-time train trip and substituting the goods with stones and newspaper sheets; he urges his companion to run away before the fascists open it, but they are unsuccessful.

Innocenzi and Ceccarelli are pressed in an Organisation Todt rubble-clearing chain gang and manage to escape when the city rises against the occupiers in the Four days of Naples. Desperately trying to reach his home, which is just a few blocks away, Ceccarelli is cut down in a hail of German fire, at which time Innocenzi decides that the real war to be waged is that against the Nazi occupiers and joins an insurgent band offering to man the Breda M 37 machine gun they have captured but cannot operate. With a renewed stern look on his face, Innocenzi opens fire against the Germans, bringing the movie to a close.

In 1857, Joel Shore (Ramon Novarro), the carefree youngest son of a seafaring family, has a flirtatious friendship with Priscilla Crowninshield (Joan Crawford), and he eventually falls in love with her. However, unbeknownst to him, Priscilla has been betrothed to Joel's much older brother, Mark (Ernest Torrence). The wedding is announced in church as a surprise, and Joel and Priscilla are both shocked, with Priscilla refusing to kiss Mark after the betrothal ceremony.

Mark, a ship's captain, sails to Singapore, accompanied by Joel and their other brothers. Priscilla tells Joel she had no idea about the marriage and tries to kiss him, but Joel is hurt and rebuffs Priscilla's advances before he leaves. At the same time, Mark, mad about Priscilla spurning him, drinks heavily during the voyage and begins to see hallucinations of Priscilla. He senses that Priscilla loves someone else and threatens to harm whoever it is, but Joel tells him she does not love anyone but Mark. Mark continues to drink once they arrive in Singapore, but a conspiratorial crew led by Finch (Jim Mason) sails from Singapore without him, with Mark killed in a bar fight. Joel is put in handcuffs for allegedly not coming to his brother's aid during the fight.

Reaching home, Joel is freed; he finds Priscilla, and, taking her with him, he returns to Singapore for Mark, as he does not believe Mark is dead. They arrive in Singapore six months after having left, and find Mark a drunken mess. Mark sees that Priscilla does not love him, and he steps aside for his brother.

This stars Malisa Longo as the cruel Nazi Elsa, a former hooker with a penchant for S&M, a love for leather boots and nakedness, and a hatred of the French Resistance. It is set during the final days of World War II. The Third Reich plans to reward good Nazi officers and weed out traitors by sending a "Pleasure Train" through Europe. The train is populated by beautiful prostitutes who will service soldiers while gaining info on those who had betrayed the Reich.

The film begins with the birth of twin princes. Their father, the emperor of Yamato, feels a great loathing for his one child Ousu. Being convinced that this feeling is a premonition, the emperor orders the shaman Tsukinowa to kill the boy, yet his efforts are spoiled by Amano Shiratori, the White Bird of the Heavens. The emperor's sister, seeing this as a clear sign of divine intervention, takes it upon herself to raise the child. Years later, when the boy has matured into a man, he is given pardon by his father and allowed to return to the castle. However, not long after, his mother falls ill and dies mysteriously. This sends his brother into a rage and causes him to attack Ousu, who defends himself and kills his sibling in the process. His father, furious at these events, orders his son to leave the castle and not return until the barbarians living in the Kumaso domain are dealt with. The prince makes haste to complete this task, stopping off at a shrine on his way where, after a quick battle, he befriends a young priestess named Oto who joins him on his journey. They, along with companions Genbu and Seriyu, raid the castle, killing Kumaso Takeru and their god Kumasogami. Following this feat, the prince changes his name to Yamato Takeru, yet fails to win the acceptance of his father. His aunt, though, warns him of a great threat looming overhead, as the god Tsukuyomi is poised to return, endangering the Earth. Yamato Takeru must prepare to halt this from occurring. She tells him to bring the enchanted Sword of Dark Clouds to her for safekeeping as it holds a good deal of the god's power. He secures the sword but is tricked by the shaman Tsukinowa, revealed as Tsukuyomi's acolyte, into surrendering it, thus inadvertently restoring the evil lunar deity to full power. Tsukinowa also reveals that it was he who killed Ousu's mother and brother to frame Ousu. A full eclipse falls over earth as the moon god blots out the light of the sun. Takeru is told by the deity Susano'o that his divinely ordained destiny is to destroy Tsukuyomi with the aid of Oto, who is the incarnation of the sun goddess Amaterasu. Susano'o tests him by having him pull a sword from a stone, and tells him that it is the only weapon that can kill Tsukuyomi. Together, Takeru and Oto are transported to the moon to face the evil god, who transforms himself into Orochi, the legendary eight-headed dragon. The young heroes are joined by Amano Shiratori in the form of a giant white phoenix, and riding the bird they launch an aerial attack on the dragon. The battle appears impossible and at one point it seems they have both lost their lives, but Oto, taking Takeru's hand, dissolves into light and gives him her life energy. He realizes that the prophecy - that he would become a warrior of the gods once he possessed three lights - has come true, as he now has the shrine mirror, the enchanted sword, and the solar light of Oto's spirit. Takeru transforms into a gigantic golden-armored warrior named Utsuno Ikusagami, who fights and defeats the dragon. When Tsukuyomi falls, Oto is restored to life. Susano'o again appears and tells him to seal the moon god's spirit into his comma-shaped jewel, then cast it into the sky. The eclipse ends and the sun again shines on earth. As Takeru and Oto mount the White Bird to fly home to Earth, Takeru's father says he wants to see his son.

The film starts in a sun-baked and seemingly empty Rome on an August morning during the Ferragosto national holiday. A young, timid law student, Roberto (Trintignant), gazing out his window, is asked by a 36-ish man named Bruno (Gassman), who is passing on the street below at the wheel of a convertible Lancia Aurelia, to make a phone call for him. Roberto tells him to come up and make the call himself. After Bruno fails to contact his friends — he is running a full hour late for his meeting with them, something he apparently doesn't deem a good enough motive for them to have "abandoned" him — he insists on repaying Roberto's courtesy with an aperitivo. Tired of studying for the day and falling prey to Bruno's enthusiasm, Roberto accepts.

Thus begins a cruise along the Via Aurelia, the Roman road that also gives the name to Bruno's beloved car. Roberto is unwilling or unable to part from this casual acquaintance despite having almost nothing in common with him. Bruno is loud, brash, risk taking, a bit coarse, and a braggart to boot. He drives recklessly, speeding and constantly attempting "il sorpasso" — the impatient and aggressive practice of serial tailgating and honking to overtake other cars on the road. He is also charming and likable, however, and Roberto feels drawn to Bruno's impulsive, devil-may-care attitude.

Over two days of highs and lows across the coasts of Lazio and Tuscany, the two men fall into various adventures while gradually learning more about each other. They spontaneously drop in on Roberto's relatives, and, as a result of some of Bruno's observations, Roberto realizes his childhood was not as golden as he had remembered it. Later, he finds out about Bruno's failed marriage and teenage daughter, which reveals a life not nearly as carefree as the one Bruno pretends to lead.

Firmly rejected by his wife, whom he had not divorced years ago as expected, Bruno wakes Roberto and suggests they sleep on the beach. The next morning, on a now-crowded beach, Bruno hits on some young women, and is surprised to find one is his daughter in disguise. Taking this as a suggestion to reconnect with his lost daughter, they swim and boat together, leaving Roberto to ingratiate drinks and food on his own. Later, Bruno wins some money at ping-pong, he and Roberto drink some, then decide to return to Rome before dark.

The bonding and emerging friendship between the two men is cut short when, spurred on by an enlivened Roberto, Bruno attempts to overtake another car on the blind curve of a cliffside road. He swerves to avoid an oncoming truck and is thrown from the car. Roberto goes over the cliff in the car, leaving a bloodied and shocked Bruno by the side of the road. When a police officer arrives and asks Bruno about the man who went over the edge, Bruno realizes he does not even know Roberto's last name.

Mrs. Caroline Fish Carillon searches for her missing husband, Leon. They were married as children to solidify a business arrangement between their parents who had started a soup company. After several years apart, they plan to meet again as adults. During a sailing trip, Leon (who has changed his name to Noel), falls overboard. He shouts a message to his wife which is partially obscured by his going underwater: "Noel (glub) see (blub) all... I (glub) new..." When she recovers in the hospital and learns that her husband has checked out with no further news, Mrs. Carillon is convinced the answer to his whereabouts are contained in the mysterious message. She spends years trying to interpret the "glub-blubs", eventually enlisting her adopted twin children, Tony and Tina, and childhood friend, Augie Kunkel. When they finally figure out the truth, they are quite surprised.

An elderly couple on a horse-drawn carriage is attacked by a gang led by Morgan (Kinski). Sartana (Garko) arrives on the scene and kills the robbers except for Morgan who gets away. Soon after, a stagecoach carrying a shipment of gold is robbed by a Mexican gang at the order of General Jose Manuel Mendoza (Sancho), with a gang member posing as a passenger murdering the others. However, the gang is ambushed and killed by Lasky (Berger) and his men. Lasky then tells his gang that he will meet them later. As the men are about to open the strongbox from the coach, Lasky kills them all with a Gatling gun. After opening the strongbox, he finds only rocks instead of gold. Spooked by Sartana's playing one of the murdered passengers' musical watch, he heads to town to meet with Jeff Stewal (Sydney Chaplin), a politician, and Alman (Gianni Rizzo), a banker, to collect his payment as part of an insurance fraud.

Sartana cleans Lasky out, as well as four other men, in a card game, and outguns the four when they go after him. Lasky collects a gang and goes after Sartana, who lures them to the scene of Lasky's previous massacre. Realizing what Lasky has done, the gang turn on him and chase him to a cabin which Lasky has boobytrapped with dynamite. Lasky detonates the explosives, wiping out his own men, but the watching Sartana again spooks him and allows him to get away. Lasky then sends Morgan, his now-partner, to kill Sartana, but Morgan fails and is killed himself. Another gang hired by Lasky is wiped out by Sartana, who again deliberately lets Lasky escape. After Lasky blackmails Stewal and Alman and the news about the robbed stagecoach finally breaks, the two inform Mendoza that it was Lasky who killed his men. Mendoza's men capture Lasky and try to make him talk, thinking that he knows where the gold is hidden. Lasky tells him that only Sartana knows the location of the gold.

Meanwhile, Stewal, who has been having an affair with the late mayor's widow, plans to escape with the gold, supposedly hidden in the late mayor's coffin, and Alman's wife Evelyn (Heidi Fischer). After Sartana tells him that Mendoza is going to dig up the coffin with the gold and keep it all for himself, Stewal goes to check if it is true and is killed by Mendoza's men. Thinking that Mendoza now has the gold, Lasky sneaks into his residence and kills him and his men with his Gatling gun. Sartana also arrives and the two open the coffin, only to discover it filled with rocks and the mayor's corpse instead of gold. Lasky then shoots Sartana and apparently kills him. The gold has been hidden by Alman, who has killed the mayor's widow and now tells his plan to his wife. Evelyn betrays and kills him, then takes Lasky to the gold, which has been hidden in another coffin. Lasky kills Evelyn, but when Sartana appears alive and unharmed the two engage in a final duel. Lasky is killed and Sartana rides out of town with the coffin full of gold.

''Modoc'' tells the true story of Bram Gunterstein (the German son of a third-generation circusn animal trainer) and his pet elephant, Modoc, both born on the same day in 1896. In the novelization, Bram’s father has long wished for a boy and a girl, and quickly feels that his dream has just been fulfilled. From an early age, Bram follows in his father’s footsteps; and Bram’s family is unique in the way they train the elephants: instead of threat and intimidation, the pachyderms are treated with praise and respect. Once old enough, Modoc begins to perform in the circus. But soon, the circus owner falls ill, and the circus itself is sold to an American, Mr. North. Bram, unwilling to be parted from his beloved elephant, acts as a stowaway across the Indian Ocean.

The ship is wrecked, leaving Modoc, Mr. Pitt, Bram and others adrift in the ocean. The survivors stay afloat on Modoc’s back until help comes at the last possible second. Modoc and Bram recuperate in India, where Bram learns much about elephant training and care at the Elephantarium, as well as Indian life, before becoming a favorite “son of the Maharaja”. Afraid that Mr. North will find them, the boy and his elephant companion flee into the teak forests, and soon find themselves joining the ranks of the mahouts, among whom Bram marries a village daughter because of his newly acquired status. However, rebels eventually take over the town, killing Bram’s wife along with many of the local people.

Mr. North, the new circus owner, is inexplicably able to find Modoc and Bram through the rebellion, and transports them to America, where they become reluctant stars. Modoc survives a poisoning attempt, a fire, and a hook-wielding drunk, before the circus owner decides she is too scarred to appear in the ring and sells her without Bram's knowledge – Bram is dismayed at this news.

Ten years pass, during which Modoc’s life deteriorates into abuse, until she is finally purchased by Ralph Helfer, a Hollywood animal trainer, who nurses her back to health, and is surprised to find the variety of acts she already knows. Drawn by their supernatural connection, Bram locates her some years later. They spend the rest of their lives in constant contact at Helfer’s ranch, nursing one another through old age. In the story’s ending, Bram is the first of the pair to die, saying he is going to show Modoc the way.

On a magical tropical island called Tikiwoo in the 1950s, a fun-loving group of misfit animals and people make a marvelous discovery: a baby dinosaur frozen since prehistoric times. Little Impy, as they call him, is loving his new family and ready to explore the strange new world. But when a king from a faraway country vows to capture the lovable baby dino for his private collection, all the inhabitants of Impy's island must join together to save their new friend.

Professor Alex Bolt has developed a new universal language, Unispeak, which has made him internationally famous, winning a Nobel Prize at a surprise ceremony. His wife Rhonda has made a sculpture of her husband at the behest of the US State Department, commissioned by his friend, US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ray Whitely, for $50,000, in order to promote Unispeak. It is intended that the sculpture be unveiled in London's Grosvenor Square.

The sculpture is an 18-foot Greco-Roman style nude statue of Alex. He is embarrassed and fears it will cause a PR disaster and jeopardise his status. The two fight over whether the statue should be exhibited at all; further, Alex becomes enraged when he realises that the only parts of the statue to not resemble himself are the genitals.

Rhonda points out that she has only seen Alex eighteen days in the past three years. Rhonda is intensely amorous for Alex, but angrily rejects his company over the statue argument. Alex becomes convinced that Rhonda has had an affair and that her illicit model, whom he dubs "Charlie", must be the model for the mystery genitals. Meanwhile, Ray, who has no idea about the statue's appearance, fights with Alex over the unveiling of the statue. He begins to use CIA operatives to tail Alex and photograph his movements in an attempt to ruin and discredit him.

Alex seeks advice from his friend Harry, an advertising man trained as a psychiatrist. Members of the British government inform him that the statue is technically defamation if it doesn't represent his private parts accurately, so on Harry's advice, he tries to track down the model of the statue in order to prove the culprit and thus get it suppressed entirely.

Alex interrogates a household employee, Joachim, who thinks Alex is accusing him of an affair with his wife and attacks him. Joachim proceeds to give information to the Portuguese embassy, which makes it to Ray, who steps up his spying campaign. Alex then goes to a Turkish bathhouse to interview possible Charlies, but is caught by the attendant and thrown out.

Harry suggests that Alex move on and forget about it, to which he ultimately commits. He surprises Rhonda with an array of thoughtful notes and gifts and a heartfelt apology, and the two retire to their bed in the first time in years. However, the enormous statue casts a shadow visible from the bedroom, and Alex becomes functionally impotent at the reminder. Alex and Rhonda fight once again, and Alex resumes the search for "Charlie".

Ray and his team of American diplomats have become increasingly disturbed as they catalogue Alex's various attempts to view men's genitals, believing him to be a pervert. Ray attempts to manipulate and seduce Rhonda in her loneliness, and Rhonda shows Ray the statue. Ray immediately reverses plans, as he too fears the effects of the statue's unveiling. After cornering Alex with the evidence of his seemingly-perverted activities, the two come to a truce, with Ray sending his CIA and American military assets to help him track down the last few suspects.

Many hijinks and cul-de-sacs later, Alex has truly begun to give up hope for the mission. Harry meanwhile encourages him to pursue the final candidate, a sculptor living in Florence. Ray meanwhile decides to betray both Alex and Rhonda, by having two special military operatives break into Rhonda's studio and saw the private parts off of the statue. The operatives leave no evidence, and Rhonda becomes convinced that Alex did this; when Alex turns up again with another apology, she accuses him of deceit.

Alex decides to track down the final possible culprit; the Italian police are after him thanks to Ray and Rhonda, but he eventually tracks down what turns out to be an elderly sculptor who mentored Rhonda years ago. The sculptor directs Alex to find someone "well known" in a town square in Venice, and after a hectic police chase, Alex discovers the model source all along: the statue of ''David'' by Michelangelo.

Ray, believing that Rhonda is going to scrap the statue and make a new one, has the severed genitals discarded by a roadside, where they are immediately discovered by truant schoolboys and presented to their teacher. Ultimately, at the grand unveiling at the ceremony, Rhonda reveals that the statue has been recompleted, with exposed genitals and all – only that the head has been remodeled to resemble Ray.

Rodolfo Peñareal is obsessed with having a male child. After many miscarriages, his wife Blanca is pregnant again. One night, a girl is born, but they believe that she was born dead.

In the same town, in another, more humble house, a boy is born, but his mother dies during labor. The midwife and Crisanta, the nanny of Blanca, with their best intention and with the aim to calm down Rodolfo, decide to exchange the children.

While Blanca is unconscious, Crisanta gives a pair of emerald earrings to the midwife, forcing her to forget what happened on that night. Once the exchange is done, the midwife Dominga, discovers that the girl is not dead, but now it is too late to right the wrong.

In this way, the boy that was born in a miserable hut sees his first light in the opulence of a big house, while the sweet little girl who was entitled to a golden crib, gives her first steps among ramshackle walls and misery.

Esmeralda, the Peñareal's baby girl, was born blind, but the kindness of her heart provides her the light to be happy and the illusion to believe that someday she will meet love. Her eyes are the "eyes of love".

Time passes and the destiny of both of the children, Esmeralda and José Armando, comes across as they instantly fall in love. However, the obsession, the wish, the family interests, the false love of a woman and the Peñareal's pride to make their lineage prevail, destroy any noble feeling.

Esmeralda and José Armando are the victims in this sea of resentment that, little by little, submerges them into the darkness of indifference.

''Red Doors'' tells the story of the Wongs, a Chinese-American family in the New York City suburbs. While the title of the film refers to the red door of the Wong's house in New York, red doors are said to bring good luck. Throughout the film, the red door is a sign for luck for the many struggles the Wongs must face.

After retiring, Ed Wong (Tzi Ma) plans to escape from his life in the suburbs, yet his daughters have other plans.

Samantha (Jacqueline Kim) is the eldest daughter of the Wongs. She is a businesswoman in New York and engaged to Mark (Jayce Bartok). When facing her thirtieth birthday, Samantha runs into Alex (Rossif Sutherland) which forces her to reevaluate her career and love life.

Julie (Elaine Kao) is the shy middle sister of the Wongs. She is a fourth-year medical student who enjoys ballroom classes. Always quiet and center of the family, Julies begins to question her life choices as she meets Mia Scarlett (Mia Riverton).

Katie (Kathy Shao-Lin Lee) is the youngest Wong sister. In her senior year of high school Katie is involved in a prank war with Simon (Sebastian Stan). As the movie continues the pranks escalate between the neighbors and longtime nemesis.

Before disappearing, Ed decides to relive his family's history through VHS footage. Between the happier past and cold reality, Ed feels it is best to leave home. While the Wongs each face their own struggles, the family learns to communicate again through the stories and images of the past.

A tough and violent portrait of a psychopathic, yet fresh-faced youth—the infamous Billy the Kid in his grimy early days.

The plot of ''Code Monkeys'' revolves around the fictitious video game company GameaVision (a play on companies like Activision and Intellivision) and its eccentric employees, mainly the slacker Dave and his high-strung friend Jerry. The entire series takes place in the Silicon Valley city of Sunnyvale, California during the 1980s. ''Code Monkeys'' relies on crude humor and stoner comedy to convey the numerous references to video games, past and present, but mostly games from the 8-bit era. This also extends to cameos from well known video game developers, who appear in the show pitching their ideas to GameaVision for the games that would later make them famous, usually to be rejected, insulted, and sometimes injured or killed off.

Christie Malry, being a "simple man", above all longs for sex and money. In order to understand how money works, he takes a job in a London bank. This leads him to enroll in a bookkeeping course, where he learns the double-entry system. Bored by his bank job, he quits and starts work at Tapper's, a sweet factory.

One day, he has the idea to apply the double-entry system to his life. Every aggravation Malry suffers from society—such as being forced to walk along a particular stretch of pavement due to a building's placement—is revenged by a recompense—in this case, "[scratching] an unsightly line about a yard long into the blackened portland stone facing of the office block" (23–4). Having established this system, and growing progressively more angry at society, Malry graduates from minor acts of personal revenge (mostly vandalism) to large-scale terrorism: bombing hoaxes, an actual bombing, and poisoning West London's drinking water. Shortly before he manages to bomb the House of Commons, he dies of cancer.

Christie compares himself to "Guy Fawkes, with the difference that he was caught" and strictly follows a code of twelve principles. The first principle, "I am a cell of one" (89), forbids him from discussing his actions with anyone else, not even with his few friends or with the Shrike, his beloved girlfriend.

The story revolves around a medical student named Kaoru Futami. His father, Hideyuki, contracts a deadly disease known as Metastatic Human Cancer (MHC), a terminal cancer that affects all forms of organic life: humans, animals and plants. Events lead Hideyuki to tell Kaoru more about a research program he was involved in called the LOOP project: a virtual reality simulator which is meant to represent the emergence of life and how the world most likely evolved. It is known that almost everyone who was involved in the LOOP project has died of the same cancer.

Kaoru takes a part-time job tutoring a boy named Ryoji, which is an asymptomatic carrier of MHC along with his mother, Reiko. Despite her being fifteen years his senior, Kaoru falls in love with Reiko. Eventually, they begin an affair once Ryoji begins chemotherapy. When he finds out, Ryoji commits suicide by falling backwards out of a twelve-story building. About a month afterwards, Kaoru learns from Reiko that she may be pregnant with Kaoru's child. He also reads Ryoji's suicide note, in which he explains his motivation for taking his own life.

As Kaoru continues his investigation into the LOOP project, his father asks him to meet a microbiologist named Amano, was involved in the final stages of LOOP before it was scrapped. Amano reveals that LOOP utilized a hundred supercomputers strung together with the aim to recreate life, and tells Kaoru of a scientist in New Mexico who might still be alive. During this period he also finds out that the MHC cells all equal 2n X 3. Kaoru's mother, Machiko, convinces him to go to New Mexico after relating a tale of the "Ancient One" who has a thousand eyes watching.

Kaoru then ventures to New Mexico, only to find the scientist dead. However, inside the scientist's lab, the computer turns itself on and tells Kaoru to put on a pair of virtual reality goggles and gloves, which brings him into the LOOP simulation. Kaoru experiences a Native American's life who has a wife and two children and is brutally murdered by whites. Coming out of the simulation, Kaoru calls Amano and asks for the coordinates of the events that are crucial to the LOOP evolution: the lives of Asakawa, Takayama and Yamamura. Amano pinpoints the exact coordinates of the events that take place. He also explains how Kaoru can either merge consciousness with people in LOOP or that he watch from afar like a ghost. He then finds out, in complete detail, events from the previous novels navigating from different angles. First he looks at things from Ryuji's eyes, then Asakawa, finally settling on a character named Ando who finds out the truth about Sadako.

Soon after that, he has another discussion with Amano, who knows that the LOOP's creator had intentions to recreate Ryuji's death. By doing so, he could create a clone and insert him into a woman's womb. But what they forgot is that Ryuji's clone would carry the Ring Virus with his genes. Therefore, when Ryuji was reborn, the virus escaped and mutated into the MHC virus.

Desperate to find the cure for the MHC virus, Kaoru ventures deeper west into the desert only to encounter a storm that leaves him on the verge of death. He is then saved by an old man named Eliot who has purposefully crafted all the events to bring Kaoru to him. After essentially resurrecting Kaoru, the man explains what has happened, and that, Kaoru is Ryuji's clone. As a result, Kaoru has an exceptional gift of immunity to the MHC virus. In order to stop the virus from destroying the real world, Kaoru is essentially sent back to the LOOP world as the one who solves (and eventually stops) the Ring virus. One of the main problems is that he cannot come back to the real world to see his father (still in the hospital) or Reiko ever again. In order to save them, he agrees.

Upon accepting, the old man transfers Kaoru's analyzed molecules into the LOOP where he promises that Reiko can see him. In the LOOP, Kaoru solves the problem with the help of Ando. He watches Ando's resurrected son play in the water. Once Ando leaves, Kaoru looks up at the stars wondering about Reiko.

Main character Leah Lawson, 18, is a slave in mid to late 19th century Belize (the colony of British Honduras not having been formed until 1862). The story traces her rise in stature to slaveowner, continuing the tradition of female protagonists in Edgell works.

A village fisherman Jayasena Fernando (Gamini Fonseka) acquires a job in the city at the company where his friend Semanaris (Joe Abeywickrama) works. As Jaya becomes successful he draws the ire of rich boatsman Lalith Hettiarachchi (Carl Gunasena) and the interest of his boss's daughter Surangani (Nilmini De Silva). Jaya gradually forgets about his former girlfriend Karuna (Sobini Amarasinghe) after a misunderstanding with her brother(Vincent Vaas) and begins vying for Sue's attention. In the end Jaya realizes that Sue doesn't matter to him and that he loves Karuna. He decides to go back home after beating Lalith in a motor boat race. Karuna however has married when Jaya returns and the film ends with him contemplating his future to the strains of Amaradeva's voice.

Tony Ranasinghe plays a newspaper reporter who is sympathetic to Jaya.

Meir, a 42-year-old architect from Tel Aviv, is suddenly stricken with the fear of dying. The plot deals with the changes in his life following this realization of his mortality, including an affair with his doctor, the death of his mother, and a trip to Europe. It ends with a birth following Meir's death, which could be seen as Meir's reincarnation as a baby or else as a return to his own birth, following Nietzsche's concept of the eternal return.

It is the cusp of World War I, and all the European powers are arming up. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, diesel-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ fabricated animals as their weaponry. Their ''Leviathan'' is a whale airship, and the most masterful beast in the British fleet.

Aleksandar Ferdinand, prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battle-torn Stormwalker and a loyal crew of men.

Meanwhile, Deryn, a commoner girl, is staying with her brother Jaspert in London. Her father died in a ballooning accident and her mother and aunts want her to grow up as a proper lady. Deryn dreams of joining the Royal Naval Air Service and to serve on one of the great air beasts. In order to do so, she must pose as a boy ("Dylan Sharp"). To pass the starting exam, she goes aloft with a Huxley (a jellyfish-like creature which uses hydrogen to float) to prove her air-worthiness. However, a storm hits while she is aloft, severely tossing Deryn and the Huxley about, and they narrowly survive—she is forced to cut the Huxley loose from its mooring in order to avoid crashing into a nearby building. This results in Deryn and the Huxley being blown out over the North Sea; she is thrilled when she and the Huxley are rescued by the ''Leviathan'', the most famous of the air-beasts, a massive ecosystem comprising many different animals but based largely on a whale. She is inducted into the crew of the ''Leviathan'', and makes friends with the 'Monkey Luddite' Newkirk. The ''Leviathan'''s mission is to transport a top British boffin, or scientist, and a secret package to Constantinople. Deryn is surprised to learn the boffin is a woman, Dr. Nora Barlow, and is afraid Barlow will discover her secret.

In the air over Europe, the ''Leviathan'' comes under attack from German airplanes. The crew fights back and defeats the planes, but not before the great whale's hydrogen bladder is severely punctured. The airship crash-lands in Switzerland on the very glacier where Alek's group is hiding. Alek and Volger witness the crash, but Volger insists they do nothing to interfere, as they will risk giving away their position to the Germans or being captured by the British.

Alek is unable to stomach letting the crew of the ''Leviathan'' suffer out on the ice, and secretly leaves the fortress to bring medicine to the crew of the fallen ship. The first person he finds is an unconscious Deryn, who had fallen from the rigging during the crash. Alek revives her and claims unconvincingly to be a Swiss villager. Deryn is suspicious of him and sounds the alarm, resulting in Alek's capture. Alek continues to insist he is just a bystander trying to help, but the captain refuses to release him and instead leaves him under Deryn's charge. The secret cargo brought by Dr. Barlow is revealed to be eggs of some kind, though most were destroyed in the crash.

Alek's "family" comes to his rescue, and battle almost erupts between the two sides, but Deryn's quick thinking in bringing Alek to the front and holding him as a hostage brings everyone together to talk under a flag of truce. Realizing their differences are outweighed by their similarities, Alek offers a sizable chunk from their food storage so the ship can replenish its hydrogen supply and take off again. However, as they travel back to the ''Leviathan'', two German zeppelins appear and send out commandos to capture them. Unfortunately, one of the zeppelins escapes, and the Stormwalker is severely damaged by an aerial bomb, making it impossible to stand up and repair.

Thanks to the diplomacy of Dr. Barlow and a bright idea from Alek, the two groups decide to combine their technologies and leave together as one group. Alek also admits his true origins to Deryn/Dylan and Dr. Barlow when he realizes he let a few too many things slip. The Austrians dismantle the Stormwalker and use its engines to replace those lost by the Leviathan. The Austrian engines prove to be much more powerful than its previous ones, propelling them quickly away from danger and Herkules, a deadly Clanker ship.

In the aftermath, Dr. Barlow reveals information about a fabricated ship in England that was sold to the Ottoman Empire but then taken back by Winston Churchill despite being paid in full, thus creating tension between the British and the Ottomans. The novel closes with the Leviathan continuing its flight towards Constantinople with Alek watching the mysterious eggs that will hatch into some unknown fabricated species.

Psychotherapist Paul Weston has a private practice where he carries out sessions with his patients in his Baltimore home. He begins to question his own abilities and motives, so he seeks help from his former mentor and therapist Gina Toll, whom he has not seen for ten years.

Pascal, a physician in Plassans for 30 years, has spent his life cataloging and chronicling the lives of his family based on his theories of heredity. Pascal believes that everyone's physical and mental health and development can be classified based on the interplay between innateness (reproduction of characteristics based in difference) and heredity (reproduction based in similarity). Using his own family as a case study, Pascal classifies the 30 descendants of his grandmother Adelaïde Fouque (Tante Dide) based on this model.

Pascal has developed a serum he hopes will cure hereditary and nervous diseases (including consumption) and improve if not prolong life. His niece Clotilde sees Pascal's work as denying the omnipotence of God and as a prideful attempt to comprehend the unknowable. She encourages him to destroy his work, but he refuses. (Like other members of the family, Pascal is somewhat obsessive in the pursuit of his passion.) Pascal's explains his goal as a scientist as laying the groundwork for happiness and peace by seeking and uncovering the truth, which he believes lies in the science of heredity. After he shows her the Rougon-Macquart family tree and demonstrates his refusal to sugarcoat the family's acts, Clotilde begins to agree with him. Her love for him solidifies her faith in his theories and his lifelong work.

Clotilde and Pascal eventually begin a romance, much to the chagrin of his mother Félicité. (She is less concerned about the incestuous nature of the relationship than by the fact that the two are living together out of wedlock.) Félicité wants to keep the family secrets buried at any cost, including several family skeletons living nearby: her alcoholic brother-in-law Antoine Macquart and her centenarian mother-in-law Tante Dide. When Clotilde's brother Maxime asks Clotilde to come to Paris, Félicité sees this as an opportunity to control Pascal and access his papers to destroy them.

Pascal suffers a series of heart attacks, and Clotilde is not able to return from Paris before he dies. Félicité immediately burns all of Pascal's scholarly work and the documents she considers incriminating. The novel, and the entire 20-novel series, concludes with the birth of Pascal and Clotilde's son and the hope placed on him for the future of the family.

In ''Hunting Mister Heartbreak'', Raban sets off from the Port of Liverpool on board the 56,000 ton container ship ''Atlantic Conveyor'', following in the footsteps of the first emigrants to America ("Having arrived in Liverpool, I took ship for the New World.") His meandering journey takes him to New York City, whose inhabitants he divides into the Street People - poor New Yorkers who have to face the daily threat of poverty and mugging - and the Air People - rich New Yorkers who rely on elevators to keep them off street level.

He leaves New York in distaste and proceeds in his hired car down to the Deep South, choosing to lie up for a time as a temporary resident of Guntersville, Alabama, a town which he immediately takes a liking to on one of his stopovers. He decides to devote some time to meeting the residents and absorbing the local lifestyle in his rented lakeside cabin in the company of Gypsy, an old black lab bitch on loan to scare off the anonymous caller who keeps on making threatening calls in the middle of the night. He then makes his way up to Seattle and rents a room in the Josephinum Residence. From here, he makes forays into the city and comes across some of the Korean immigrants who have struggled to carve out a new life for themselves in America. The books ends with Raban's search for the end of America in the Florida Keys, "the Land of Cockaigne". To fully explore and familiarise himself with the character of the Keys, he hires ''Sea Mist'', a 32-foot sloop:

The story follows a group of scientists, two geologists (Barton and Davis) and a palaeontologist (Fowler), who are excavating dinosaur footprints. They come across two physicists (Barnes and Henderson) who are investigating a strange liquid that exhibits negentropy, which Davis describes as being akin to "Time's Arrow" as "Any clock you care to mention – a pendulum for instance – might just as easily run forward as backward. But entropy is a strictly one-way affair – it's always increasing with the passage of time. Hence the expression, 'Time's Arrow'". This causes the realisation that negentropy could result in a reversal of time.

Fowler is invited to visit Henderson's lab, during which time the two geologists come to believe that the physicist is trying to effectively build a way to view the past firsthand. Henderson confirms their conclusion and asks Fowler to join him during the machine's first test run. The dig continues and the team discovers that the footprints give off the impression that the dinosaur was chasing something. Fowler sets off for the lab via Jeep, shortly after which Davis sees the lab explode and the surrounding area ripple. He returns to alert Barton, who has discovered that the dinosaur tracks are accompanied by Jeep tyre prints, implying that the dinosaur had chased after and subsequently trampled Fowler.

The story is set in the immediate aftermath of a global nuclear war that has wiped out mankind and describes in great detail the devastation it has caused to a small town. In the end, the town is revealed as Stratford-upon-Avon, with the epitaph on the grave of William Shakespeare providing both the location and the title of the story.

Employing a third-person objective narrator and a very matter-of-fact style, the story achieves a chilling effect despite completely omitting descriptions of human tragedy and suffering. Instead, it merely shows the bleakness of the completely depopulated ruins of the town and surrounding landscape, interspersed with sparse hints of how its destruction fit into the global events. Concepts like mutual assured destruction, nuclear overkill and (insufficient) missile defence systems are also hinted at.

A swarm of disembodied aliens, whose home world was destroyed, are in search of an animal species which they can inhabit and guide to intelligence. While many, the swarm operates as a single being. They wander the cosmos and growing weary, find a reptilian species that appeared promising but were not as evolved as the swarm would prefer. The swarm debates leaving the planet and continuing the search or leaving a portion of itself behind. It is decided that it would be wise to leave part of the swarm on the planet, where it can watch the hosts evolve until they are ready to properly guide. The rest will continue to travel and will return if they found a better potential home.

Each year the swarm-possessed hosts will travel to a certain location on the planet's surface in search of the swarm's return. As much time passes the location sinks into the ocean, however the hosts continue to seek this location out. They continue to guide the hosts' evolution, going from small reptiles to tiny furry beasts that produce live young. During this evolution the swarm portion realizes that they chose their hosts poorly, as their intelligence only diminishes rather than grow, but can do nothing as their strength grows increasingly weaker and they lose parts of their memory. The pilgrimage now becomes a point of desperation, as they hope to get reabsorbed by the main swarm and regain what they have lost. Time continues to progress until all that is left of the swarm is the urge to travel to the set location.

The story then cuts to modern day, where a man and woman are taking a trip on a pleasure steamer. The woman notices a group of animals gathered on the shore of a nearby island and wonders why they exhibit such strange behaviors. The man replies that the reason is unknown before guiding his partner inside. As the steamer leaves, the lemmings on the beach continue their migration into the ocean despite having no memory or idea as to why.

Karan Malhotra is a spirited and happy-go-lucky boy who does not follow the rules. Sana is the opposite of Karan: a sweet and shy girl who lives life by the rules. Even though they are completely opposite, they fall in love, leading to a magical love story.

A scientist, Dr. Yatinder Khanna, has dedicated 15 years of his life in building a time machine. Sana expresses a wish to time-travel to Mumbai in the year 2050, but she is killed in an accident before her marriage to Karan. Karan wishes to travel back in time and find Sana. Dr. Yatinder, Karan, and Sana's siblings, Rahul and Thea, travel forward in time and reach Mumbai in 2050. They are fascinated by the futuristic Mumbai, with its flying cars, holograms, robots, 200-story buildings and more.

Twists and turns lead to the introduction of Ziesha, the reincarnation of Sana. Ziesha is a popular singer in 2050 who does not remember her past life, but gets flashbacks of it after meeting Karan. Unlike Sana, Ziesha is an arrogant, headstrong and rebellious girl who does not believe in love. She leads a lonely life after the death of her parents, which has embittered her.

Karan and the others find themselves under the threat of the demi-god, Dr. Hoshi. After Karan tells Ziesha he loves her, he is taken away from her by the guards. Ziesha does not believe him when he tells her about his time travel. However, after reading Sana's diary, Ziesha ultimately remembers her past life. Karan returns to her and she declares her love for him and tells him she is Sana. Dr. Hoshi tries to capture Karan because he wants the time machine. After a wild attempt to catch Karan and Ziesha, Hoshi crashes into a nuclear substance truck and dies. Karan goes back to 2008 in the time machine with Ziesha and the rest of his family. Everyone is overjoyed to see their beloved Sana again and Karan proposes to her.

The plot of "The Heaven Shop" centers around 13-year-old Binti, a girl from Malawi. Binti's mother had died from AIDS about 6 years ago. Binti's father owns a coffin shop called The Heaven Shop. Binti is a star on a radio show called "Gogo's Family" and helps support the family with the money she earns through her work on the show.

Binti's father, Bambo, infected with AIDS, contracts pneumonia due to his suppressed auto-immune system and dies. Binti and her siblings are placed in the care of her less wealthy relatives, who take all of their belongings and force them to move to their homes. They are treated poorly. Binti steals money which her relatives stole off her and decides to run away from her less wealthy relatives. She catches a bus to her grandmother, Gogo. When she arrives at the bus stop she is lost so she decides to go to a church and asks a priest to ask if anyone knows who or where her grandma is. The priest then asks the audience and a man named Jeremiah says he knows her he then drops her off. She is disappointed to find that her grandmother sleeps outside, with over 20 other children. At her grandmother's place, she has to help work with a mother who is the same age as her, named Memory. She finds out Memory is HIV positive and so is her daughter. She decides to try to make a coffin when a man spots her. He asks her to build him a coffin and in return he helps her fix her roof. After, they restart Binti's father's coffin business and earn money for lumber, tools and food. They name it after Bambo's shop. They continue to make coffins. When Binti's grandmother dies, they have to build her a coffin. Binti's sibling Junie was with her, but parted to find a better way to make money and worked as a prostitute entertaining truck drivers; however, she unfortunately contracted HIV from one of them. Kwasi was arrested for theft, but her grandmother was able to bring him back to their home.

It continues the journey of Becca and Doug MacKenzie. In this second adventure, Becca and her brother, Doug, have escaped Wenzi Island and Sheng-Fat, but find themselves right back in the action.

Their ship is struck by a powerful typhoon and is driven ashore on Sulphur Island. There the two teens, Doug and Becca; their uncle, Captain MacKenzie; his brave crew and the Sujing Quantou warriors find themselves once again facing their nemesis, Julius Pembleton-Crozier, his hired army of Kalaxx warriors, and several other people such as his wife Lucrieta, Alfonso Borelli, a Treasurer of the HGS who has betrayed the HGS and joined Julius Pembleton-Crozier in the resurrected Coterie Of St. Petersburg. Alfonso Borelli also gives Julius the Eastern gyrolabe, which he took from the HGS after he betrayed it.

It takes all of their ingenuity, bravery, and wit to figure out his intent and why the islands are so very important to these enemies of the Honourable Guild of Specialists (HGS). The captain's Northern gyrolabe is stolen by the Kalaxx and Becca and Doug discover clues that lead to the finding of the Southern chapter of ''The 99 Elements'' and the Southern gyrolabe. Xu and Xi manage to save the southern part of ''The 99 Elements'' but the southern gyrolabe is taken by Julius Pembleton-Crozier. Also the ''Expedient'', the captain's ship, is broken beyond repair and has to be scuttled. They also say goodbye to Liberty Da Vine who, failing to regain her plane ''Lola'', is given the plane that was aboard the ''Expedient'', called the ''Fighting Dragon'', and flies off to find her father. The captain plans to send Doug and Becca back to school, but they decide to take a ship to the harsh desert of Sianking to search for their parents.

This book rolls along with plenty of action and fun and includes sketches, photographs, newspaper clippings, and foldout information on technology.

A spacefaring crew from an advanced civilization is preparing to return home after an extended voyage. The crew includes "humans" (represented in the film by Caucasian actors and actresses) and "Centaurians" (represented in the film by Asian actors and actresses). The Centaurians have been rescued from their home planet after a catastrophic event, not explained in the movie, has devastated their planet. They are being brought back with the spacefaring explorers with an expectation that they will be assimilated into their new parent culture. One of the ships in the fleet is hijacked by a few of its Centaurian passengers and crash-lands on a prehistoric planet in the "Solaris" system. Countermanding orders, the rest of the fleet returns to search for survivors after the crash. In the film's "twist," by the time that the rescuers (traveling at fast sublight speeds) are able to return to the planet, they are encountering the descendants of the original crash survivors - explained in a simplified version of time dilation. Linda, a Centaurian from the rescue ship, falls in love with Tang after he saves her from drowning. After fighting with the planet's indigenous species (including giant iguanas meant to represent dinosaurs), Tang and Linda are marooned on the prehistoric planet - and the latter is revealed to be the Admiral's own daughter. In the film's coda, this savage and primitive planet is revealed to be Earth.

A young, unemployed man, Semyon, believes the answer to his problems is to learn to play the tuba. However, his plan fails and he contemplates suicide. His neighbour, Alexander Petrovich, decides to make money from Semyon's misery by exploiting his intended suicide to several bidders. These bidders planned to exploit Semyon's death to the furtherance of their own individual causes. The Intelligentsia, represented by Aristarkh, is the first to approach him. From this point on, Semyon finds himself being manipulated by various people representing the business world, the arts, the workers, romance, etc. During the course of the play, each character reveals the worst side of their personality, to humorous effect.

As Grace and Daniel finish having sex in bed while Daniel feels a very hot orgasm before starting the day, he tells her where she has been all his life as Grace has a very sexy body as from her nerdy appearance during college and she likes to have sex three times a night. Daniel then panics when she informs him that she needs to speak with his mother, but tells her that Claire has gone away and that she probably won’t be able to find her, so Daniel sends Claire off to a hotel to stay low and instructs her not to talk to anyone. Daniel later tells Betty that she can’t let anyone know that he is sleeping with Grace, including Alexis. So Betty swears to keep the secret and heads downstairs to see Christina, only to learn that Christina knows about Daniel and Grace as she sees through Betty's secret.

Henry stops in and gives Betty the invitation to Charlie’s birthday party. Christina is surprised to hear that she is going, but Betty informs her that she does not want to lose Henry as a friend. Christina insists that Betty will need a date for the evening, so they ponder the thought and Betty calls her orthodontist for an appointment and informs him that a wire has snapped on her braces, so he schedules her for one. As she hangs up the phone Betty turns to Christina with a big smile, and in turn Christina snaps a wire. Later in the day Betty arrives for her appointment and tells her that it happened while eating a bagel. After he fixes the problem and she promises to be more careful, Betty responds that he may have to have dinner with her to ensure that she doesn’t eat anything too dangerous. Her plan works and he accepts her proposal.

Over at Casa Suarez, Constance visits Ignacio and continues to pour on the charm by wrestling him down and steals a kiss. As Hilda and Justin walk in the front door they are shocked to find Ignacio hiding in the dark from his case worker. He tells them that he doesn’t know what to do about her. Justin tells them that Constance gave him $1 the other day to call her grandma. Despite all this Ignacio insists that he has to keep her happy until the court date. Later on in the day Hilda gives Constance a new hairdo, only to freak out when Hilda tells her that Ignacio is a ladies' man. Constance tells Hilda that he should have told her if he was seeing someone, but tells Hilda that she is okay with it.

Back at ''MODE'', Amanda tells Marc that she met designer Oswald Lorenzo the other night at a party and tells him the story of how she fought another girl for his affections at the social. Amanda opens a packaged delivery and finds a dress that Lorenzo has sent to her and is thrilled to find out that he has named the dress "The Amanda". Amanda grabs the tiny silver hobble dress and runs to change into it and it fits as tight as a mermaid outfit. As Amanda struggles to move around she refuses to take it off.

Alexis goes to see Wilhelmina and tells her that she has to at least give Daniel a chance since he was willing to turn his back on their father, only to learn that Alexis is upset and leaves when she sees the news coverage of Grace Chin defending her father. This prompts Alexis to interrupt the board meeting and yells to Daniel about Grace's track record and to point out that their father is a murderer and still blames him for causing turmoil in the Meade family. As Marc listens from around the corner, Daniel tells his sister that he doesn’t know anything about hiring Grace. Amanda rushes over to get the scoop and falls flat on her face because the dress is way too tight.

Later that evening, Betty and Gabe (her orthodontist) arrive at the party, surprising even Henry. Charlie tells Betty that Gabe is so cute and she can sense the chemistry between them. The four of them head over to the bar and manage to make small talk, followed by a slow song as they pair off and dance. But the evening is interrupted when Claire calls Betty and tells her that it's an emergency and she needs a corporate credit card fast. As Betty arrives at Claire’s hotel room and finds her packing her bags, she tells Betty that she has to disappear, but Betty insists that she call Daniel first, prompting Claire to throw her cell phone across the room and destroying it. Betty tells Claire that she doesn’t have the credit card with her. Meanwhile, Gabe walks in and Claire wants to know what she is doing with him when it's Henry that she really likes. So Betty plays it off by kindly suggesting that it was a long time ago.

As Marc and Wilhelmina plow through the closet looking for a specific dress, they learn from Christina that Daniel had it, so when Wilhelmina becomes suspicious and demanded to know what Daniel did with the dress, Christina refuses. But when Wilhelmina threatens to call Betty to tell her about the "evidence" she that got her into Fashion Week, Christina lashes out at her and tells her that she can’t keep treating her like this, but gives in and tells them that Daniel gave the dress to Grace. Both Wilhelmina and Marc are puzzled since Daniel has told everyone that he doesn’t even know Grace, so Wilhelmina quickly puts 2 and 2 together and orders Marc to follow Daniel everywhere he goes and to get proof of his affair with Grace.

Daniel panics when Betty comes in and informs him that Grace is going to talk to Claire. Daniel locates them at a restaurant and tries to interrupt, but Grace insists that she be able to speak with Claire. Claire informs Grace that Fey was cruel and manipulative. Grace excuses herself to take a phone call. Daniel takes the time to ask her again to stay clear of Grace, but she insists that she knows what is best. Daniel steps out to the lobby of the restaurant and uses his charm on Grace. She tells him that he has six minutes and they rush inside the coat check room where no one is allowed in. Inside they quickly undress each other and start to have sex, unaware that someone was watching. It was Marc who took out his cell phone and started recording, he didn't like looking at it but managed to.

Hours later Wilhelmina is thrilled to get the video that Marc has captured on his cell phone of Grace and Daniel having sex on a dirty floor, so she burns it on CD and delivers the proof to Alexis, who becomes furious. Wilhelmina tells her that she knows exactly how she feels because she has been betrayed by a so-called friend (Alexis). As Grace tells Daniel that she knows that Claire is the one that killed Fey and tells him that she is confident that she can help her mother out of the situation by getting her doctors to testify, Alexis walks in and scolds her brother for lying to her. As Alexis shows Daniel and Grace the footage, she tells them that she wants Grace to remove herself from the case or she will show it to the judge. Grace becomes furious and tells Daniel that he needs a shrink and tells Alexis that she needs a closer shave. When she leaves, Daniel tells Alexis that he can’t believe what she has done and shocks Alexis when he tells her that Claire killed Fey, and thanks to Alexis's interference and the CD, their mother will go to jail because of it.

Across town, Betty takes Claire and Gabe to her house to get the credit card, even as she tries to convince Claire not to leave the country. But as Claire reminds Betty of how she killed Fey, Gabe takes this as a sign that he needs to leave, but Betty lies, saying it's a game. As Betty goes upstairs to get the card she leaves the two of them alone. Ignacio walks in and mistakes Gabe for Henry. Claire corrects him and tells him that she has seen the accountant and that he is much hotter. He once again screams to Betty that he really should go, but she yells back for her father to put on some coffee for them all. Ignacio takes Claire’s coat and asks her how she likes her coffee ("vodka and ice...hold the coffee.") She takes a seat on the couch and Constance spies through the window. Betty calls Daniel and prays that he will answer. A loud knock at the door suddenly comes as Ignacio is in the kitchen, and when Claire opens the door she finds Constance there accusing her of stealing her man and gets into a shoving match until Ignacio and Gabe come between them. Ignacio takes Constance to the kitchen and tells her that Claire is not his girlfriend, and neither is she. But as he turns to the sink, she slaps an electronic tracking device to his ankle and tells him that she will now know where he is at every minute of every day. When Betty rushes downstairs to see what is going on, Gabe tells her that she still has feelings for Henry and he leaves.

Betty gives Claire the credit card so that she can leave the country, saying that she watched the man she loved love someone else and it killed her and makes her promise not to make the same mistake that she did. Betty sits with Claire on the couch and tells her that she needs to be strong right now and that running away isn’t the answer so Claire calls the police and turns herself in for murdering Fey. The cops swarm the house and take Claire into custody.

Meanwhile, another package arrives for Amanda. She tells the delivery guy that she has rubber burns all over her body from that dress and that she doesn’t want anymore gifts, but gets excited though when he tells her that this time it's a hat. As she opens the box Amanda puts on the rubber cone shaped hat on her head, unaware that she is the target of a rival worker at ''MODE'', who set Amanda up with help from the delivery guy, for she hated Amanda.

Finally, Henry goes to see Betty in her office and tells her that he hated that she had to leave so soon last night, so he invites her to have lunch with Charlie and him, but Betty tells him that it is not good for her to hang out with the two of them and she just can’t do that right now. She informs him that right now they can only be two people that happen to work in the same building. As Henry gives her a slice of birthday cake and leaves, Betty instantly threw it away without him noticing.

In Brighton in 1935, a gangster named Kite is found dead, shortly after a newspaper published a story exposing local rackets and gang wars. Kite's old gang, now led by the psychopathic teenaged hoodlum Pinkie Brown, learns that the reporter who wrote the story, Fred Hale, will be in town for one day for a promotional stunt (similar to the real-life "Lobby Lud" promotion). Fred will play "Kolley Kibber", leaving cards around town that can be redeemed for a monetary prize, with a larger prize for the first person who publicly identifies Fred as Kolley Kibber.

Pinkie and the gang hold Fred responsible for Kite's death. They confront Fred in a local pub, threaten him, and pursue him through the crowded resort town before Pinkie finally murders Fred on an amusement ride. While Fred is attempting to elude the gang, he meets brassy, outgoing Ida Arnold, a middle-aged entertainer currently appearing in a local show. Ida takes a liking to Fred and notes that he appears to be afraid. The police think that Fred's death is a heart attack or suicide, but Ida suspects foul play and begins her own amateur investigation.

To establish an alibi for himself, Pinkie sends one of his gang members, Spicer, to distribute Fred's "Kolley Kibber" cards throughout the town, making it look like Fred was going about his business normally. Spicer errs by leaving one card under the tablecloth in a restaurant, creating a risk that the waitress would be able to identify Spicer. Pinkie visits the restaurant and discovers that the sweet, naive young waitress Rose found the card and noticed that Spicer, not Fred, had left it. Pinkie warns Rose not to speak about the person who left the card, and as part of gaining her confidence, asks her out on a date. Pinkie is also being pressured by Colleoni, the older and more powerful leader of a rival gang, and owner of the large Cosmopolitan Hotel. He is also pursued by the police, who want him to leave town to avoid further gang warfare. Deciding that Spicer is a liability, Pinkie sends him to the racetrack in hopes that Colleoni's men will kill him there. However, Pinkie is also attacked by Colleoni's men, receiving a long scar on his right cheek, and runs off thinking Spicer is dead. However he is told later that Spicer lived. Pinkie ends up finishing Spicer off himself by pushing him down a stairwell in front of several witnesses.

Rose falls in love with Pinkie, discovering he is also a Catholic, and he decides to marry her so she cannot testify against him. After their wedding, at Rose's request he makes a record of his voice at a fairgrounds booth, on which he says, "What you want me to say is I love you. Well here is the truth. I hate you, you little slut. You make me sick." Rose cherishes the record, wrongly assuming that it contains Pinkie's profession of love, although she does not have a gramophone to play it on and is unaware of its true contents. Ida, who by now suspects Pinkie of killing both Fred and Spicer, poses as Rose's mother to visit her while Pinkie is out and warn her about Pinkie, but Rose is loyal to Pinkie and Ida leaves.

Ida's visit makes Pinkie decide he needs to kill Rose too, and he confides to his last remaining gang member, Dallow, his plan to get Rose to enter a suicide pact with him and kill herself first. Pinkie also tries to destroy the voice recording he made to avoid its becoming evidence after Rose's death, but only succeeds in scratching it. Dallow objects, saying Rose's death is unnecessary because Ida is about to leave Brighton, having been unable to find any convincing evidence against Pinkie. Colleoni has also paid off Pinkie and Dallow to leave town, and they go for a final drink with Rose before departing.

When Ida enters the bar, the paranoid Pinkie decides to carry out his plan for Rose's death, and takes her for a walk on the pier. Pinkie convinces Rose he will soon be hanged and the two of them should commit suicide in order to always stay together. He gives Rose his gun and tries to get her to shoot herself first. Rose is torn between her love for Pinkie and the Catholic prohibition against suicide, and hesitates. Meanwhile, Dallow and Ida, both wishing to protect the innocent Rose, alert police, who rush onto the pier after Pinkie. Upon seeing the police, Rose throws the gun into the water and Pinkie tries to run away, but falls from the pier to his death. A grief-stricken Rose later plays the damaged record of Pinkie's voice, which sticks on Pinkie's words "I love you" without playing the rest. Rose clings to the belief that Pinkie really did love her.

Tyvian Jones, a Welsh author from a working-class coal mining background, comes to Venice, rich and famous from the success of his first novel and its film adaptation by the Italian director Sergio Branco Mallone. Sergio and Tyvian compete for the affections of Sergio's assistant Francesca, who falls in love with Tyvian and gets engaged to him, but wants to keep her job with Sergio. Tyvian resents Sergio's demands on Francesca's time, but still accepts an advance from Sergio to begin writing a new novel, which Sergio hopes to film.

Francesca leaves on a business trip to Rome with Sergio, and Tyvian returns to his Venice house to find it occupied by local businessman Pieri and his "friend", the erotic call girl Eva "Eve" Olivieri. The couple broke in to take shelter after their boat's rudder failed in a storm. Initially angry, Tyvian finds himself strongly attracted to Eve and, after throwing Pieri out of the house, tries unsuccessfully to seduce her. Eve knocks him unconscious and leaves.

Tyvian tracks Eve to her penthouse apartment in Rome, where she has many clients. After pursuing her for several days, he finally succeeds in having sex with her. She indicates her primary interest is money, and warns him not to fall in love with her. His friends see him out with Eve, causing an upset Francesca to confront him and Sergio to berate and threaten him. Despite this negative fallout, Tyvian cannot resist spending an expensive weekend in Venice with Eve, where he reveals to her that his best-selling book was actually written by his deceased brother. Tyvian has begun to drink heavily and ends up publicly humiliated and rejected by Eve, who used the weekend to make money gambling and connecting with wealthy new clients.

Tyvian marries Francesca. Meanwhile, Sergio has discovered that Tyvian lied about his past and did not write the book published under his name, but cannot get Francesca to leave Tyvian. While Francesca is away working with Sergio, Tyvian trysts with Eve in his home. Francesca unexpectedly returns, discovers Tyvian with Eve, and, distraught, rushes away in a motorboat and dies in a fatal crash. The night of her funeral, Tyvian breaks into Eve's apartment seeking comfort, but Eve drives him out with a riding whip and pushes him into a garbage pile. Two years later, Sergio still mourns Francesca, while Tyvian haunts the bars of Venice and pursues a contemptuous Eve, who is planning to sail to the Greek islands with a wealthy Greek client.

Following World War II, the widow Antonia and her daughter Danielle arrive at Antonia's home town where her mother is dying. She reunites with her old friend Crooked Finger, a depressed intellectual who refuses to leave his house. She also begins attracting a following, including Deedee, a mentally handicapped girl, after she is raped by her brother Pitte, and Loony Lips, a simple-minded man who falls in love with Deedee. A pariah, Pitte flees the village. Antonia turns down an offer of marriage from Farmer Bas, but develops a lasting romance with him.

Danielle, who has a vivid imagination, becomes an artist and expresses interest in raising a child, while rejecting the idea of having a husband. Antonia and Danielle visit the city to find a man to impregnate Danielle, resulting in the birth of Therèse, a child prodigy. Danielle falls in love with Therèse's tutor, Lara, and they remain together in a lesbian relationship. Therèse develops an understanding and kinship with Crooked Finger beyond what Danielle could be capable of.

Years later, Pitte returns to town to collect his inheritance and rapes Therèse. Antonia places a curse on him, after which he is beaten by men of the village and drowned by his brother. Therèse is unable to find her intellectual match but eventually has a relationship with a childhood friend, resulting in her pregnancy. She decides to keep the baby and gives birth to Sarah, the film's narrator, who has a fascination with death. Sarah observes many of her elders die off, including Crooked Finger who commits suicide, and Loony Lips who suffers a tractor accident on the farm. Antonia later dies of old age, surrounded by family and friends.

The third season of ''The Hills'' begins with Whitney Port becoming Lauren's boss, after being promoted within ''Teen Vogue''. On their first day returning to work, Lauren informs Whitney of false speculation regarding a sex tape involving herself and her ex-boyfriend Jason Wahler. Lauren comments that she has not spoken with Heidi since she moved into an apartment with Spencer, and the women become suspicious of her possible involvement with the rumors. Meanwhile, Heidi and Spencer are planning their housewarming party; Spencer plans on inviting several of his friends, while Heidi was only planning on inviting Lauren, Whitney, and Audrina Patridge. Visiting Audrina at Epic Records unannounced, she delivers invitations for Audrina and Lauren. Audrina accepts the invitations, although later tells her co-worker that she believes that Heidi and Spencer were speaking badly of Lauren and were responsible for spreading the sex tape rumors.

Lauren and Whitney decline their invitations to the housewarming party, and instead plan an impromptu outing at the club Les Deux. Meanwhile, during the housewarming party, Jenn Bunney makes a brief appearance at the apartment, although Heidi is disappointed after realizing that Lauren will not be attending. Unaware that they will run into Heidi and Spencer, Lauren and Audrina attend a birthday party for their friend Frankie Delgado the following day. As Lauren leaves for the bathroom after Heidi gives her a letter, Heidi tells Audrina that she is unsure of the reason for the tension between them. Audrina finds Lauren in the bathroom and they read the letter together, which details Heidi's interest in rekindling their friendship. Angered that Heidi will not acknowledge the sex tape rumors, Lauren decides to exit the club.

At the recommendation of Spencer, Heidi confronts Lauren before she is able to leave the club. Lauren and Audrina get into an argument with Heidi and Spencer outside of Les Deux, where Lauren delivers the now-famous quote "You know what you did!", elaborating that "You started a sick little rumor about me! You're a sad, pathetic person." The following morning, Heidi explains to her co-worker Elodie Otto that she was unaware of said speculation, and still wants to reconcile with Lauren. Meanwhile, Lauren tells Whitney that she is saddened by the idea of losing her friend, although admits that she has benefited from their separation.

A lonely boy grows up just outside Brighton in a caravan park with his over-sexual mother and the tenant Mr Broadhurst, who takes the boy on a disturbing and often violent journey.

The novel works as a strange Bildungsroman, in which the main character, Ian Wharton, learns the art of black magic from Broadhurst, who is also known as the Fat Controller. At the Fat Controller's behest Ian engages in a series of strange acts including time travel and trips to an alternate reality called the Land of Children's jokes, a grotesque alternate universe inhabited by the menacing and deformed characters from jokes. The protagonist's education culminates in bizarre rites of bestiality and necrophilia. However, he finds that in exchange for knowledge of the black arts Broadhurst begins to take over more and more aspects of his life.

The novel may also be seen as an example of an unreliable narrator, as it is unclear whether the strange events in the novel are meant to be real or hallucinatory.

''Rise the Euphrates'' begins with Casard's story. At the time of the genocide, Casard is ten and still goes by her original Armenian name Garod. In Armenian, “Garod” means yearning which is what Casard does the rest of her life: yearn for an Armenia which no longer exists. Casard's mother's name is Seta, the same name given to Casard's granddaughter.

The Turks invaded Garod's town of Harput, murdering the men and raping many women and girls. Among those to escape rape and death, Garod and her mother Seta are driven out of town into the desert. After walking for two weeks without water or food, the caravan reaches the Euphrates River. The river lies in front of the caravan, and a band of murdering Turks emerges from behind, forcing a choice; death by drowning or death by Turkish sword. Seta takes Garod's hand and prepares to jump into the Euphrates. At the last second, Garod remains on the bank and watches her mother drown. Turning around, Garod sees the band of Turks departing. Garod then wanders in the desert for several days, forgetting her name in the process. Later, under the care of nuns, Garod is given the name Cafard, which is a French word meaning melancholy of the soul. She eventually emigrates to the United States. At Ellis Island, immigration officials hear her name as Casard. While at Ellis Island, Casard meets, and after an afternoon of courtship, marries her husband Vrej; another exiled Armenian. Casard and Vrej had one daughter, Araxie.

Araxie grows up and marries an odar, a non Armenian husband, named George Loon. George and Araxie have three children, Van, Seta, and Melanie. When Seta is born, Casard takes Seta into her arms and whispers her story of the genocide. Casard then tells Seta that her task is to recover Casard's forgotten name. Araxie was also given the task to find Casard's name. However, one generation removed from the genocide has left Araxie near Casard's pain to achieve the type of reconciliation Seta is capable of.

Seta's younger years are marked with the tensions occurring between her mother and grandmother. Casard dies unexpectedly when Seta is twelve from a fatal car crash. Similar to the Armenian genocide, the Loon family life after Casard's death is never the same once Casard is gone. The remainder of the book highlights Seta's growing up years. However, with Casard's passing, Seta's life becomes more American and less Armenian-American. Araxie finds herself without a final opportunity to reconcile with her mother and becomes depressed. Later she divorces George Loon. Without Casard, the family structure and its place in the Armenian- American community disintegrates. Despite this, Seta remembers Casard's hidden story and the desire that her lost name be recovered. This recovery is achieved through another Armenian-American girl, Theresa Van.

Several years later, Seta betrays Theresa with a lie in order to secure her own popularity. After this betrayal, the girls do not interact for several years. Shortly after Seta and Theresa turn 15, Theresa's mother dies. A few weeks after her mother's death, Theresa is abducted and severely beaten by a well known member of the town. While Theresa is recuperating, Seta brings offerings of sorts to Theresa's house. Her interaction with Theresa and the offerings she brings draw Seta back into the Armenian community. At the end of the book, Seta and Theresa play the duduk together.

That night after playing the duduk with Theresa, and wholly embracing her Armenian heritage, Seta dreams of the women who were at the Euphrates River the day Casard forgot her name. The women tell the story of what Casard was only able to verbalize as “the indignities”. When she wakes up from her dream, Seta has recovered Casard's name, Garod, which she then relays to Araxie.

Patrick feels his daughters need a mother so he decides to marry his agent Georgie (Jill Melford), only then mistakenly to propose to the cleaning lady (Beryl Reid).

Television executive Katy develops what she hopes will become the most watched television show of all time, the ultimate game show called ''Live!'', in which six contestants play Russian roulette with a revolver with six chambers loaded with one live cartridge and five dummy cartridges. During the show, after the cylinder is randomly turned, the six will fire the gun one by one pointed at their head, without intermediate extra turning of the cylinder, until one is killed. At first the idea is to give each of the six contestants $1,000,000, but while there are more applicants at the auditions than expected, they are suicidal people. This is not desired, the contestants should want to live; therefore the prize is raised to $5,000,000 each for the surviving contestants, while the family of the killed contestant does not get any prize.

As the TV executive struggles to overcome the challenges by the Federal Communications Commission, her network, and the show's advertisers, a documentary filmmaker, Rex, films every detail of her glamorous, high-powered life. Rex becomes involved in the making of the show by creating biographical segments about the contestants. They are Byron, a young, struggling writer; Brad, an extreme sports star; Rick, a man who had to spend much on medical bills for his young son and is now trying to save his family's farm; Jewel, an aspiring actress; Abalone, a former supermodel turned performance artist; and Pablo, a young, gay Mexican immigrant determined to help his family.

Jewel is first, Pablo next, both are unharmed. Next is Abalone; before pulling the trigger with the gun pointed at herself she does a performance in which she frightens others by pointing the gun at the host and threatening to kill him; she is also unharmed, but plays falling dead. The fourth is Byron, also unharmed. Brad is fifth and kills himself. Katy is shocked and feels guilty, and goes to the bathroom to throw up. The body is quickly removed off-camera. Rick, who would be sixth, wins the prize without having to pull the trigger. After that, during the after-show press gang, a man comes forward with another gun and kills Katy. The network claims the murder is unrelated to the theme of the show. Apart from the murder the show is a success. It has become an annual broadcast.

A satire of network television, the movie follows the adventures of an ambitious mailroom clerk, Steven Post (Russell) at the fictional struggling UBC (United Broadcasting Corporation) Network. Post discovers that a chimpanzee named Raffles, left in the care of his girlfriend Jennifer Scott (played by Heather North) by neighbors who moved to San Francisco, has the uncanny ability to choose which television programs will succeed or fail with audiences. While watching a program, Raffles blows a raspberry at shows he hates and claps his hands at shows he likes.

Post smuggles the chimpanzee into the UBC building when various programs are being previewed for executives and watches as the chimpanzee gives his vote from the projection room. The first program that receives Raffles's approval is a movie named ''Devil Dan''. Post tells the programming executives that ''Devil Dan'' will draw large audiences. The executives disagree and choose not to program the movie. To prove he's got a sure-fire way of choosing hits, Post sneaks into UBC's broadcast center to switch the reels. Executives are outraged when ''Devil Dan'' airs - but Post is proved right. The movie propels UBC to first place in the ratings war. Post successfully masks the chimpanzee's abilities as his own and rises to vice president of UBC, now the top-rated area network. However, this also creates suspicion and resentment among UBC executives, mainly because they believe Post is too young to merit the title of vice president. Their resentment reaches a breaking point at a television award ceremony where Steven Post receives the title of "Television's Man of the Year" and the emcee mistakenly identifies Post as the president of UBC.

Fearing that Post's seemingly miraculous abilities will make their own jobs unnecessary, network president E. J. Crampton (Morgan) and former vice-president Francis X. Wilbanks (Joe Flynn) attempt to discover his secret to success. One toady (Ritter) sees a bunch of bananas in Post's apartment, which leads to a humorous scene where the executives are seen eating bananas as they believe an idea that a New Guinea tribe considered bananas to be brain food. The flunky also hears sounds coming from Post's closet and believes he is holding a hostage, which serves to intensify the surveillance of Post and his new luxury apartment.

Using a spyglass to peer through his apartment window at night, the toady discovers the chimpanzee watching television with Post. Upon spying the chimpanzee going to the refrigerator for a beer during the commercial break, the executives realize the chimpanzee's true abilities.

Fearing the revelation that America's favorite TV programs were being picked by an ape would spell the end of television, the executives decide to steal the chimpanzee and return it to the jungle.

Wilbanks and his chauffeur, Albert Mertons (Wally Cox), venture out a narrow ledge in an attempt to snatch the chimpanzee out of Post's apartment in his absence. The plan goes awry and the duo become stranded on the ledge until the police, the fire department, and a Catholic priest arrive, mistaking their break in for a potential suicide.

As a last-ditch effort, the network offers Post $1,000,000 in exchange for the chimpanzee, which he ultimately accepts. Jennifer becomes disenchanted with him when she finds out he sold her pet for money without her consent and breaks off their relationship. She also does not believe her chimpanzee should be released into the wild.

Meanwhile, executives from every studio and camera crews crowd a cargo plane soaring over the jungle, as they prepare to parachute the chimpanzee into an unexplored section of the Amazon; but before arriving at the intended disembarkation point, the stubborn chimpanzee, not wanting to be sent into the wild, pulls a lever opening an emergency hatch which sucks all the executives out of the plane, causing them to parachute into the jungle instead. The plane returns with Raffles, and Mertons, who is more sympathetic to Jennifer's feelings, notifies Steven that the chimpanzee outsmarted the executives and is now en route back to him.

Post uses this opportunity to refund the $1,000,000 for the chimpanzee. Post comments that UBC is going to need the money now in order to fund a search party for Wilbanks and the other executives. Jennifer and Steven have not only rekindled their relationship, but are now married and set off on their honeymoon with the chimpanzee in tow as their pet. The final scenes shows the Posts on an expressway which pans out in a wide scene, while a radio announcement says that Post has just married and resigned his vice presidency of UBC, but many people are wishing him well in his future endeavors.

Written as a travelogue, ''Coasting'' describes Jonathan Raban's single-handed 4,000 mile voyage around Britain which he made in 1982 (at the age of 40) in an old restored 32-foot sea-going ketch, the ''Gosfield Maid''. Raban sailed with a chart and a hand bearing-compass; he sailed by the look of the coastline. His story takes various digressions, just as his journey does, as he mulls over his childhood as the son of a vicar in the Church of England, and the current state of Britain under Margaret Thatcher during the time of the Falklands War.

Chapter Two is a description of the dogged insularity of the Manx, who he compares to the Falkland Islanders, whilst the Isle of Man becomes a metaphor for the insularity of the larger island on which he himself had been brought up and lived up till this point. Raban himself has commented on his own attitude to England and the influence of Margaret Thatcher on Britain at the time of writing his book. The British he sees as being famous for their insular arrogance and condescension. As he describes them:

They love fine social distinctions and divisions and are snobbishly wedded to an antique system of caste and class ... They are aggressively practical and philistine, with a loud contempt for anything that smells abstract or theoretical. They are a nation of moneygrubbers and bargain-hunters, treasuring pennies for treasuring's sake...When it comes to sex, they are furtive and hypocritical - and their erotic tastes are known to be extremely peculiar. Many Englishmen will pay a woman to take their trousers down and spank them...For the most part, though, the English, both men and women, are afflicted by such a morbid decay of their libido that it has always puzzled the rest of the world how the English manage to reproduce themselves at all.

The author is equally bitter about the dominant, hectoring Mrs Thatcher. Whilst comfortably moored up in the ''Gosfield Maid'' on a beautiful stretch of the River Yealm, he tunes into the House of Commons debate on the Falklands invasion. The Prime Minister talks about sovereign territory being invaded by a foreign power, but to Raban '...her cross, nanny's voice made it sound as if there had been ructions in the nursery and the children were going to be sent to bed without any tea.' He considers equally absurd the majority of MPs who are baying for Argentinian blood. Raban turns his radio off in disgust, '...sick of the sound of growning men baying like a wolf pack. It wasn't a debate, it was a verbal bloodletting, with words standing for the guns and bayonets that would come later when the fleet reached the islands.' and adds, 'Listening to it, I felt that I'd been eavesdropping on the nastier workings of the national subconscious; I'd overheard Britain talking in a dream, and what it was saying scared me stiff.'

And it is his negative feelings towards an increasingly alien Britain under the dominance of Thatcher that finally persuade him to make the decision to leave his homeland, although the paradox is that they share a like-minded attitude towards its rigid social hierarchy:

I grew up with a sentimentalised version of the English past, of the enshrined holiness of the squire in the grand house and the tenant farmer and the exact place you occupied. I got ticked off by my father in my early teens if I was seen wandering down the street with a girl from the local secondary modern whom I had met at a church hop. You know: "Not your class, old boy" ... I have to say, however, that it was easy to leave England in 1990. I hated England under Thatcher, although in a funny way I shouldn't have. I mean, she was as antagonistic to the old system of England as I was.

The book is remarkable for its penetrating and highly perceptive insights into the character and state of the British nation at the time of writing. One also has to greatly admire him for taking on the challenge of a single-handed voyage around the British Isles, a feat that requires great personal courage on the part of the sailor. For most of the book, Raban, rather like Joyce, is able to form an objectively detached view of his country whilst out at sea on board his boat. However, rather than taking the battering ram approach of his eccentric predecessors (men like Middleton, McMullen, and Hilaire Belloc), he uses beautifully crafted language to describe the life of a single-handed sailor in great awe of the sea, with detailed almost lyrical descriptions of the characters he encounters along the way. Two passages that particularly stand out are of Raban's rather hostile meeting with Paul Theroux at Brighton Marina, himself in the midst of researching a similar book about Britain, and a much friendlier one with Philip Larkin at Hull, a city Raban knows well from his student days while working as a part-time minicab driver.

This movie is about Kim Ji-hoon (Kwon Sang-woo) and Choi Su-wan (Kim Ha-neul), both 21 years old. Su-wan is in her second year at university while Ji-hoon is still in the process of repeating his senior year of high school.

Su-wan's mother works in their family business, selling fried chicken. To help out, Su-wan earns money by tutoring other children, but often gets fired after hitting the students. Her mother has a rich friend with a son in need of a tutor. The friend, Kim Ji-hoon's mother, wants a tutor that will make her son study so that he can pass his high school graduation exams. The salary offered is enough to pay for an entire semester of Su-wan's college education.

Ji-hoon is always able to attract girls and draw attention through his love of fighting. He has recently transferred to Surim High School, and manages to offend Lee Jong-soo (Gong Yoo), "king" and best fighter there. Jong-soo's girlfriend, Yang Ho-kyung (Kim Ji-woo) also sets her eye on him. He continues to brawl at Surim, including beating up a member of the high school gang for stealing from his younger brother Se-hoon. Apart from studying, Ji-hoon is actually fairly well rounded. As a child, he was sent to America to study. Because of his parents' decision, the relationship between them and Ji-hoon is strained. Ji-hoon's father, Kim Bong-man threatens to send him back to the US if he continues to get into trouble with his fighting and bad grades. To avoid being sent back to America, Ji-hoon needs to get at least a 50% on the upcoming mid-term exams. The only problem is that his usual average mark is much lower than that.

Su-wan is persistent in tutoring Ji-hoon despite his rudeness to her, and eventually their relationship improves. At the end of the term, Ji-hoon receives a barely passing grade (50.1), but passing nonetheless. According to the terms of a bet they made, Su-wan must dance in front of a crowd during a college festival. While embarrassed and shy at first, she eventually really gets into dancing and the audience cheers her on. Ji-hoon realizes his growing feelings for Su-wan when he gets jealous and angry at seeing all the guys watching her running up to the stage.

Then Su-wan's boyfriend comes back home. While spying on the couple, Ji-hoon learns that Su-wan's boyfriend is breaking up with her. The next day, Ji-hoon shows up at his house and beats him up for hurting her. However, he finds out that the reason he was leaving Su-wan was because he was entering the priesthood. After the ordination, Ji-hoon lets Su-wan vent her feelings by hitting him for a while. Once she settles down, he decides to take her sky sailing. While in the air, Ji-hoon tells Su-wan that he likes her. Su-wan does not know how to respond and pretends that she couldn't hear him over the earpiece. Later on, they go to an amusement park. Just as Ji-hoon is about to give Su-wan a present, Su-wan runs into a female college friend, who's accompanied by her boyfriend. Su-wan had previously confided in the friend about her difficulties in tutoring Ji-hoon. Su-wan's friend initially thinks that Ji-hoon is her boyfriend, but Su-wan denies it, saying she would never go out with a high school student. This angers Ji-hoon and he throws her present into the fountain and leaves.

Eventually, all of Ji-hoon's fighting catches up with him. Ho-kyung and her clique, Jong-soo and his high school gang, and actual gang members confront him while holding Su-wan hostage. Ji-hoon and Su-wan manage to run away, but they eventually get cornered and Ji-hoon has to fight everyone on the beach. Once all of the other gang members are down, Ji-hoon faces the mafia's best fighter. Ji-hoon is at the man's mercy, but Su-wan saves Ji-hoon by kicking the man in the groin. Then Su-wan and Ji-hoon drive away on her chicken delivery scooter, with her wearing the necklace, Ji-hoon's earlier gift. At the end, Ji-hoon and Su-wan are now a couple, and she is tutoring his younger brother Se-hoon.

Dr James Hardcastle, who is convalescing in a Derbyshire farm, discovers Blue John Gap, a Roman Derbyshire Blue John mine. He begins to investigate the mine and the extensive underground formations to which it connects, despite the warnings of a local farmer who claims it contains a monster that has been stealing his sheep.

Hardcastle hears a large creature moving in the cave, and uncovers more evidence that it has been preying on local sheep. He determines to face it alone, as the colleagues whom he asked for help dismissed his claims as madness. He manages to wound the creature, and is badly hurt himself doing so.

The local people, who believe Hardcastle, seal the mine after the creature has returned to it. Hardcastle dies from trauma, leaving a description of his experience to try to convince his London colleagues.

Derived from the 1970s musical ''The Time Lord'' by Soames and Daniels, it focuses on contemporary rock musician Chris Wilder, who has been transported with his backup singers and band from a concert to the High Court of the Universe in the Andromeda Galaxy. In light of mankind's strides in space exploration, the Time Lord Melchisedic (loosely based on the title character in the BBC science fiction series ''Doctor Who'') has decided the time has come to examine Earth's people to determine what role they will play in the quest for universal peace, and Wilder and his band are called upon to defend their planet.

The film follows the odyssey of Karen Stone, an actress who loses her husband to a heart attack. In Rome, she meets a contessa and another man with other romantic intentions and interests that have nothing to do with Mrs. Stone.Leonard, John. [http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/tv/reviews/n_8665/ "In Brief"] nymag.com, retrieved February 21, 2018Gates, Anita. [https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/02/movies/tv-weekend-tennessee-williams-s-rome-in-gritty-sepia.html "Tv Weekend; Tennessee Williams's Rome, in Gritty Sepia"] ''The New York Times'', May 2, 2003

The story is presented in the first person, related by a Saga-Age Icelander named Ospak Ulfsson. During a violent thunderstorm, an unexplained phenomenon transports the titular 20th-century American US Army MP back in time to Ospak's homestead. The American, who becomes known as Gerald "Samsson", is an engineering student drafted to serve at Keflavik during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Gerald is taken in by Ospak's family who assume him to be a shipwreck survivor. Although his engineering background gives him many ideas of how to improve life for the Icelanders (such as advanced sailing vessels), his lack of practical know-how, and his oversophisticated ideas when set against the nature of 10th-century life, lead to none of his suggestions being implemented. Knowledge of 20th-century metallurgy does not endow him with the highly specialised skill needed to work in a 10th-century smithy, and his attempt to do so ends with a costly fiasco. Also, knowing the theory of how to design a large metal bridge is not a sufficient base for constructing a small wooden bridge over a rivulet with medieval carpentry tools.

There is also a whole series of misunderstandings caused by social and cultural differences. Gerald tries to tell the Icelanders that in his country there are no blood feuds because the government takes care of punishing all wrong-doers. However, his listeners have no concept of a vast impersonal government and its law-enforcement agencies; Gerald's words, when translated into concepts familiar to his listeners, are taken to mean that all law-enforcement is done by the King in person - whereupon the amused Icelanders remark that such a King would be too busy to beget an heir... And conversely, when Gerald tells that he had been a military policeman and describes the task of one, they are astonished at what they see as his foolhardy courage of "offending all the men in the war host" - since Vikings would absolutely not have tolerated the petty regulation of their dress and personal life which is common for soldiers in a 20th-century army.

Then, Gerald guilelessly mentions that his family owns no land and lives in one apartment of a big house where many other families live - not realizing that he has just plunged his social status sharply down, as in this rural society a landless man is far down the scale. And when he boasts that the United States is a free society, but admits that US citizens may be called up for military service even at harvest time, his shocked hosts conclude that the US is the worst and most monstrous of tyrannies - since in their economy, calling up the farmers in harvest time would doom their families to starvation, unaware that in modern times far fewer people need to farm.

Meanwhile, Gerald and his host's daughter fall in love with each other. A rival suitor from a neighboring clan, annoyed at her preference for the "useless" foreigner, insults Gerald, who then challenges him to "fight it out" - not realizing that in this society, duels between free people are fought with weapons and often to the death, and that fighting bare-handed "is for slaves". Trapped in a ''holmgang'' and about to be cut down, he uses his gun and kills his opponent, which is deemed dishonorable and thus not protected as a lawful killing during the duel.

In order to avert his host becoming entangled in a blood feud, Gerald departs on his own - which leads to his being outlawed and hunted down. When making his last stand, his ammunition runs out ("his magical weapon failed him" as the locals see it) but he gives a good account of himself with a sword seized from a fallen opponent before being finally killed.

The ending of the story suggests that, in time, Gerald's burial barrow would come to be regarded as the tomb of "an ancient hero" and that he would in death find the place in Icelandic society which he did not gain in life.

Young Matthias from Macedonia follows his two older brothers’ example and enrolls in Alexander's cavalry together with his close friend Lygaios/Lucas (Λυγαίος in Greek). This special convoy departs from Tripoli, Lebanon and after 125 days of marching meets the rear of Alexander's army. The hero takes part into his first battle and is shocked by the atrocities of his adversaries and his own people as well. Noteworthy is the fact that the enemy, apart from its guerilla methods, recruits women and children to fight for their freedom.

While marching, Matthias meets Shinar, an Afghan woman who, having abandoned her own people, offers her services as carrier of the Greek army's supplies. Nanguali is the barbarian warrior's code; its three elements are: honour, revenge and hospitality. Their women's honour, if blackened, could be redeemed (turn back into white) only by death. Matthias stands up to Baz, Shinar's brother, but fails to reach a compromise and is deceived by Baz, who in the end kills his sister and her baby.

At the end of the story, Matthias is left with nothing – he has lost his family, friends, health and hope. Instead of returning home (his wife and son having been killed) as initially planned and having nothing to lose, he decides to follow the Greek army in its way to India.

Ignacio Suarez returns to Mexico, accompanied by his two daughters, Betty and Hilda, and his grandson Justin, to obtain a United States visa. Betty researches her mother Rosa and their family tree. She learns that her maternal grandmother, Yolanda Salazar, is alive and that she disapproved of her parents' relationship. Betty takes Hilda to look for a blue house that a ''curandera'' ("healer") predicts holds answers about their mother. Following visions of her crush, Henry Grubstick, Betty finds Yolanda, who is being treated for Alzheimer's disease. Yolanda mistakes Betty for her daughter, and apologizes for mistreating Ignacio. Betty is gifted her mother's wedding dress, which she gives to Hilda for her upcoming wedding. Ignacio tells them that his visa request was denied and he must remain in Mexico. A waiter recognizes Ignacio for murdering Rosa's first husband, Ramiro Vasquez, and sets up a revenge plot.

At the fashion magazine ''MODE'', creative director Wilhelmina Slater informs co-editors-in-chief Daniel and Alexis Meade that Jordan Dunn will be the "Fearless Woman" feature. Alexis disagrees with the choice to hire her ex-girlfriend. Daniel continues abusing drugs rather than handle his sex addiction. He accompanies Jordan on a bungee jumping photo shoot to make Alexis jealous. Alexis and Jordan reconcile and kiss. While trying to get more pills, Daniel is beaten by two men.

Meanwhile, ''MODE'' receptionist Amanda Tanen is having a secret relationship with up and coming designer Tavares, who pretends to be gay to advance his career in fashion; Wilhelmina's assistant and Amanda's friend Marc St. James grows jealous of this. Amanda advises Tavares on his designs, but he publicly mistreats her. Upon discovering them kissing, Marc berates Amanda for pursuing toxic relationships. He exposes Tavares as straight, but no one cares; Amanda ruins Tavares's reputation by showing his coconut-shell shirts, a design that Wilhelmina hates. Amanda and Marc reconcile and discover the love dungeon, which former editor-in-chief Fey Sommers had built during her affair with Meade publications CEO Bradford Meade.

Bradford hesitates about finalizing his divorce from his wife Claire Meade. Wilhelmina encourages Bradford to get a makeover to relive his younger days and enlists the help of ''MODE'' s seamstress, Christina McKinney. Wilhelmina tries to build Bradford's ego by ordering Marc to flirt with him, but Bradford realizes he cannot recapture his youth; Wilhelmina says she prefers his refinement compared to his younger and cockier self. Touched by her words, Bradford signs the divorce papers.

Professor Casper Clockwise is in his lab making the final adjustments to his time-traveling device when someone creeps behind him. Meanwhile, his son Callum "Rascal" Clockwise is walking through a secret route under the house to get to his father's lab when the lights go out and an alarm sounds. Rascal rushes down to see the problem, but two aliens in spacecraft appear and chase him down the corridor.

Rascal makes it to his father's lab by going through the safe door entrance. He finds Chronon, the evil master of time, holding his father hostage with another of his dad's inventions called the "Bubble Gun". Chronon accidentally activates the controls for the time machine, and he and the Professor are sucked into the time portal. The Bubble Gun drops from the portal and lands at the feet of Rascal, who picks it up, vowing to save his father.

Rascal chases the two through the timestream, from the medieval Castle Hackalott to the Aztec Temple at Chichimeca, to the lost city of Atlantis, to the Jolly Raider pirate ship and Dodgy City in the old West, traveling to each location's past and present forms and collecting the pieces of a Time Clock from both before fighting Chronon in each area's future. Rascal travels to the Corridors of Time, Chronon's lair within the space-time continuum, where, after defeating its guardians brought from each of the other time periods, he defeats Chronon and rescues his father. After escaping using another time portal that leads back into the hallway of Rascal's house, Rascal and his father return safely back home, leaving the portal to shatter apart on Chronon, trapping him within interdimensional time forever.

John and Winston share a prison cell on an unnamed Island. After another day of hard labor and having been forced to run while shackled and then beaten, they return to their cell. They tend each other's wounds, share memories of times at the beach and rehearse for the prisoner-performed concert which is imminent. They are going to perform a scene from an abridged version of ''Antigone'' by Sophocles. John will play Creon and Winston will play Antigone.

When he sees himself in his costume, Winston tries to pull out of playing a female role, fearing he will be humiliated. John is called to the governor's office. He returns with news that his appeal was successful and his ten-year sentence has been commuted to three years: he will be free in three months. Winston is happy for him. As they imagine what leaving prison and returning home will be like, Winston begins to unravel. He doubts why he ever made a stand against the regime, why he even exists. Having said it, he experiences a catharsis, and accepts that he must endure.

The final scene is their performance of ''Antigone''. After John-as-Creon sentences Winston-as-Antigone to be walled up in a cave for having defied him and done her duty towards her dead brother, Winston pulls off Antigone's wig and yells "Gods of Our Fathers! My Land! My Home! Time waits no longer. I go now to my living death, because I honored those things to which honor belongs". The final image is of John and Winston, chained together once more, running hard as the siren wails.

Set in the future, ''Doll'' centers around relationships between humans and the eponymous androids—created by Kaoru and Motohiko Kirishima and manufactured by SG Corporation. During the development of the "Sterol-2" Doll, Kaoru's mental condition begins to deteriorate; after attempting to retain a copy of her mind and memories in a prototype of a Doll, Motohiko realizes his mistake of trying to replace his wife. Retiring from the corporation to care for her, he leaves behind eight other prototypes, which are seen throughout the series: a nameless male Doll, who was the constant companion for a woman and cremated with her by her greedy stepson; Chocolat, a maid who was discovered in a trash heap by an elderly farming community; Honey, a secretary loyal to the SG Corporation president; Cherry, the maid to an award-winning, bulimic writer; Vanilla, a maid to an elderly man and his unfaithful, younger wife; the sexaroid Veronica, one of two Dolls built for sexual intercourse, and her unnamed partner; and S, who hunts down illegally reprogrammed Dolls for SG Corporation.

''Doll'' also focuses on Ichiro, a reprogrammer of Dolls who was abused by his stepmother and stepsiblings. Chosen to become the next president of SG Corporation, he was castrated by his beloved Doll on the orders of his jealous relatives. His Doll, the only one who had shown him kindness, was then destroyed. No longer the successor, Ichiro studied all the aspects of the Doll business. At eighteen years old, he left and began to reprogram Dolls illegally, seeking revenge on SG Corporation. Years later, Ichiro finds the unnamed sexaroid, after Veronica is destroyed by a sadistic owner. Ichiro reprograms the sexaroid to mimic human emotions, and the sexaroid becomes Ichiro's companion.

They eventually find and purchase Vanilla, who acts as if she suffers from psychological trauma. While on a date with the sexaroid, Vanilla recovers her memories of having been ordered to bury her master's corpse by her mistress. Meanwhile, Ichiro is captured by agents of the SG Corporation. Learning of this, the sexaroid leaves to rescue him, against the wishes of another reprogrammer, Psycho Candy. Captured, tagged for destruction, and reunited with Ichiro, the sexaroid finds himself ordered by Ichiro to switch places with him and escape. Ichiro then gives the sexaroid a name, Itsuki. With Itsuki's tag for destruction, Ichiro is killed at the moment his father finally recognizes him. ''Doll'' concludes with SG Corporation's scandal and subsequent bankruptcy, as Motohiko and his wife are content with knowing that they left Dolls in the world, while Vanilla and Itsuki live together in a house purchased by Ichiro.

The play opens in the photography studio of a man named Styles. The studio is located in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. After reading a newspaper article on an automobile plant, Styles tells a humorous story to the audience about an incident that occurred when he worked at the Ford Motor Company.

Styles continues to read the paper and talks about his photography studio. His musings are interrupted when a customer, Sizwe Banzi, arrives. He asks to have his picture taken, but when Styles asks him for his deposit and name, Sizwe hesitates, then says his name is Robert Zwelinzima. Styles asks Sizwe what he will do with the photo, and Sizwe tells him he will send it to his wife. When the picture is taken, the moment is frozen into what the photograph will look like. It comes to life and Sizwe dictates the letter to his wife that will accompany the photo.

In the letter, Sizwe tells his wife that Sizwe Banzi is dead. He writes that when he arrived in Port Elizabeth from their home in King William’s Town, he stayed with a friend named Zola who tried to help Sizwe find a job. His employment search was unsuccessful; as a result, he was told by the authorities that he must leave in three days. Sizwe went to stay with Zola’s friend, Buntu.

The play returns to the present time. Staying at Buntu’s house, Sizwe tells Buntu about his problems — unless a miracle happens, he will have to leave town in three days. Buntu is sympathetic to the problem and suggests he work in the mines in King William’s Town. Sizwe rejects the idea as too dangerous. Buntu decides to take him out for a treat at Sky’s place, a local bar.

The focus switches back to Sizwe as he continues to compose the letter to his wife. He describes his experiences at Sky’s shebeen, where he was served alcohol by a woman in a respectful manner.

The scene shifts to the outside of Sky’s after Sizwe and Buntu have been drinking. Buntu decides that he needs to get home to go to work tomorrow. He goes into an alley to relieve himself and finds a dead man there. Sizwe wants to report the body to the police. Buntu rejects the idea, but he retrieves the dead man’s identity book to find his address. Buntu finds that the man, named Robert Zwelinzima, has a work-seeker’s permit — the very thing that Sizwe needs to stay in town. They take the book. At Buntu’s house, Buntu switches the photographs in the books. He proposes that they burn Sizwe’s book — effectively making him dead — and have Sizwe adopt the dead man’s identity so he can stay in Port Elizabeth. Sizwe is unsure about the plan; in particular, he worries about his wife and children. Buntu contends that they can remarry. After much discussion, Sizwe agrees to the switch.

Sizwe finishes dictating the letter to his wife. In it, he tells her that Buntu is helping him get a lodger’s permit. The scene shifts back to Styles’ photography studio; Sizwe is getting his picture taken.

The documentary dramatizes the recruiting and training of a number of young men into the Greek police force during the military junta rule. A number of otherwise decent young men are selected based on a number of traits viewed as exploitable by the recruiters: illiterate, anti-communist, young and male, drawing comparisons to the Cambodian torturers at Tuol Sleng, many of whom were under 19 years old.

The film also interviews Michalis Petrou, a conscript who served in the Military Police and was trained to become one of the most notorious torturers of the EAT-ESA. Petrou's testimony reveals that the training methods on themselves were brutal and often torturous and was viewed as a necessity to ensure the robotic and brutal obedience of the trainees. According to him, during that period, he was capable for any torture method, if he was ordered.

During the dramatic recreation of the training camps, the directors draw parallels to modern military recruit trainings and the methods used in the training of soldiers.

The film follows the life of Iván, a former Vietnam War veteran (who later becomes a New York City police officer) who returns to his childhood home island of Culebra in Puerto Rico, after he is diagnosed with cancer. Married to his longtime love, Julia, he tries to reconnect with his former best friend, Kike, who has estranged himself from the couple after Julia broke his heart and married Iván instead.

Ray drives to a block of flats in Sunderland to collect Betty who is his partner. They drive on to a pub for a wedding night time party. Unknown to Betty, Ray is in the process of doing a deal with one of his friends. The party is full of Ray's old associates who are seacoalers that work and live on the Lynemouth coast, reclaiming waste coal that is washed in on the tide. Without informing Betty, Ray buys a caravan on the seacoalers' camp.

Betty wakes the next morning to find herself in the run-down caravan, and is shocked to learn of Ray's decision to set up again as a seacoaler. Nevertheless, she agrees to move in with him to get herself and her daughter Corrina away from her violent ex-husband.

Betty cleans and decorates the caravan, turning it into a home for the three, and becomes content with living on the camp and working as a seacoaler. Betty makes friends with two other women, Rosie and Val. Ray manages to persuade an old resident of the camp, Ronnie, to allow Ray to use his address to fiddle his dole payments, as living in a caravan they have no actual address.

Betty is outraged to discover that all their hard work gathering about 15 tons of coal has accumulated to £40. Ray then goes ahead and without consulting Betty sells his car and buys a horse, which sets him up as a freelance seacoaler; this enables him to get a better rate for his collected coal. Meanwhile, Corrina makes friendships with the other children on the camp.

Ray is called for an interview at the DHSS concerning his address, where his fraud is discovered. He then bets all his coal on a trotting race to win a pickup that could improve his fortunes, but he loses. He returns to the beach to find his coal already gone. Unsure what to do and not wanting to face up to Betty he packs his suitcase and leaves while Betty is shopping. Although very upset by Ray's disappearance, Betty decides to stay on the camp and try to make a life for herself and Corrina with support from the other families on the camp.

The film revolves around Jency (Sherin), a close friend of Ganesh (Nandha). When Ganesh decides to open his heart and express his love to her, she informs him that she is to be engaged to Nicholas (Dinesh Lamba), who is a rich entrepreneur in London. The film is somewhat similar to the Hindi film Humko Deewana Kar Gaye.

Nicholas sponsors Jency's mother's surgery. Knowing well that Nicholas is a jealous and sadistic youth, Jency decides to marry him as a token of gratitude. But life turns miserable for her between her engagement and her wedding. Ganesh steps in and saves her from all her troubles. Ganesh and Nicholas cross swords with each other.

In Valhalla, Capital of Callisto, Jupiter's premier moon, anything and everything is for sale. But Valhalla is in trouble due to Earth granting independence and cutting off the supplies. The Doctor visits the Job Centre and finds power cuts, barcoded citizens and monthly riots and a termite problem.

''The Chain'' tells the story of seven households which jointly constitutes a circular property chain and various removals employees who are tasked with assisting each household in its move. Through the moving process it follows the trials and tribulations, from trivial to profound, of each household and mover, who are each guilty of one of the seven deadly sins.

Bamber leads his team and lorry for Lasts Removal and Storage and their first job is in Willesden.

The story moves to the first link of the chain: Des in Hackney (representing Lust). He is leaving the room in his Mum's house and she has rented the room out but isn’t happy with him leaving. His friend Stan packs all his things into an old Mini Traveller. Des is moving in with his girlfriend. He is waiting outside his new home for his girlfriend and a policeman challenges him.

Keith (representing Sloth) in Tufnell Park has a self-drive van and is moving to Willesden as first time buyers with his Indian wife Carrie. He meets Des moving into his old rented flat and warns him of the landlord. En route to pick up the keys at the estate agent they argue about having kids.

Dudley and Alison in Willesden have a young daughter and need a bigger flat. They remember their daughter's conception. Paul from Lasts goes to the wrong flat and thoroughly confuses an old lady. Bamber is moving them to Hammersmith. Their military style granddad is trying to organise the move. Granddad (representing Envy) is moving into the granny flat in the new property. However, some punks have squatted in his new home and changed the lock.

In Hammersmith the Thorns (Avarice) insist that the removal men take all door-knobs, light bulbs and ashes from the fireplaces (for the roses). His wife does not appreciate his meanness. They are going to 55 Christchurch Hill in Hampstead. Mr Thorn returns to his old house while Bamber and the Metcalfs are moving in: he is looking for some elastic bands he forgot.

Two basic problems break the chain: the person in Hampstead decides she is not leaving, resulting in the Thorn's being homeless, but they have also been conned into losing all their possessions due to passing them to a bogus removal firm.

Bamber persuades the owner, widow Mrs Andreos (Billie Whitelaw), to make her planned move to Holland Park by sitting in her kitchen and letting her tell stories of her late husband and her native Limassol. Not only does Bamber persuade her he also gets an extra job - cash in hand. Mrs Andreos takes a lift in the removal van and starts a singalong of Karma Chameleon. Although Mrs Andreos represents Gluttony, this links to her late husband who was a "glutton for punishment".

The family in Holland Park (representing Pride) are moving to Knightsbridge. They are jealous that their neighbour is moving to Belgrave Square in Belgravia. Deidre has bought a new Daimler. They are moving because Holland Park is becoming "too shabby".

In Knightsbridge Thomas (representing Wrath) discusses his decisions with his friend, telling him to auction his belongings at Sothebys - he is dying. He keeps only one item: a cheap souvenir plate from Southend-on-Sea which presumably has sentimental value. He asks the chauffeur of his Rolls-Royce to take him to the house where he was raised, in Quilter Street in Whitechapel, where he is renting the room vacated by Desmond, the first character we see leaving home at the start of the film.

The story ends showing each in their new home then an old homeless lady wrapping herself in newspaper preparing to spend the night in a doorway. She has threaded through the story.

Baak Juktong and Zin Ciu were martial arts students of the same ''sifu'', Si Daatfu. They quarreled and fought incessantly over who had the most powerful ''kungfu''. Baak saved the emperor, traveling in the region in plain clothes, but did not believe his identity when the emperor offered him officialdom. Later, Zin also saved the emperor, who appointed him imperial sword-bearing guard with the title "Royal Cat". Jealous and infuriated, especially because his nickname was "Brocade-Coated Rat" (rats were known as cat food), Baak and his four sworn brothers — Zoeng Ping the "River-Overturning Rat", Ceoi Hing the "Mountain-Boring Rat", Hon Zoeng the "Earth-Piercing Rat" and Lou Fong the "Sky-Penetrating Rat" — plotted to steal the imperial jade seal from the emperor to embarrass Zin.

Spoiled and with her head permanently in the clouds, Yuen Si Si (Yim) - naive daughter of an affluent merchant - lives her cosseted life dreaming of a meeting with her idol Qin Ge (Chen Kwan-Tai). Qin Ge is a kung-fu celebrity somewhat out of reach though and Si Si's wealthy father decides to marry her of to his friend's son, Yang Fan (Tak). Obviously an arranged marriage is anathema to the fiercely independent young woman and she sneaks out of the house with the intention of finding her beloved Qin Ge. What she doesn't realise though is that the kung-fu skills she thinks will protect her are merely a pretence, cleverly engineered to boost her ego by her over-protective father. It isn't too long into her misadventure that the formerly hermitic Si Si discovers that the world outside is far from being the world of chivalry that she expected and there are people practically lining up to take advantage of her. Not too far behind her is Yang Fan who is keen to save his fiancée more for the reward offered by her father than any feelings of affection for her.

Kao Chien Fei (Alexander Fu Sheng) is a young swordsman who wields a special sword with a teardrop forged into its blade. Chien Fei is charged with averting an impending crisis in the martial arts world, but the villain, Zhou Tung Lai (Derek Yee Tung-Sing), wishes to become the ruler of the world of martial arts, and launches a scheme to pit the various heroes against one another.

Li Bai (Dick Wei) is the creator and master of the 'Shi Zi So Hou Shou' (which basically is a ' Throat Locking Hand', otherwise known as 'Shaolin Hand Lock') who passes down the skill to his children Cheng Ying (David Chiang) and Meng Ping (Chen Ping). However, an old friend Fang Yun Biao (Chan Shen) visits Li Bai and manages to kill him by attacking the skills only weakness and unknowingly, also kills his two other students to whom he believed were Li Bai's children. After his children find out of the murder, Cheng Ying sets out to avenge his father. Travelling to Thailand to kill Fang and before that, gives him information of who hired him - the rich benevolent Lin Hao (Lo Lieh). In the process, he attracts Lin Hao into accepting him as a bodyguard by stealing and retaining in custody gold that belonged to Lin Hao. While suspected by other guards, Lin Hao remains in a difficult situation to find out if Li Bai's siblings are still alive and what Cheng Ying is really there for...

This kung-fu comedy combines Fu Sheng with his real-life brother Chang Chan Peng. The former stars as a wily kung-fu conman who uses all of his skills to trick an important official of his wares during the film's opening. Now on the run from the law, he runs into a wealthy yet bored young socialite who wants the chance to prove himself to his family. Bearing this in mind, the spoilt son proposes a venture to his new associate: to find the fabled treasure of Chan Po Chu and satisfy their respective needs for wealth and acceptance. With a tenuous agreement put into action, the two adventurers set out in search of the very sought after treasure. Also hunting down the Chan Po Chu booty is a small band of kung fu fighting monks and, the most fearsome of all, the ruthless Lord Mo. Through a series of intricate escapades and minor battles, the dynamic duo form a unique bond that helps them in their final confrontation with the dreaded Lord Mo. In the temple that is said to house Chan Po Chu's legacy, the various parties reveal their motives and the heroic forces are once and for all pitted against Lord Mok and his deadly female cohort.

The novel begins with a small group of armed militants, a much older Clare Savage among them, traveling through Jamaica's remote Cockpit Country. The militants have settled on land once owned by Clare's grandmother Miss Mattie, where they train together and grow food as well as produce illegal drugs.

The second chapter tells the story of Paul H., who is initially at a party with Harry/Harriet, a transgender half-brother/half-sister to one of Paul's friends. Paul returns home after a late night to find a horrific scene: his family and all of their servants have been murdered with a machete. He stumbles upon Christopher, another servant employed by Paul's parents, and enlists his help in dealing with the bodies and the burials. But we learn in flashback that Christopher, an orphan whose family has served Paul's parents for generations, committed the murders when he went to ask a favor from Paul's father—to help Christopher find where his grandmother is buried so that he could give her spirit rest—and was turned down. Christopher had been waiting for Paul, and kills him before Paul figures out what has happened.

The story then shifts time periods to 1960, when Boy Savage, Clare's father, is immigrating with his family to the United States. Kitty Savage, Clare's mother, is not happy about moving away from all she has ever known, but she resigns herself to quiet depression upon departure from Jamaica and arrival in Miami. Boy purchases a used car and the family travels north to New York City. While traveling through the state of Georgia, Boy attempts to get a room in a segregated motel; the innkeeper suspects that he is black, but Boy is able to convince the innkeeper that he is white by telling him that his ancestors once owned plantations. When the family arrives in New York City they go to stay with Winston and Grace, relatives from Kitty's mother's side of the family. Soon, however, they stop any contact with Kitty's relatives in order to fully assume a white identity. Boy eventually takes a job driving a laundry truck and Kitty goes to work in the office of his employer. Fed up with the constant racism she encounters, Kitty decides to slip messages into the linens before they are delivered—messages such as “Marcus Garvey was right” and “America is cruel. Consider kindness for a change” aimed at the white customers. Mr. B, Kitty's employer, finds out about the messages and fires two of the black workers, Georgia and Virginia; Mr. B suspects that they were the ones slipping in the messages. Kitty quits her job, then takes Clare's younger sister Jennie and returns to Jamaica.

After her mother and sister leave, Clare becomes increasingly lonely, since she has not yet started school and is not allowed to leave the house by herself. She stays home and watches movies and remembers the first American she met—a white teacher at her Catholic school in Jamaica who taught lessons on the American Civil War, took the girls to see the “documentary” ''Gone With the Wind'', and extolled the benefits of racial hierarchies. When Clare begins school in New York she is told that, despite her intelligence, she will be held back for a year because children from Third World countries develop differently from American children. Boy tries to convince the school that Clare is white, but the school does not believe him, nor do they have a category for “bi-racial” students—a student is either black or white. Five years pass, and Kitty is still living with Clare's younger sister in Jamaica. Clare, who is now a sophomore in college, comes home one evening to find her father crying. He tells her that her mother has died and later that her sister Jennie will be coming to live with them. After Jennie moves in, Clare borrows some money from her uncle Fredrick and leaves home for England.

Upon arriving in London Clare finds a room to rent and spends some time visiting various museums, browsing bookshops and generally getting to know England. She eventually becomes a legal resident and enrolls at the University of London to study art history. After some time at the university Clare decides to take her uncle up on his invitation to come back to Jamaica, where she attends the same party as Paul H. before he was killed by Christopher, and meets Harry/Harriet. Clare and Harry/Harriet become good friends while Clare is in Kingston, Jamaica, spending time together first in a Spanish galleon-themed bar and then on a beach discussing the history and current social conditions of Jamaica. The two keep in touch, via letters, after Clare returns to England. Upon her return, Clare witnesses a National Front march and is deeply disturbed by the aggression and racism on display on her college campus. She tries to explain why she is so disturbed to her friend Liz, but gets nowhere and ends up feeling isolated and alone.

In the next chapter Clare meets up with Bobby, a Vietnam War veteran who has a wound on his ankle that, despite Clare's best efforts, will not heal. The two of them leave London together and travel around Europe. While traveling she receives a letter from Harry/Harriet telling her that her aunt and uncle in Kingston are moving to Miami and leaving her grandmother's old place in the country to her alone. Clare continues to travel around Europe with Bobby, who is still struggling mentally and physically with the after-effects of the war, until one day he disappears without warning.

Clare waits for Bobby but eventually decides it is time for her to return to Jamaica. Clare becomes increasingly ill upon her return and discovers that she has an infection in her womb that will most likely leave her sterile. After she recovers, Harry/Harriet suggests that the two of them travel to Clare's grandmother's farm. Once there, Clare finds the river where she used to bathe and with Harry/Harriet takes a bath there for the first time in twenty years.

In chapter nine we learn that Christopher was never arrested for his crime, and so has been left to wander the back alleys of Kingston's ghettos. He becomes known throughout the city as the watchman of Kingston—a sort of mad prophet or mendicant, and becomes the subject of a reggae song. On the night of a terrible fire where many old women are burned alive, alluded to earlier in a letter from Harry/Harriet to Clare, Christopher shows up at the scene shouting prophecies at the top of his lungs.

After visiting the countryside Clare learns of the poor economic conditions in Jamaica. Harry/Harriet takes her to a small tenement room in Kingston so that she can join a clandestine militant revolutionary group. She is interrogated about her motives and convinces the militants that she is genuine in her desire to make a violent revolution on behalf of the poor and oppressed in Jamaica. In her answers Clare connects the experiences of her life and travels to the oppressed condition of Jamaica—a former colony, part of the Third World. Finally, Clare recalls that in one of her final letters before her death, her mother told her to help her people in whatever way that she could; this becomes her ultimate justification for joining the group.

In the final chapter of the book, a film crew has come to Jamaica to make a movie about the Maroons, and they have hired Christopher, “de Watchman”, to play a small role. Clare and the militants decide to massacre the civilian crew, but when they begin their attack it is apparent that someone has sold them out. Clare and the rest of the militants are killed in a counter-terrorism operation.

Beth leaves her small Māori village and, much to her parents' chagrin, marries Jake "The Muss" Heke. After eighteen years, they live in an unkempt state house in South Auckland and have five children. Their interpretations of life and being Māori are tested.

Jake is fired from his job, but remains satisfied with receiving unemployment benefit and spending most days getting drunk at a nearby pub with his friends. He shows his violent streak by savagely beating a muscular patron who dares disrupt a female singer's (Mere Boynton) performance. He often invites crowds of friends from the bar to his home for drunken parties. When his wife "gets lippy", he brutally beats her in front of the group, who are too intimidated to interfere. Beth turns to booze when things go wrong, and exhibits angry outbursts and occasional violence of her own on a smaller scale. Her children fend for themselves, resignedly cleaning the blood-streaked house after their father beats their mother.

Nig, the eldest son of the Heke family, moves out to join a gang whose rituals include getting facial tattoos. He undergoes an initiation beating, passes and is then embraced as a new brother. Nig cares about his siblings but despises his father; he is angered when his mother is beaten but does not intervene. Nig's younger brother Mark, aka "Boogie", is placed in a foster home as a ward of the state due to his parents' home life. Jake is unconcerned and hopes the experience will toughen him up. Despite his initial anger, Boogie finds a new niche for himself after the foster home's manager, Mr. Bennett, helps him embrace his Māori heritage.

Grace, Jake and Beth's 13-year-old daughter, keeps a journal in which she chronicles events, as well as stories she tells her younger siblings. Her best friend is a homeless boy named Toot, who lives in a wrecked car. She dreads a future she believes is inevitable and is constantly reminded of getting married and playing the role of a wife, which she believes comprises catering to a husband's demands and enduring beatings. She dreams of living an independent and single life.

Grace is raped by Uncle Bully, a friend of her father. She falls into a deep depression and seeks support from Toot, with whom she smokes marijuana for the first time. Toot kisses her but she reacts violently and storms out, believing he is "just like the rest of them". Confused, Grace eventually goes home to an angry Jake with his friends. Bully asks for a goodnight kiss to test his power over her. She refuses and Jake sees it as a sign of disrespect; he rips her journal in two and nearly beats her. Beth returns home from searching for Grace, and then screams hysterically after finding her daughter has hanged herself from a tree branch in the backyard.

Jake selfishly deals with the tragedy by going to the pub while the rest of his family takes Grace's body to a tangihanga. Beth stands up to him for the first time when he refuses to let her be taken to the marae. The film cross-cuts between the mourning, Jake's drinking and the family on the marae. Boogie impresses Beth with his Māori singing at the funeral, and Toot says his goodbyes, telling Grace the gentle kiss he gave her the last time he saw her was a gesture meant only to confirm their mantra 'best friends for life'. Boogie reassures Toot that Grace loved him, and Beth invites him to live with them.

Reading Grace's diary later that day, Beth finds out about the rape and confronts Bully at the pub. Jake initially threatens Beth for accusing his friend, but Nig steps between them, protecting his mother. After glancing at the diary himself, Jake explodes in a rage and beats Bully nearly to death, castrating him with a broken bottle. Beth, blaming Jake just as much as Bully because of his violent lifestyle, decides to take their children back to her Māori village and traditions, defiantly telling him that her heritage gives her the strength to resist his control over her. Jake shouts at her on a kerb outside the pub as the family leaves, with police sirens wailing in the background.

The film begins with a severed head that is just about to go up in flames when it starts to sing "Blue Prelude" by Nina Simone. The head then starts to tell the story of how it has wound up in this situation. He meets a beautiful dark-haired woman, a femme fatale, and he begins to fall in love with her the moment their eyes meet. Soon after, he learns that she should not be trusted but by then it is too late as he soon becomes entrapped in the charming predator's web of deception.

Loving Che centers on the lives of an unnamed female protagonist who is searching for her mother, and Teresa de la Landre, who claims to be her mother. Broken into three distinct parts, the novel begins with the female protagonist, moves into a commentary by Teresa de la Landre, and closes with the female protagonist.

Not long after Fidel Castro's successful Cuban Revolution in 1959, the protagonist's grandfather takes his infant granddaughter to America, at the request of his daughter (the protagonist's mother). Growing up in Miami, the protagonist knows little about her parentage or about Cuba. After years of silence and numerous unanswered questions, the protagonist confronts her grandfather about her heritage, particularly pressing him for details about her mother. Talking about his daughter (the protagonist's mother) for the first time, he reveals she wanted her daughter out of Cuba and promised she would reunite with them six months later. Although the grandfather claims he did not want to separate his daughter from her only child, he obliged.

The grandfather recalls that it was only after he had safely arrived in Miami with his granddaughter that he found his daughter's farewell note pinned to his granddaughter's sweater. Unable to return to his homeland because of the political unrest between America and Cuba, the grandfather revealed he tried to contact his daughter, but all his attempts failed. Although the protagonist now has some idea about her heritage, she still feels somewhat lost, drops out of the university, and starts traveling the world.

While traveling the world, the protagonist learns of her grandfather's death and returns to America. Realizing the passing of time is reducing her chances of locating her mother, the protagonist travels to Cuba with her mother's farewell note. Unable to locate her mother, the protagonist returns to Miami, starts a career as a travel writer and tries to forget her past.

When a mysterious package arrives from Spain, the protagonist's interest in her heritage resurges. The package, filled with photographs and letters, is from a woman named Teresa de la Landre, who claims to be her mother. The contents of the package are the subject of the second section of Loving Che in which the protagonist sifts through the contents seeking to uncover details of her heritage. Somewhat skeptical of the letters at first, the protagonist reads about Teresa's life, her career as a painter, and her marriage to Calixto de la Landre. Within her letters, Teresa also states she had an affair with the revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara and claims the protagonist is the result of their affair.

The possible connection between the protagonist and Guevara is important to the novel because of his mythical status throughout the world, especially Cuban culture. Guevara played a significant part in helping Castro seize control of Cuba, and his desire to help the poor and oppressed throughout the world work together to overthrow imperialist governments in order to live free of capitalistic ideals, further built his legendary status. Realizing that being an illegitimate daughter of such an idealized person could have wide-ranging implications for the protagonist prompts her to uncover more details about her past.

In the third section of the book the protagonist seeks authentication of Teresa's story, particularly Teresa's claim that she had an affair with Guevara and the likelihood that she is the product of their affair. The protagonist contacts Dr. Caraballo, a professor of history, and Jacinto Alcazar, a photographer who knew Fidel Castro and Che Guevara briefly. With neither believing the likelihood of Guevara and Teresa's affair, the protagonist travels to Cuba. This time, the protagonist seeks to verify Teresa's story along with trying to locate her mother.

During this later trip to Cuba, the protagonist gains a better understanding of herself by connecting with her country of birth. Although she does not find her mother – a Cuban local claims that her mother is dead – nor does she find out if Teresa and Guevara were her parents, the protagonist no longer appears to feel displaced from her heritage. Previously, when she had visited Cuba the protagonist felt detached, like a tourist. On this latest trip, however, she sees the city with fresh, more favorable eyes and refers to herself as Cuban. Having this connection with all things Cuban, the protagonist also sees Guevara in a new light. Having little knowledge of Guevara prior to receiving Teresa's letters, the protagonist reads many books about him and now feels like he is less foreign to her. Seeing a picture of Guevara in a Manhattan store, the protagonist reflects on what might have been: “a beautiful stranger, who in a different dream, might have been the father of my heart” (226).

Drifter William Bonney (Paul Newman), known as "Billy the Kid", befriends a cattle boss named John Tunstall, who is known as "The Englishman". Tunstall is murdered by corrupt rival cattlemen led by the local sheriff in the Lincoln County War. Bonney plans to avenge the crime by hunting down those responsible and killing them in provoked gunfights. His violent actions endanger his surviving friends and the territorial amnesty proclaimed by New Mexico Territory governor Lew Wallace. Billy's former friend, Pat Garrett, becomes a sheriff and sets out to hunt him down.

Billy's worshipful companion, Moultrie, lionizes Billy's actions, fueling a series of dime novels that transform Bonney into a legend. Billy is disgusted with his fictionalization, and he rejects Moultrie. Embittered, Moultrie betrays Bonney to Garrett. In a final showdown, Garrett ambushes and kills the exhausted Bonney, who faces his nemesis unarmed in the hopes of ending his own life.

In 1911, Taylor, a former big-league pitcher, has been sent down to the minor leagues at age 37 due to problems with his pitching arm. He longs for a second chance and approaches his former manager, John McGraw, about re-joining the New York Giants. Short of players, McGraw eventually agrees to take him on a post-season exhibition trip to play baseball in Cuba, where the political atmosphere is tense in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War. During the games in Cuba, Taylor is introduced to a promising Cuban prospect who is also deaf. Taylor encounters moral dilemmas as he balances his desire to return to the big leagues against difficult issues involving racism, discrimination, disability, fading dreams, and the sports philosophy of winning at any cost.

''Guess How Much I Love You'' follows the story of two hares, Big Nutbrown Hare and Little Nutbrown Hare. It is never stated that the two hares are father and son in the original storybooks, but this is stated in the animated television series. Little Nutbrown Hare asks Big Nutbrown Hare the title question, "Guess how much I love you?", and the book continues as the two use larger and larger measures to quantify how much they love each other in answer to the question.

Katyusha, a country girl, is seduced and abandoned by Prince Dimitry. Dimitry finds himself, years later, on a jury trying the same Katyusha for a crime he now realizes his actions drove her to. He follows her to imprisonment in Siberia, intent on redeeming her and himself as well.

In the first chapter, Allison invites Jason, Stephen and all the girls in class to her birthday party. She says when more than two boys are together they start acting really silly. This is proven when Joe and John come by and indeed act silly, they don't admit it until Mrs. Jewls writes the situation as an arithmetic problem (boys + boys = silly). The girls are excited about this, until they are told that the same thing goes for girls. The next chapter simply involves Mrs. Jewls being unable to say bras because it's "crass". After that, Sue gets a new dog called Fangs, Calvin saying the dog sounds mean. When presented, Mrs. Jewls uses arithmetic (good + dog = fangs) to prove that Fangs the dog is nice. Next, some of the boys complain about them being too hot, saying "too" more time the more hot they are. Later, Miss Worm, the teacher who teaches on the story just below Mrs. Jewls's, complains about the excitementic arithmetic is causing in the class. Miss Worm is basically what Sue was like in the last arithmetic book. Later, Mrs. Jewls announces there will be a pop quiz next week. She won't tell the day, but they'll know when she tells them to take out their pencils. Todd then says that if she doesn't tell them on Thursday, they'll know the quiz will be on Friday. The other students play along with the other days, in a variation of the unexpected hanging paradox until Mrs. Jewls tells them to forget the whole thing. Then, the school flagpole was struck by lightning. So Mrs. Jewls's class makes a vote on which should be the new size. Unfortunately, the kids keep wanting more votes with the second most votes, something like a tetherball game. Ultimately, Kathy is always on the side that wins, so her size gets to be the size of the new flagpole.

Category:Novels by Louis Sachar Category:Wayside School Category:1994 children's books Category:Puzzle books Category:Novels set in elementary and primary schools

Horwitz decides to travel to Hollywood and hunt down the surviving western heroes of his youth. As he drives across the country, he stops off at a variety of places that he had known only through western movie legends, only to find them too modernized. Upon arrival in Los Angeles, Horwitz contacts the Screen Actors Guild, which refuses to release the mailing addresses of the now-retired stars or even tell him who is alive or dead. He leaves his contact letters at the Guild office and places an ad in ''The Hollywood Reporter'', asking for any of the actors willing to participate in the writing project to contact him. Through various means, Horwitz succeeds in tracking down and interviewing many western heroes, including Gene Autry, Sunset Carson, Joel McCrea, and Duncan Renaldo, AKA ''The Cisco Kid''. Others, such as Jay Silverheels and Roy Rogers, reject him completely.

Throughout the book, Horwitz is repeatedly disillusioned by the reality behind the nostalgia, such as Lash LaRue being arrested for drunkenness and drug possession or Roy Rogers' horse Trigger stuffed and mounted in a museum.

Horwitz ends the book at the site where Tom Mix died in a car accident. He takes out his childhood cowboy boots, tries to polish them, and leaves them at the monument marking the location.

The book also contains a thorough analysis of the western movie genre, focusing primarily on the early cowboy film legends. Horwitz covers Hopalong Cassidy's career in detail.

Working class cockney teenagers Dot (Rita Tushingham) and biker Reggie (Colin Campbell) get married. Their marriage soon turns sour. During an unsuccessful honeymoon at a holiday camp, Reggie becomes alienated from the brassy, self-absorbed Dot. Afterward, they begin to live increasingly separate lives as Reggie becomes more involved with his biker friends, especially the eccentric Pete (Dudley Sutton). Reggie also loses interest in having sex with Dot.

When Reggie's grandfather dies, Dot merely complains that his support for his bereaved grandmother (Gladys Henson) has stopped them visiting the cinema. Her boorish behaviour at the funeral and her refusal to move in with Reggie's grandmother leads to a major argument. She leaves, and Reggie stays with his grandmother, who will not leave her own house. He brings in Pete, who has been forced to leave his lodgings, to stay as a lodger with her. The two share a bed at her house. Meanwhile, Dot shows an interest in Brian (Johnny Briggs), another biker. The following day, Pete and Reggie drive to the seaside. Reggie wants them to chat up a couple of girls, but Pete shows no interest.

Reggie intends to return to Dot. Dot has hatched a plan to get him back by pretending to be pregnant. Dot is sitting with Brian when she tells Reggie of her "pregnancy". Believing he can't be the father, Reggie accuses Brian, and the two fight. Reggie knocks out Brian. Dot visits the house of Reggie's grandmother and learns that he is sharing a bed with Pete. She taunts them, calling them "queers". Reggie is disturbed by this, and asks Pete to deny that he is homosexual, but Pete avoids answering.

The bikers organise a race from London to Edinburgh and back in which Reggie, Pete and Brian all take part. Dot rides with Brian. When Brian's bike breaks down, Reggie carries Dot on his. Dot admits she is not pregnant. The two start to rekindle their relationship. When they get back, Pete manages to separate Reggie from Dot, taking him to the pub. They come back to their room drunk. When Pete passes out, Reggie sits up thinking. The following morning, he decides to return to Dot. Pete gets upset, and says he can't understand why Reggie would want to return to Dot because they get on so much better. He says they should go to America together. Reggie says that he needs a woman. He returns to Dot, but discovers her in bed with Brian. In despair, he meets with Pete and says he wishes to leave for America as soon as possible. Pete says he can get them passage working on a ship.

While Pete is arranging things, he leaves Reggie in a pub in Silvertown near the Royal docks, which turns out to be a gay pub. Reggie realises when one of the clientele starts chatting him up. When Pete enters, they all recognise him, and Reggie suddenly understands that Pete too is gay. He leaves.

In the year 2144, a group of four friends who call themselves the Honorable Society of Ananias meet for lunch once a month, during which one of the members tells a story. The story must be a complex and fantastic lie, but one which sounds like the truth. The other three members are free to heckle and attack the supposed veracity of the tale.

At the seventeenth meeting, Gilbert Hayes, a guest, requests that he be allowed to tell a story. His tale is that, fifteen years before, as an astronomer, he discovered that a planet with no gravitational field had entered the Solar System from the region of the south celestial pole and remained undiscovered by other astronomers. Hayes compares the planet to a "super-neutron", and he claims that it is heading for the Sun and will strike in just over an hour, destroying the Sun the way a neutron causes a uranium nucleus to fission.

The story Hayes weaves involves complex astronomical observations and theories, and at the end of the tale, he hands around pieces of exposed film-negative, through which the members gaze into the sky and see - or think they see - a small dark spot against the sun. At 2:09:30 pm Hayes announces that the super-neutron has struck the sun, and that the Earth will be destroyed in eight minutes. He calmly announces the destruction, first of Mercury, then of Venus, and finally counts down the last thirty seconds to the end of the Earth.

When the Earth is not destroyed, Hayes theorizes that this is because the Sun is like a cadmium nucleus among the uranium nuclei of other stars—able to absorb the super-neutron without undergoing fission.

Out of sheer relief, the members vote him in as Perpetual President of the Society, but the narrator has misgivings. He thinks that the story was in fact true and that therefore Hayes should have been disqualified.

High school is finally over for Pedro (Matt Evans), and with it, he is about to leave Tulay Buhangin for college. Pedro and Lola Maria (Gloria Romero) found their way to his Lolo Pedro's boarding house at the University Belt, where Pedro is hoping to lead a normal life as a normal student. Except that, a normal life is not really an option for Pedro.

In the first place, Lolo Pablo (Cris Daluz) is not your average grandfather – he gets visions of spirits. And his latest vision is a frightening one – the demon Kalagua has escaped from her prison and is determined to find the chosen Engkantao - a half-human, half engkanto hybrid - whose power can bring her to Floreshka. Once in Floreshka, he intends to destroy the kingdom and all engkantos protecting the human race - and begin the last apocalypse.

Pedro in the City

In Pedro's arrival, he experienced culture shock. He was amazed by the things in the city. Then, Lola Maria was captured by an unknown man with an evil spirit within him, Pedro then rescued her using his new powers. This incident happened in Cubao, Quezon City. In the other hand, a different accident happened in Makati City. It was in a hotel, where Kalagua put an evil spirit on a photographer and one of the Engkantaos, Josef, helped stop the evil spirit. Another incident took place in Tondo, Manila, where an evil monster came out of the garbage dump, and attacked the people. Marie, an Engkantao, was there to help. In Monumento, Caloocan, Dianne, also an Engkantao, fought the statues, that were brought alive by Kalagua. Also another incident happened in Luneta Grandstand, Manila, when a group of criminals captured people. The fifth Engkantao, Edward, helped them. Quezon City Memorial Circle, is where the last incident happened. Moy, the last Engkantao, used his powers to kill the snakes, that were attacking the people. These incidents happened in the same time, but different places. Those places, traced together, forms a Star of David shape, the symbol of the chosen Engkantaos. After the attacks, Kalagua, tries to find the chosen Engkantao, through the body of Dr. Eva. Will banding together help the young heroes - or will it make it easier for Kalagua to find them?

Joe Baron (Glenn Ford) is an under-appreciated, under paid cop who lives a life of luxury because of his very wealthy, beautiful and much younger wife, Lisa Baron (Elke Sommer), and the stock that her father left behind. Unfortunately for the happy couple, when their stock's dividends stop coming in, Joe finds himself in some serious need of cash to continue his life style. To further heighten Joe's concerns, Lisa intimates she is unwilling to lower her standard of living.

Soon after Joe realizes he has a cash flow problem, he and his partner Pete Delanos (Ricardo Montalbán) are ordered to perform a routine investigation whereby a rich and well connected doctor, Horace Van Tilden (Joseph Cotten) has shot an intruder, Phil Kenny, in his home. When the duo visit the crime scene, they find an opened wall safe and the intruder laying on the floor, but still breathing. Joe rides in the ambulance and during the trip to the hospital, Kenny reveals that he was after two bags of cash containing $500,000. He also gives Joe a piece of paper with the combination of the safe on it, after which Kenny dies. Joe decides to keep this to himself and continues his own personal research on the case to find more information.

Joe visits Phil Kenny's Wife, Rosalie Kenny (Rita Hayworth), who is now working in a bar as a waitress. When Joe sees Kenny's wife he realizes that she is a former girl friend from the old neighborhood. Later that night, Lisa and Joe argue. Joe storms out of his house and ends up meeting up with Rosalie and that night they make love. In the morning Rosalie tells Joe that Van Tilden has a business dealing in drugs and that Kenny was an employee and an addict who was looking for a way to get some more drugs. She validates Kenny's claim that he was after $500,000. Joe gives Rosalie some money and tells her to leave town. That morning, Joe returns home and Lisa apologizes for the night before.

Later, Pete reveals to Joe that he knows Joe is up to something and that he "wants in". Joe reluctantly agrees and shares with Pete his idea to go after Van Tilden's ill-gotten loot. They both work together and organize a plan to steal the bags of cash.

To their surprise, Van Tilden requests to see them. Van Tilden explains he wants to give Rosalie money and wants to know where she lives. Joe feigns ignorance. Before the meeting ends, Van Tilden matter-of-factly mentions he will be in Acapulco for the week, leaving that day. Joe is very suspicious but decides to move forward with the planned heist. Later, Joe and Pete are ordered to a potential crime scene - a woman has fallen or been pushed from a rooftop. The arrive to find Rosalie, sprawled on the ground. They are informed by another police officer that the finger marks on the ledge indicate she was pushed. The next day, Pete checks to make sure that Van Tilden has left for Acapulco.

That night, Joe and Pete enter Van Tilden's house where they encounter and knock unconscious, Van Tilden's henchman, Matthews. They drill the safe and use nitroglycerin to blow open the safe door. As Pete and Joe are grabbing the bags of loot, Van Tilden and Matthews surprise them. A gunfight ensues and Pete is shot. Joe is able to incapacitate both Van Tilden and Matthews and help Pete to the car for a quick getaway. Joe drives Pete to his house where he is forced to tell Lisa what happened. They discover that one of the bags contains heroin. Joe realizes that Pete's gunshot wound is life-threatening and decides to offer Van Tilden the bag of drugs in exchange for medical attention for Pete. Van Tilden arrives at Joe's house, alone, per Joe's demand. Unbeknownst to Joe, Mattews has followed Van Tilden. During his treatment, Pete accuses Joe of selling him out. He grabs the money and attempts to leave, but the strain is too much and he succumbs to his wound. As Joe's part of the bargain, he now must deliver the drugs to the Van Tilden. He and Van Tilden leave in Van Tilden's car, closely followed by Matthews. They arrive at a closed drugstore and Joe instructs Van Tilden to wait in the car while he retrieves the bag of heroin. Joe knocks on the door and an elderly gentlemen opens the door. Joe asks for the bag he left earlier. It's clear the drugstore is in Joe's old neighborhood and the drugstore owner has known Joe since he was a young man. As the drugstore owner is about to hand Joe the bag, Matthews and Van Tilden enter with drawn guns. Van Tilden orders Matthews to kill both Joe and the drugstore owner as he leaves with the heroin. Joe draws his gun and shots are exchanged. Matthews is killed by Joe. As Joe steps outside, he sees Van Tilden driving off in his limousine. Joe fires several shots hitting Van Tilden and causing his car to crash into a nearby storefront. As Van Tilden stumbles from the car, he and Joe exchange gunfire, hitting each other. Joe grabs his stomach and fires one final round into the prone Van Tilden.

Injured, Joe makes his way back home in Van Tilden's battered limousine. When Lisa attempts to call an ambulance, Joe orders her to call the police, instead. He then turns on the lights to his rear yard, illuminating his spacious swimming pool and well maintained patio. As sirens are heard in the background, Joe leans against the wall and awaits his fate in the arms of his wife.

This semi-amusing sex (romance) comedy has four separate stories.

Juzo Murasaki (Oguri Shun) arrives at a work construction area for his new job as a construction worker. To his quiet dismay, his supervising boss is Toru Akai (Hirofumi Arai) who, along with his gang, had made Juzo's life a living hell during their middle school years. Akai however doesn't recognise Juzo.

Juzo becomes more disconcerted when he discovers Akai is living with his wife, Nozomi Akai (Yumi Yoshimura), and their toddler son above Juzo's new apartment. As he struggles to accept those unexpected developments, a mysterious sinister-looking hooded figure appears nearby. When Juzo later has a closer look, half of the man's face is scarred and he calls himself Number 13 (Nakamura Shido).

As Juzo attempts to control his flashbacks and dreams, boss Akai constantly picks on him and other workers including another former middle-school student Seki Hajime (Tomoya Ishii), who ignores Juzo's asocial tendencies by being a friendly face. Meanwhile, Akai's wife Nozomi attempts to make friends with Juzo by inviting him into her home and encouraging him to look after her toddler son. One evening she proudly shows Juzo her husband's school photos. Juzo notices the mark X in a gap between students. He suffers an intense flashback, which reveals the cause of his absence that day: Akai and his gang bully Juzo in the school's science room until they throw acid at Juzo's face.

At construction site, Seki becomes suspicious of Juzo's increasingly odd behaviour, and goes to Akai with his concerns. Unaware that Number 13 is watching, Seki tries to get Akai's attention, but Akai walks away. Seki becomes aware of Number 13, who immediately kills him. Number 13 haunts Juzo wherever he goes. Meanwhile, Arai watches Juzo with growing suspicion as a number of his workers and neighbours disappear without trace.

After finding Nozomi's body in the apartment upstairs with the toddler nowhere in sight, Juzo realises where Number 13 has taken the toddler son to and hurries off to save the boy. Coming home from work, Akai discovers his wife's body and his son gone. He's already guessed Juzo was a former classmate and that he has taken his son to their middle school.

At school, Juzo finds the toddler drowned in a school bathroom and realises Number 13 is out of control. He walks around the school, trying to find Number 13. He comes across Akai, who attacks Juzo while demanding his son back. After a violent confrontation, Juzo—who we realise is Number 13 all along—kneels over Akai on the floor. As he is about to stab Akai's head, Akai desperately shouts: "I'm sorry!" Juzo freezes. The apology splits Juzo's universe into two.

Universe #1: as described above.

Universe #2: in the science room, Juzo rebels against Akai's bullying, which causes Akai to apologise. Juzo later appears in a class photo as a happy-looking middle school student next to Akai and the gang. As an adult, he walks past an apartment block where he and the Akai family lived in Universe #1. Juzo notes construction workers are taking down the apartment-block sign, which suggests the block is slated to be demolished. He spots a dark hooded figure standing in a window. It's Number 13. Juzo looks away as if he doesn't recognise him, and continues walking next to his work friend. It's Akai.

At this point, we viewers realise the events in Universe #1 never took place in Universe #2. Universe #1 is a scenario of what could have been if Juzo hadn't stood up to Akai's bullying in the science room, which could end with having acid thrown at Juzo's face. This would have given birth to Number 13 albeit Universe #1.

''Steel Beach'' takes place in Varley’s "Eight Worlds" universe. The Solar System has been colonized by human refugees fleeing aliens (known as "the Invaders"). Earth and Jupiter are off-limits to humanity, but Earth's Moon and the other planets and moons of the Solar System have all become populated. There are also minor colonies set in the Oort cloud beyond the Solar System itself.

The "steel beach" of the title is Earth's Moon, the most heavily inhabited world in the Solar System since the Invaders obliterated human civilization on Earth. The title alludes to humans being figuratively thrown onto the inhospitable Moon, a parallel to fish making their way onto land in the evolution of amphibians.

The book's protagonist, Hildy Johnson, is a newspaper reporter, named after the male protagonist of the 1928 play and 1931 film ''The Front Page'' and the female protagonist of the 1940 film ''His Girl Friday'' (Hildy changes gender halfway through the book), who finds trouble beneath the surface of the near-utopian society run by the Central Computer. The Central Computer runs every aspect of every person's life: it is the government, court, information source, and friend to every citizen.

At the beginning of the novel, Hildy has become dissatisfied with life, much like many others on the moon who take part, for example, in destructive activities such as "slash boxing"—a blend of knife fighting and boxing, on which Hildy reports. It is revealed that Hildy has made multiple suicide attempts. Scenes such as a discussion of suicide with a slain slash boxer suggest that Hildy is an unreliable narrator.

The first half of the story deals with behaviors in the future society such as indoctrinations of celebrity heads-in-jars, negotiating with brontosaurus herds to figure out whom they will sacrifice to make burger patties, and Earth-themed "Disneylands" which come complete with snakes, sand and sunburns. The protagonist grew up on a brontosaur ranch run by a no-nonsense rancher with little time for philosophical speculation, and finds solace in the quasi-dedication of the Texas Disneyland's inhabitants to authenticity.

In the second half, Hildy contacts a group of people who have figured out how to exist on the surface without spacesuits. These people reveal that they are hiding from the Central Computer, both to keep their technology secret, and to stay free of secret experiments the Central Computer has been performing on people.

Hildy then learns that the Central Computer has been attempting to clone the deceased and that this would solve Hildy's suicide problem. The Central Computer decides to launch a military raid to eliminate the people, causing its own malfunctions. This raid, and the idea of using brute force to solve the problem, is unsuccessful.

in 1915, during the First World War, Geoffrey Richter-Douglas (Michael York), a Scotsman of German descent, is a lieutenant in the British Army. He meets Stephanie (Alexandra Stewart), a German spy to whom he is attracted. She suggests that he escape to Germany, where the other members of his family and his friends are. He reports this contact to his commanding officer, Captain Whitney, who also wants Geoffrey to go to Germany, but on a secret mission to steal the plans of the ''LZ36'', a new type of Zeppelin under development at Friedrichshafen.

Geoffrey pretends to be a deserter and travels to Germany, even getting shot in the arm by fellow British agents to sell the Germans the ruse. At Friedrichshafen, he meets his long-time friend Professor Altschul (Marius Goring), who lives with his beautiful and much younger wife, Erika (Elke Sommer), both of whom are scientists working on the new airship. Erika suspects that Geoffrey may be up to something, but keeps her suspicions to herself.

Geoffrey quickly learns that German Intelligence recruited him to travel to Germany for a specific military purpose. Following a meeting with Intelligence Colonel Hirsch (Anton Diffring), he is assigned to the ''LZ36'' on its maiden test flight. As soon as it is declared airworthy, to maintain absolute secrecy without first returning to base, the airship is to take part in a military operation to steal or destroy British historical documents, including the copy of ''Magna Carta'', from the National Archives at Balcoven Castle in Scotland. Geoffrey is to play a key role in the mission, using his knowledge of the Scottish countryside to guide the airship very close to the castle at night while the craft is gliding with its engines off. After leaving Germany, the zeppelin lands on a fjord in Norway to refuel and take on board a specially trained unit of soldiers armed with mustard gas.

Geoffrey misdirects the craft's wireless operator just long enough to send a message about the LZ36's location to British intelligence. The wireless operator returns and, upon hearing the reply and realizing what Geoffrey had done, engages him in a fight. Geoffrey manages to knock him out, and then throws him out an open window, telling the captain the wireless operator had fallen while scraping ice off the airship, as many craft personnel had been ordered to do. The explanation is believed, but Geoffrey does not have a chance to send any more information because Erika comes on the scene and removes an important radio component. The airship proceeds to Balcoven Castle.

Under cover of darkness, Geoffrey navigates the airship on its final approach to the castle. A local farmer hears the sound of the airship's engines just before they are cut, and raises the alarm with the local military base, but he is not immediately believed. Geoffrey has no option but to participate in the assault, but manages to slip away to try to raise the alarm. He persuades a sceptical radio operator to contact London, but after being wounded by German soldiers, the dying operator mistakes Geoffrey for a German spy and shoots him in the arm. The Germans launch an attack on the castle, but the historical documents they seek are in vaults inaccessible to them.

Meanwhile, alerted by the farmer's report and the radio operator's chaotic call, the British Admiralty scrambles several Royal Naval Air Service squadrons and dispatches ground troops. The British troops engage the Germans in a firefight, who withdraw empty-handed rather than risk losing the Zeppelin. The airship manages to slip away in the dark with a much depleted complement, but shortly after first light is caught by pursuing British aircraft. Several aircraft are shot down in the ensuing dogfight, but the Zeppelin is badly damaged. Despite desperately lightening the airship in an effort to stay in the air, the survivors are forced to crash-land near the coast of the neutral Netherlands. Geoffrey, Erika and the few remaining crew members make their way ashore just as the Zeppelin explodes.

The story follows a zombie-like anti-hero named Gideon Trencher, as he endeavors to complete his mission of exterminating souls which had been "wrongfully reincarnated". Due to the large superhuman population this often brought him in conflict with super-powered beings both important (Supreme and ShadowHawk) to the minor ('The Nasal Python'', who has the ability to use his nose hairs as fully functioning appendages, and ''The Hurler'', who can utilize pinpoint projectile vomit as a weapon.)

It's Gideon's job to hunt down these beings, with the assistance of a voice in his head named Phoebe, who is his dispatcher, giving him information on his targets, his surroundings, and who also serves as character foil for the otherwise isolated character. He moves from one name on the list to the next, usually receiving heavy damage to his body, frequently resulting in what should be fatal injuries (such as having his head blown from his body).

An unknown organization has designed many of these "trencher" units, who seemingly are resurrected and re-outfitted corpses (similar to deadmen in Gungrave) who are sent on separate missions.

Gideon is frequently involved in situations that largely make little sense within their own context, but continue author Keith Giffen's well known satire. From hunting down four separate Elvis possessed bodies who are each a variation on the beings who replaced Superman after his death in the DC universe, to engaging in a major smack down with superhero Supreme, Gideon endures constant abuse throughout the series until it abruptly ends at issue four, although his story picks up immediately in ''Images of ShadowHawk'' 1–3.

In ''Images of ShadowHawk'', Trencher fights Shadowhawk without the obligatory later team-up. They both want to get to a former mob boss Carmine "The Blowhole" Oliveri but for different reasons. As Shadowhawk eventually overcomes Trencher by cutting his intestines, Trencher in fact hanging from a building and falling to the street, ShadowHawk reaches Oliveri who is actually possessed by Twilight Runner and blows out Oliveri's brain.

Trencher and ShadowHawk, however, cross paths not long after these events, with the "Shadowhawk: The monster within" storyline. With Trencher fully regenerated after his last encounter with ShadowHawk, his dispatcher Phoebe watches Shadowhawk struggle with his ever dwindling chances of finding a cure for his AIDS infection and leaves Trencher to assist ShadowHawk for a time; transporting him throughout alternia in an attempt to find a cure. Trencher, now alone in New York, goes on repossessing souls on his own, though he bitterly complains to Phoebe upon return that he requires the dispatch info to do his job properly. The series ends with Trencher killing a sub-demon who was attacking both ShadowHawk and Spawn, and then telling Shadowhawk that there was never a cure and that he just needs to accept his inevitable death, after handing him (Shadowhawk) a loaded gun, Trencher walks away.

In ''Trencher X-Mas Bites Holiday Blow-Out'', Trencher fights a mad scientist Dr. Tushman, who after removing a missile from the sphincter of one Blazin' Glory (a Captain America parody) is caught in a massive radioactive fart and transformed into a shadow being. He hunts down people, collecting their farts and killing them until he comes across Trencher.

In ''Blackball Comics'' #1 Trencher is pitted against Blitz the Manic Mandrill created by Simon Bisley. It's a silent issue with no captions and no written dialogue only with drawn balloons and sound effects. The issue is a reference to the "Death of Superman" storyline, with several of the panels in the fight being direct send-ups of the Doomsday fight, along with a note from "the editors" pointing out how apologetic they are for letting an otherwise intelligent character get pulled into such a mindless slugfest. The book ends with the two characters blowing up themselves and everything else, still fighting, though being reduced to disembodied heads, they keep spitting at each other, as they can't (or won't) stop trying to one-up the other.

Trencher later reappears as a cameo in Dave Elliot's ''Sharky'' (Issue 4). Where he and a number of other superheroes (Savage Dragon, Flaming Carrot, Mr. Monster etc.) are summoned from the demigod Sharky's mind (As these characters are all of his favorite comic book characters) to assist him in battling his enemies. Trencher fights alongside the other heroes until Sharky no longer needs their assistance, leading him and the other heroes fade away.

The "Not quite a crossover" short story, previewing the unfinished ''Blackball Comics'' #3, involves Mr. Monster detonating a nuclear devise and nearly burying Trencher, Mr. Monster assumes that nothing could have survived the blast (though he had no idea that Trencher was near the explosion), and leaves as Trencher is seen covered in debris with a rather disgruntled expression.

Trencher's final appearance was in the unfinished ''Blackball Comics'' #3, which would later be published years after its cancellation in the trade paperback "Mr. Monster's books of forbidden knowledge volume 0" under the reworked title "Never Touch A Satan Glass!" (Along with "Not quite a crossover") The story was meant to feature an epic slugfest between Giffen's Trencher and Gilbert's Mr. Monster, both of which were being illustrated by their respective creators in a collaborative effort, but Blackball Comics went bankrupt after ''Blackball Comics'' #1 and the initially thirty-page fight was left at an unfinished 6 pages. Gilbert would later release the unfinished story with an additional seventh page to conclude it. The story then picks up with Trencher going to Mr. Monster's mountain to repossess the soul of his secretary, but find's out that he has the wrong address and has attacked the wrong mountain, he trips over a child while attempting to leave and drags Mr. Monster's secretary with him through the Satan Glass which happens to be a direct doorway to hell. The glass shatters and Mr. Monster laments how he'll miss his beloved secretary because his taxes are due and she's not here to do them, only to find out that Trencher had grabbed a mannequin instead of the secretary. Trencher, now in hell, talks appreciatively to the mannequin, whom he still believes to be the secretary, complementing her on her quiet mannerisms, and asking it if she knows how to file tax returns.

A Swiss bank learns that the confidentiality of several anonymous numbered accounts has been compromised and blackmail threats have been made to five holders of the accounts. They include a crooked arms dealer, who received a demand for five million Swiss francs. He refuses to pay and is shot dead. The bank is also told to pay ten million francs to keep the accounts secret.

The bank hires David Christopher (Janssen), a former U.S. Treasury official who now resides in Geneva. In the course of his investigation, Christopher talks to the four living blackmailees - beautiful Zürich resident Denise Abbott (Berger), Texas businessman Dwight McGowan (John Ireland), Chicago crook Robert Hayes (John Saxon) and Dutchman Andre Kosta (Arthur Brauss).

He identifies a number of suspects. One is Rita Jensen (Sommer), the mistress of the bank's vice-president, Franz Benninger (Anton Diffring). There is also Benninger himself as well as Korsak (Curt Lowens) and Sando (David Hess), who are out to kill Hayes and Christopher.

Bank president Johann Hurtil (Ray Milland) cannot believe that Benninger is corrupt. However, it emerges that the latter transferred control of a bank account to his mistress, who was legally entitled to it but didn't have the correct documents.

Captain Hans Frey (Inigo Gallo) of the Swiss Federal Police is suspicious of Christopher's activities and follows him.

The bank decides to pay the blackmailer, using uncut diamonds. Christopher insists on accompanying the diamonds to the collection point high in the snow-covered Alps. The blackmailees turn out to be blackmailing each other and the collector of the diamonds is shot, falling off a high alpine rock face. Christopher recovers the stones.

Liffey, an ambitious young architect, moves to an isolated and eerie Irish valley to build a modern piece of architecture. The ruined cottage and land that she will use are a gift from her fiancé Richard, and is the former home of Molly, the elderly matriarch of a farming family living on the other side of the woods. Molly’s daughter is Mabs, herself mother of three girls and wife to farmer Tucker. Now in her forties, Mabs wants another baby, a boy to inherit the farm – or perhaps she just wants to be pregnant again.

Mabs and Molly use black magic to give Mabs a baby boy. But Liffey becomes pregnant after sleeping with both Richard and Tucker, causing everybody to believe that her baby is Tucker's. Mabs seeks Molly's help again to kill Liffey's baby with magic, making it look like a miscarriage. Mabs's elder daughter helps Liffey successfully fight the spell. In the end, Mabs is finally pregnant with her own child, a boy.

In Paris the beautiful divorcée Rosalie spends time with César, a coarse but good-hearted scrap merchant. At a wedding she sees her first love David, a shy graphic artist. Despite the efforts of César to stifle the renewed relationship, David and Rosalie run away to Sète on the Mediterranean. Distraught at being abandoned, César tracks them down and offers Rosalie her family's old holiday home on the island of Noirmoutier in the Atlantic, which he has bought. She accepts and all her family come to spend the summer there, but she falls into depression. In an effort to rally her, César goes to find David and persuades him to join them. This well-intentioned ploy backfires because Rosalie then runs away. Left together, the two rivals become good friends. A year later they are enjoying lunch when a taxi draws up and out steps Rosalie.

The coach of the Crows football team, J.J Forbes, sends his assistant, Willy, out to find a new player for the big season championship which was to start in 2 weeks. J.J thought that they would never have a chance, as Wally couldn't seem to find anyone with some decent talent.

J.J was getting very upset at Wally and told him on the phone to do anything to get someone, as he says, "I don't care if you have to rewrite the law books. That's what we put you through university for!" A little while later, Wally bursts into the room yelling and screaming. "J.J… I've got him! I've got him! Oh, you've never seen anything like him, he's beautiful, he's a Greek god." At this point J.J starts to think that Wally has gone mad and needs to see a psychiatrist.

Wally is trying to convince J.J that this player, Achilles Jones, can kick a wheat bag 10 yards. J.J doesn't believe Wally at first, but thinks that he has nothing to lose so they decide to go and meet Achilles They drive all the way out to Manangatang, where this Achilles lives, and J.J finally gets to meet him. At first, things are a bit stressful as Achilles gets the shot gun out and threatens to kill them when they arrive. They try convincing Achilles to come and play football for the Crows but Achilles is just too happy where he is and won't go anywhere. J.J and Wally aren't happy, so they decide that they are going to get Achilles to play through bribing his partner, Lil, with gifts and getting her to convince Achilles to try it out and play a few games. To start with convincing Lil, they tell her that she will get all sorts of nice things and they even give her a fur coat. They end up telling Achilles that the Williamses Achilles' neighbors and worst enemies think that he would never be able to play football in his life, so he decides that he will go and play for the Crows, only so he can show the Williamses that he can play and that he is better than them.

Once Achilles arrives in Melbourne, he is taught the rules of the game and does private training. He is kept private from the public as Wally and J.J want to make a big showcase on the first day of the football championship. At the first game of the championship, Achilles takes to the field but does nothing. J.J and Wally start to get very stressed out and worried that he won't do anything, until J.J sends Wally out onto the field to see what was wrong with him and found out that it was partly because he was wearing football boots, which he much disliked, and partly because Achilles can't play or kick when he's not angry. J.J then told Wally to send Lil out onto the field and make up a story about the Williamses so that he would get all angry and start to run and kick the ball around.

This keeps going on every week of the championship. Lil has to keep making up stories, and telling Achilles that the Williamses said bad stuff about him when they actually didn't. This is the only way that they could get Achilles to actually get out there on the football field to run around and play the actual game.

Just before the season had begun, Wobbly Coates and J.J made a public bet on the radio over their yearly wages that the Crows wouldn't get into the championship grand final and win, as they haven't done for the past 30 years. Near the end of the season, Wobbly realises that he will going to lose this bet if he doesn't do something to stop Achilles playing the grand final, so he rang up the Williamses and told them that Achilles had been saying lots of bad stuff about them and their farm. This then set the Williamses off, and they went to fight him. This plan by Wobbly had already been working excellently as he wanted to tire Achilles out before the big game so that he couldn't play. The fight between the Williamses and Achilles went on for three days straight, but Achilles was still pushing on strong for the grand final match.

On the night before the big game, Les Williams gave up and decided that he didn't want to fight anymore this is when Achilles found out that his best mate, Milly the horse, had died back at home on the farm. Les and Achilles decide to come together inside and have a cup of tea and decide that they are going to stop all of this nonsense between the two of them.

Achilles doesn't want to play the game when he gets to the field on the big day, but luckily enough, Les Williams heard on the radio who rang him up and told him all the lies it was Wobbly Coates. This report got Achilles playing the game for a while and both the commentators and the crowd were going wild by this time because of his performance in the game.

As the game nears the end, Achilles has to make a decision whether he is going to win the game or make them lose. He thinks about it and suddenly decides that he is going to get the score even, and then kick the ball straight up into the commentary box where Wobbly Coates is sitting, and hopefully it hits him and injures him. This decision was going to be his payback for all of the lies that he had told to Les Williams.

The grand final game ends in a draw and is rescheduled to next week without the participation of the new team recruit, Achilles. He then decides that he is going to live back on the farm with Lil and spend a lot more time with her.

Cast (stage)

• Elspeth Ballantyne
• Jane Bertelsen
• Simon Chilvers
• Paul Eddey
• Brian Harold
• Alan Hopgood
• Paul Karo
• Dennis Miller
• Leslie Wright

Production history

In 1963 the Melbourne Theatre Company had scheduled ''The Man Who Came to Dinner'' with Frank Thring and Alan Hopgood, which was expected to run for months at the Russell Street Theatre. However the play bombed unexpectedly and MTC director John Sumner needed a replacement. He asked Hopgood if he had any plays and Hopgood wrote ''And the Big Men Fly'' in a week. The play had its world premiere at Russell St Theatre in Melbourne in 1963. Hopgood himself played Forbes, while Dennis Miller played Jones.

The play was filmed for television in 1963.

The play was presented again in 1988 with Hopgood reprising the role of Forbes. Jones was played by Shane Connor.

''It educated my two kids'', said Hopgood later. ''It was made into a TV mini-series and almost 250,000 copies of the script have been sold since.''

The sheriff of a western town has three daughters by different men. Each has inherited: skills...magic, gambling & tomboy/cowboy. Together they help their mother catch a band of outlaws.

Mollie MacNeil and her son Alan, miss Archie (Mollie's husband) who is away in the United States trying to make a living as a professional boxer. Archie has been away for four years and it is not clear whether he will return at all. He is adamant that he will never go and work in the coal mines. Meanwhile, Louis Camire, a French expatriate, is trying to convince Mollie to come with him to France where people are more equal than those in the company-owned mining town.

The company doctor, Daniel Ainslie, takes a liking to young Alan, since his own wife Margaret is unable to bear children herself. Margaret was made barren by her own husband, who had to perform a procedure on her. Ainslie tries to exert his influence on Mollie and Alan. Daniel believes that Alan has the intelligence to escape the mining town. Mollie and Margaret share their fears about Daniel's influence and contrive to blunt it.

After much soul-searching, Daniel realizes that he cannot both have Alan like a son and his wife Margaret at the same time. This contradiction is violently resolved in the book's conclusion.

''Monkey Bridge'' traverses several opposing worlds. The novel consists of two narrators: Mai, a teenage Vietnamese immigrant, who flees to the United States on the day Saigon falls in 1975, and her mother, Thanh, who manages to join Mai a few months after Mai is settled in the U.S.

Three years after their arrival in the United States, Thanh is in the hospital with a blood clot in her brain, suffering paralysis of half side. She has been calling out for Baba Quan, her father, in her sleep. Thanh and Baba Quan were supposed to meet in Saigon and leave for America together back in 1975, but this plan fails because Baba Quan, for some unknown reason, does not show up. Since then, Thanh has "never truly recovered from the mishap that left him without the means to leave Saigon".

Mai, who worries about her mother's health and understands how desperately her mother wants to see Baba Quan, decides to make a dangerous trip to Canada with her best friend Bobbie, where they plan to make a phone call to Baba Quan once they cross the border and hopefully take a wild chance to bring her grandfather to the United States. The plan, however, does not succeed. Mai retreats at the last minute because she not only fears of being deported by the U.S government but also recalls what her father says all the time: "One wrong move ... the entire course of a country changed", in which he refers to America's decision to make the crucial commitment in the Vietnam War.

Thanh is discharged by the hospital and decides to temporarily leave her Vietnam past behind so she can move on. She becomes socially active again in the Vietnamese American community, Little Saigon. Meanwhile, Mai, idling around at home in the summer before attending college, gets very curious about her mysterious grandfather and starts to pry into things about Baba Quan from her mother and different acquaintances, such as Mrs. Bay, Thanh's best friend, and Uncle Michael, a Vietnam veteran who befriended her father and brought her to the United States when Saigon fell. After several attempts, Mai still fails to learn anything specific about Baba Quan; all they would tell her are some basic facts and superficial comments. She also fails to convince Uncle Michael to help her grandfather relocate in the United States.

Wanting to know more about her mother's and Baba Quan's Vietnam past—"the vivid details that accompanied every fault and fracture, every movement and shift that had forced her apart and at the same time kept her stitched together", Mai sneaks in her mother's room and steals the letters that her mother has kept writing her, but has not let her read them yet. From her mother's secret letters, Mai finally learns the unspoken family history that Thanh has been avoiding telling her and the reason why Baba Quan did not show up at their escape.

Unable to maintain his rental payments, Baba Quan, whom Thanh once believed to be her father, prostitutes his wife to his rich landlord, Uncle Khan, whose wife is sterile. Tuyet, Baba Quan's wife, later on has Khan's child, Thanh. From this act, Baba Quan secures his land and gets endless benefits from the rich landlord. The Khan's soon adopt Thanh and send her to a Catholic boarding school. Living with shame and rage, Baba Quan has been planning to get revenge on his landlord by committing murder but never succeeds. Later on when the war begins, Baba Quan becomes a Vietcong. His village is declared a free-fire zone, and his family is moved away from their ancestral land to a nearby strategic hamlet, while he stays there to keep working with the Vietcong. Thanh's mother dies during the transition. In accordance with Vietnamese ritual, Thanh has to escort her mother's body back to their home village for burial. By a riverbank on her way back home, Thanh witnesses Baba Quan murder his landlord. Struck with panic, Thanh runs away and leaves her mother's body behind. Because Thanh loses her mother's body and fails to perform the proper burial rituals, she is left with a permanent scar and never adjusts her to new life in America.

Curfew bells are ringing at night in Paris, while a man and his drunken girlfriend Jacqueline walk down the street. Pierre Gilieth comes out of house #25 looking very frightened, both Pierre Gilieth and Jacqueline accidentally collide while consumed in their distraction. Pierre Gilieth decides to walk away but leaves a streak of blood on Jacqueline's dress. Immediately, she realizes her dress is stained with blood and gasps. The film cuts to his peering through Venetian blinds in Barcelona. A detective follows him around town, while Pierre Gilieth meets with fellow Frenchmen in a bar, who pick his pocket to give his identifications away to the detective. When Pierre Gilieth finds out he tries to fight the thieves, but then refuses to have the police investigate the matter.

Now at the end of his resources, having been rejected as a sailor on a merchant ship, he decides join the Spanish Foreign Legion on seeing a placard. The story is just before the Spanish Civil War, as the top of the placard reads "Spanish Republic" and "Law of 17 July 1934". Many of his fellow legionnaires have joined from destitution (and their pay will be five Pesetas), but the Frenchman Fernando Lucas, played by Robert Le Vigan, has money not only for cigarettes but for barhopping. The other legionnaires are on the impression that the money is being sent by his mother and that the reason for his joining the legion was his desertion from the French Army. When Lucas drops his identification card which he quickly hides, Gilieth becomes wary that Lucas is hiding something. Gilieth follows the advice from his best friend Mulot (Milo in the Spanish issue), played by Raymond Aimos, to pick Lucas pocket in the night to read it; but fails.

Thus Gilieth feeds a newspaper clipping that he had been carrying around, announcing a 50,000 Franc reward for the capture of the culprit of the "Crime of Rue St-Vincent", to the swine in the base pen; hoping to get rid of the dark memories it brings. Lucas shows up and invites him to get a drink, but soon in the bar Lucas manages to anger Gilieth to the point of a fist fight. Shortly after, his unit of legionnaires the ''bandera'' is ready to move south, Gilieth is able to convince his captain, played by Pierre Renoir, to have Lucas transferred to another location on account of violation of personal space. Indeed, once the ''bandera'' departs, the detective from Barcelona comes and talks to Lucas.

Mulot tries to cheer Gilieth up by bringing him to a local establishment with dancing girls. There he meets Aisha la Slaoui, a native who is portrayed by Annabella with marks on her forehead and chin; and immediately falls in love with her. He proposes to her as soon as he finds it appropriate, and their gypsy wedding ceremony involves their mutually making a cut in their mate's forearms and licking blood from it.

Wishing to get away from Lucas, Gilieth plans to escape with her to her people in the south at Rabat, to become one of them; but still he needs to deal with Lucas. Until that time, he commands her to lie about her love for him and to entertain Lucas, even doing whatever he asks until he tells her who he really is. Lucas tries to get Aisha to leave Gilieth and be his woman. Gilieth confronts them together and tells Aisha to spit Lucas' in the eye; which she does. Then he tells Lucas to come with him outside to settle the matter like men. Aisha gives Lucas a coin, one of her jewelry pieces, to remember her by in case something happens to him.

Lucas and Gilieth have a heated confrontation, where Lucas pulls out a knife and Gilieth is able to grasp Lucas' knife, but spares his life. There he admits that he killed a man, and says that he has given up his notion of escape with Aisha. Lucas tells Gilieth that he will surely be sleeping in jail that very night. Gilieth then shows two cartridges, telling him that he will first shoot Lucas and then himself during combat which will take place soon.

As the men finish their talk, they hear the horn from their crew to take places. An unexpected uprising needs to be put down, for which task both Gilieth's and Lucas' banderas will be required. No legionnaire wants to volunteer to be one of the twenty-four who are to hold a small outpost in advance of the main force, until the captain says that he will command it himself. Immediately they all step forward, except Lucas, who pauses a moment. The sergeant then picks the first twelve on the left and on the right, which includes the main cast.

The scene which follows has many of the stereotypes of this ''genre'', of which the most important is that no Moroccan combatant is ever depicted; they are presented as supremely concealed snipers. Plot elements involve poisoned water and men who try to get to a safe supply but who only get shot for their valor. A fighter plane appears and several of the unit get shot either by "friendly fire" or, as the legionnaires surmise, by an enemy pilot. Captain Weller, sensing he only has a few minutes to live, tells Gilieth to take over. At this point Lucas informs Captain Weller, that he is a police spy as shown on his identification card. The captain is furious, and tells him to leave the men alone, and that as he is not a real legionnaire; he should depart if he should survive. Shortly after, the captain dies of heat stroke and exhaustion. The only two who remain are Gilieth and Lucas, as the main force charges up the hill, their machine guns blazing to sweep the enemy from their positions.

Yet at this moment of victory, Gilieth gets shot by a sniper, leaving Lucas to answer the roll call of the twenty-four with "Killed in action" for all except for Gilieth, who was "Promoted on the battlefield to corporal and killed in action". He himself is "Present". Returning to Aisha, he gives her back her coin, saying that Gilieth died thinking about her.

''Expedition to the Demonweb Pits'' revolves around the reading of the Dark Pact. The demon lord Graz'zt seeks to form an alliance with Lolth against Orcus. Lolth spurns his offer, and Graz'zt, not taking rejection lightly, now schemes to undermine Lolth. With the aid of his cambion son, Rule-of-Three, Graz'zt plans a Demon Council within the Abyss. While he is doing this, Rule-of-Three spreads word among the drow that their goddess is coming to the Prime Material Plane to wage the eternity war against their hated cousins, the surface elves and their god, Corellon Larethian. After the Demonic Council is arranged, Rule-of-Three and Graz'zt involve a group of mortals (the PCs) about Lolth's coming. Their goal is to bring attention to Lolth in her own Demonweb and then use the mortals to embarrass her in the eyes of the other demon lords, while at the same time, sealing the Dark Pact of planar binding using the divine spark Lolth gives it. It is the PC's goal to prevent the reading of that pact.

Items

''Expedition to the Demonweb Pits'' offers the characters many items, including two new legend items: ''Thaas'' and ''Spidersilk''. ''Thaas'' is an ancient magical elven bow dedicated to slaying demons. ''Spidersilk'' is a suit of fine armor for arcane spell casters that grants many spider-oriented benefits.

Cassandra Devine, "a morally superior twenty-nine-year-old PR chick" and moonlit angry blogger, incites generational warfare when she proposes that the financially nonviable Baby Boomers be given incentives (free Botox, no estate tax) to kill themselves at 70. The proposal, meant only as a catalyst for debate on the issue, catches the approval of millions of citizens, chief among them an ambitious presidential candidate, Senator Randolph Jepperson.

With the aide of public relations guru Terry Tucker, Devine and Jepperson attempt to ride "Voluntary Transitioning" all the way to the White House, over the objections of the Religious Right and the Baby Boomers, deeply offended by the demonstrations taking place on the golf courses of their retirement resorts.

The film is set in 1927 at fictional Tait College, where football is all the rage ("Tait Song"/"Good News").

Tait's football star Tommy Marlowe (Peter Lawford) is a prime catch for the college girls. Tommy tells his friend and non-playing teammate Bobby Turner (McDonald) that the trick to attracting girls is to show no interest ("Be a Ladies' Man").

New student Pat McClellan (Marshall) resists his advances, cutting Tommy down to size at a party ("Lucky in Love"). Pat insults Tommy in French, so Tommy enlists part-time school librarian Connie Lane (June Allyson) to help him study the language ("The French Lesson"). He gradually falls for Connie, who comes from a poor background, which does not bother her ("The Best Things in Life are Free"). Meanwhile, Babe Doolittle (McCracken) is seeking to leave a relationship with jealous football player Beef (Tindall) so she can get involved with Bobby Turner.

At a local soda shop, Babe advises Pat not to lose her temper ("Pass the Peace Pipe"). Tommy's newly learned French fails to impress Pat and he leaves dejectedly. Babe, concerned that Tommy's frame of mind will cause him to lose the big game, revives Pat's interest by (untruthfully) telling her Tommy comes from a wealthy family. Connie grows attracted to Tommy. Tommy asks Connie to the prom, but reneges when Pat shows interest. Connie is heartbroken ("Just Imagine"). Tommy is failing French and begs for help from a reluctant Connie - he belatedly realizes his true feelings for her although Pat has pressured him into proposing.

In the end, Tait wins the big game, Tommy pairs off with Connie, Beef pairs off with Pat, and Babe pairs off with Bobby Turner. The college bursts out into song in a production number ("Varsity Drag").

Naive 14-year-old Edith (Susan Strasberg) and her Jewish parents are sent to a concentration camp, where the latter are killed. Sofia (Didi Perego), an older, political prisoner, and a kindly camp doctor save her from a similar fate by giving her a new, non-Jewish identity, that of the newly dead Nichole Niepas.

As time goes by, she becomes hardened to the brutal life. She first sells her body to a German guard in return for food. She becomes fond of another guard, Karl (Gianni Garko). The fraternization helps her become a ''kapo'', one of those put in charge of the other prisoners. She thrives while the idealistic Sofia grows steadily weaker.

When she falls in love with Sascha (Laurent Terzieff), a Russian prisoner of war, Edith is persuaded to play a crucial role in a mass escape, turning off the power. Most of the would-be escapees are killed, but some get away. Edith is not one of them. As she lies dying, she tells Karl, "They betrayed us, Karl, they betrayed both of us." She dies saying the traditional Jewish prayer Shema Yisrael.

Shot in a cinéma vérité style, perhaps because this film about teenage prostitution began as a project while director Rose-Marie Turko was a student at UCLA, the format tends to hit home better than a more artificial approach. Although starting out as a story about how young Ruby Star (Jennifer Mayo) was forced into prostitution in order to support herself and her baby, the film quickly dips into the seamier side of life after Ruby meets a pimp nicknamed Easy (David Dean) and gets involved with a demi-monde of degenerates.

The year is 1462 and the Doctor, Peri and Erimem encounter Vlad the Impaler.

Off-duty American airmen of the 19th Troop Carrier Squadron in Hawaii are ordered to report to their squadron in July 1948. What is briefed as a temporary "training assignment" in the United States becomes a flight halfway around the world to Germany for the C-54 Skymasters of the 19th, where the Soviets have blockaded Berlin in an attempt to force out the Allies by starving the city. Tech Sgt. Danny MacCullough (Montgomery Clift), flight engineer of a C-54 nicknamed ''The White Hibiscus'', is immediately ordered to fly with his crew from Frankfurt into Tempelhof Airport to deliver a load of coal. His friend Master Sgt. Hank Kowalski (Paul Douglas), a ground-controlled approach (GCA) operator, hitches a ride with them to his new station. Hank, a POW during World War II, resents the German people and goes out of his way to be rude and overbearing to them. Danny on the other hand is frustrated at being restricted to the airport because of the necessity of quickly offloading and returning to Frankfurt.

Months later, the crew of "Big Easy 37" (a call sign, airlift shorthand for an eastbound C-54) rename their airplane ''Der Schwarze'' (The Black) ''Hibiscus'' because of the grimy soot that has accumulated in it from hauling coal. They become temporary celebrities on a mission when they are the 100,000th flight of "Operation Vittles" into Berlin. Danny is immediately enamored of Frederica Burkhardt (Cornell Borchers), an attractive German war widow chosen to thank him on behalf of the women of Berlin. When a news correspondent covering the ceremony recruits Danny for a public relations stunt, Danny jumps at the opportunity as a means of getting a pass in Berlin and seeing Frederica again. During a tour of the city, Danny's uniform is accidentally covered with poster paste, so until it is cleaned, despite the penalty if he were to be caught out of uniform, he borrows some civilian working clothes. At a night club, they meet Hank and his "Schatzi", the friendly and intelligent Gerda, but Hank is rude to Frederica and treats Gerda as an inferior. Hank chances to see the former prison guard who tortured him as a POW, and, following him outside, beats him nearly to death. Danny is able to stop Hank only by knocking him down. Mistaken for a German attacking Hank, he is chased into the Soviet occupation zone by military police.

Danny and Frederica narrowly escape back into the American zone, where Hank is waiting for them at Frederica's apartment and has unexpectedly befriended her neighbor and Danny's friend, Herr Stieber (O.E. Hasse), a self-professed "Soviet spy", but in fact he is working for the Allies and providing the Soviets with false information. Danny falls in love with Frederica, despite learning from Hank that she lied to him about the backgrounds of her dead husband and father. When Danny receives notice that he is due to rotate back to the United States soon, he arranges to marry Frederica. However, Stieber suspects duplicity in Frederica and intercepts a letter she has written to her German lover living in the United States, revealing that she intends to divorce Danny back in the U.S. as soon as she legally can, and see her lover behind his back until that happens.

In the meantime, Hank, in trying to teach Gerda the meaning of democracy (and now deeply ashamed of the beating he inflicted on the former guard), comes to see that he has been hypocritical in his own actions toward Germans. He begins treating Gerda as an equal and with affection as they meet Frederica to be witnesses to the wedding. When Danny arrives, he tells Frederica she will have to wait a long time, if ever, to get to America, and gives her the letter which Stieber had given to Danny. Gerda tells Hank she prefers to stay in Germany and do her small part in helping rebuild the country, and Hank reveals to Danny that he is not going home but has switched his temporary assignment in Berlin to permanent duty. Danny's flight out departs, amidst rumors that the Russians will soon end the blockade.

The show opens with the mysterious suicide of housewife Alicia Oviedo on a beautiful day in the suburbs, on a street called Manzanares. Alicia, who narrates the show from the afterlife, had four friends: Vera Sherer, the seemingly perfect mother of two teenagers struggling to save her marriage; Lía Salgarí, the mother of four whose husband is always away on business; Susana Martini, the divorced mother in search of love, who finds it in the form of her new neighbour Miguel Delfino, who has a secret of his own; and Gabriela Solís, the materialistic ex-runway model who cheats on her husband. While trying to be good wives and mothers, the four friends also try to find out why their friend committed suicide. The discovery of a blackmail note among Alicia's belongings, a therapy session tape in which she admits her real name was Angela, and her widowed husband's strange behaviour really make them wonder about the mystery surrounding their deceased friend.

A spaceship from a previously unknown planet lands in the Scottish moors, bringing a humanoid alien to Earth near the observatory of Professor Elliot (Raymond Bond), just days before the mysterious Planet X will pass closest to our planet. When the professor and his friend, American reporter John Lawrence (Robert Clarke), discover the spaceman, they help it when it is in distress and try to communicate with it, failing in their attempt. They leave, and the alien follows them. A colleague of the professor, the unscrupulous and ambitious scientist Dr. Mears (William Schallert), discovers that the humanoid speaks in musical tones and tries to force from it the metal formula for its spaceship. He shuts off its breathing apparatus and leaves the spaceman for dead, telling the professor that communication was hopeless.

Soon, Lawrence discovers that the alien is gone, as is the professor's daughter, Enid (Margaret Field). Tommy, the seaside village's constable (Roy Engle), reports that others are now missing as well. Lawrence takes the constable to the site where the spaceship had landed, but it is no longer there. With more villagers now missing, including Mears, and with the phone lines suddenly dead and the village in a panic, they are finally able get word to Scotland Yard by using a heliograph to contact a passing freighter just off the coast.

When an Inspector (David Ormont) and a sergeant fly in and are briefed on the situation, it is decided that the military must destroy the spaceship. Lawrence objects that doing so will also kill the people who are now under the alien's control. With the planet due to reach its closest approach to Earth at midnight, Lawrence is given until 11:00pm to rescue them. He sneaks up to the alien ship and learns from Mears that the spaceman intends to use its ship as a wireless relay station in advance of an invasion coming from the approaching planet, which we also learn is a dying world. Lawrence orders the enthralled villagers to leave and attacks the alien, shutting off its breathing apparatus, then escapes with Enid and the professor. Mears, however, returns to the spaceship and is killed when the military opens fire and destroys it, shortly before the planet is nearest Earth. No invasion happens and the mysterious Planet X slowly exits the solar system for deep space.

In post-war East Germany, Peter Gottfried is the son of minister Friedrich Gottfried. The Communist regime has decreed that all children of "dissidents" will be denied entry to a prestigious music conservatory. Peter is anxious to be accepted, and in order to get in he prepares to answer the seven questions required by the conservatory, the seventh of which will require him to deny his religious convictions. Before this can happen, he is invited by the Socialist Unity Party to perform at the Berlin Youth Festival. Friedrich protests, knowing that the Communists intend to use his son as a political pawn, to "prove" to the world that East Germany affords equal rights to clergymen. In the end, it is Peter himself who decides to quit the Festival and defect to the West.

A plane crashes over the Atlantic, killing all 345 passengers on board, including the wife, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren of former CHERUB chairman Dr. Terrence "Mac" McAfferty. A distressed 12-year-old boy, Fahim Bin Hassam, calls the air crash investigation hotline and attempts to implicate his father Hassam, but gives in to his fear before he can relay any significant information.

Lauren and fellow agent Jake Parker are sent on a mission to befriend Fahim and discover the truth behind the plane crash. Mac becomes the acting mission controller, trying to find out if the deaths of his family were accidental or an act of terrorism. Lauren plants audio devices all over the Bin Hassam house, but when Hassam discovers one, he thinks that his cleaning lady was responsible and tortures her to the brink of death. Fahim feels guilty about this and admits to his father about how it was Lauren and Jake. Hassam takes Fahim to his brother's house to arrange his escape from the United Kingdom, but Fahim throws antiseptic in his father's eyes in an attempt to flee. Hassam chases him across a golf course, but when an armed tactical response team threaten to shoot him, Hassam takes his own son hostage with a knife to his throat.

Jake attacks Hassam from behind and saves Fahim. Hassam, unwilling to spend the rest of his life in prison, claims to be armed and is promptly shot dead. After all of the trouble is cleared, it is discovered that the plane crashed due to faulty parts which Hassam and his brother Asif sold to the company constructing the plane. Asif is arrested for his complicity in the conspiracy. Fahim is taken in to start life at CHERUB, but when a camcorder shows that he sleepwalks every night and talks out loud about all of the things he has done, CHERUB chairwoman Zara Asker states that it is too dangerous to send him on missions because he might blow his cover. Instead, Fahim is adopted by Mac. As Mac departs CHERUB, he shows Lauren a farewell message written by his grandson moments before the crash.

Meanwhile, James has been assigned work experience with his friend Kerry at the Deluxe Chicken restaurant. They are invited to a club by their co-worker Gemma and her boyfriend Danny. James, Dana and Kerry go and have a good time, but James discovers Danny pushing Gemma about and fights with him. On the last day of their work experience, Gemma shows up with a black eye. Outside, James meets Danny, who tries to goad James into attacking him by assaulting Gemma. Kerry, enraged, grabs a baseball bat and brutally beats Danny. The police are called but arrest James, who is holding the bat as they arrive. Zara uses her status to free James from prison and punishes Kerry and James with punishment laps and decorating service.

As a young woman living in Havana, Celia Almeida meets and falls in love with a married Spaniard named Gustavo. The two become lovers until Gustavo returns to Spain. After Gustavo leaves, Celia loses the will to live. Though she has no known medical condition, she wastes away (due to depression). While she is housebound Jorge del Pino courts her and persuades her to marry him. After their honeymoon, he leaves her at home with his mother and sister while he goes on long business trips, punishing her out of his jealousy for her past with Gustavo. His mother and sister are cruel to Celia, even more so after she becomes pregnant. By the time she gives birth to her daughter Lourdes, her mind has snapped.

Thus, for the first months of Lourdes’ life, Celia is in a mental institution and Jorge is the one who cares for Lourdes. When Celia is released, Jorge brings her to a new home on the edge of the ocean in Santa Teresa del Mar. Lourdes is distant from her mother and closely bonded to her father. A couple years later, a second daughter named Felicia is born. Finally, they have a son named Javier, who is born eight years after Felicia. Ideologically, Jorge and Celia are very different. Jorge prefers the American-friendly government, while Celia supports attempts at revolution.

Over the years, the three children grow up, and their lives take different paths. Lourdes attends the university and falls in love with a man named Rufino Puente, the son of a wealthy family. They are married in spite of his mother's disapproval. After Rufino and Lourdes are married, they live at the Puente family ranch. Eleven days after the Cuban revolution takes place, Lourdes gives birth to a daughter named Pilar. Two years later, Lourdes is pregnant with a second child. One day, she is thrown from her horse while riding frantically to return to the house, and it causes her to lose the child. Lourdes reaches the house just in time to find two soldiers holding Rufino at gunpoint. She scares the soldiers off, but the soldiers return later. They claim the Puente estate as property of the revolutionary government. Lourdes tries to resist, but one of the soldiers rapes her at knifepoint. Soon after, the Puente family flees to Miami. Lourdes finds life in Miami intolerable, and soon they drive north until they reach New York City, where they make their new life. Rufino does not fit in well, and he spends his time working on his inventions. It is Lourdes who supports the family, saving up enough money to purchase a bakery. She runs the bakery herself. Pilar grows up rebelling against her mother and feeling much closer to her father. She becomes a sort of stereotypical "teenage punk artist".

Felicia, the second oldest daughter, becomes the best friend of the daughter of a santería high priest at age six. From that time forward, santería has a presence in Felicia's life. She drops out of high school and drifts from job to job until she meets Hugo Villaverde. Felicia is enamored with him immediately, and they soon consummate their relationship. Felicia becomes pregnant as a result. Hugo vanishes for seven months before returning and marrying Felicia in a City Hall wedding. He becomes physically abusive almost immediately and then departs to sea the next day. Thus, Felicia is without her husband when she gives birth to her twin daughters, Luz and Milagro. Hugo continues to be a sporadic presence in their lives after that. He manages to impregnate Felicia again and give her syphilis. It is during Felicia's pregnancy that her lack of mental stability becomes apparent. She attempts to kill Hugo by dropping a burning rag onto his face while he is sleeping; Hugo wakes up just as she drops the rag on him and he flees, never to be seen again. She later gives birth to a son, who she names Ivanito. While the twins resent their mother, Ivanito is extremely close to her.

The youngest child of Jorge and Celia, Javier, has a talent for science and shares his mother's support of the revolution and El Líder. As a result of his rebellion against his father, Javier eventually leaves for Czechoslovakia without telling his parents. He goes on to become a professor of biochemistry and marries a Czech girl, having a daughter with her named Irinita.

When Jorge develops stomach cancer, he travels to New York for treatment, where he spends the last four years of his life. His health gradually fails and he is hospitalized. Over the course of her father's illness, Lourdes has a constant desire for food and sex.

When Jorge dies, his spirit leaves his body and appears to bid farewell to his wife. She glimpses him briefly, but she cannot understand his words. Felicia turns to santería to make peace with her father, but she becomes mentally unwell again. When Celia discovers Felicia's illness, she takes Luz and Milagro to her home, but Ivanito will not leave his mother. Eventually, Felicia's mental state deteriorates to the point where she tries to kill Ivanito and herself with drugged ice cream. The attempt fails. As a result, Felicia is sent to join a Cuban military brigade and Ivanito is sent to boarding school. Celia becomes a full devotee of the revolution and El Líder, performing a wide variety of tasks and becoming a local judge of the People's Court.

Meanwhile, in New York, Pilar discovers that her father is cheating on her mother. She tries to run away to Cuba, but she only makes it as far as Miami. She gets caught while seeking out one of her cousins for help. Her mother is called, and Pilar is made to return home to New York. Lourdes becomes an auxiliary policewoman. Her father's spirit begins speaking to her regularly. Eventually, Lourdes’ business becomes so successful that she buys a second bakery. She has Pilar paint a mural for the opening. Pilar, unbeknownst to her mother, paints a punk Statue of Liberty for the unveiling, but when the crowd disapproves, Lourdes defends her daughter's work.

In Cuba, Felicia meets and marries a man named Ernesto Brito, but he dies in a fire soon afterwards. Felicia blames El Líder for his death, though there is no evidence to support this belief. She descends into madness again, and then vanishes, losing her memory and identity for months. When she recovers herself, Felicia discovers that she has married a man named Otto. Whether or not his death was Felicia's fault is debatable. While on a ride, he stands up while Felicia performs oral sex. When the ride begins again, he falls over and lands on electrical wires and is electrocuted, but it is unclear as to exactly how he falls, and later in the story, Felicia says that she pushed him.

Meanwhile, the day after Felicia's disappearance, Javier returns home to his mother. Celia learns that his wife has left him and taken their daughter. In his heartbreak, Javier wastes away, just as Celia once did, until he vanishes to die. Felicia returns to Havana and fully embraces santería, becoming a priestess. She is still distanced from her mother and children, who do not come to see her. Gradually, Felicia's health fades for reasons unknown and she too dies.

In the U.S., Jorge's presence begins to fade from the world, and he goes to Lourdes to ask her to go to Cuba and apologize on his behalf and make amends with her mother. One day while Pilar is out in the city, she encounters a botánica (a store that sells the paraphernalia of santería). The proprietor instructs her in a ritual she must perform and gives her the items she needs. On her way home, Pilar is attacked by boys in the park. Pilar recovers herself and returns home to carry out her ritual, which reveals that she and her mother should go to Cuba.

Celia wanders out into the ocean at night after Felicia's burial, and she is found in the aftermath by a newly arrived Lourdes and Pilar. They care for her. Lourdes views Cuba with great dislike, but she becomes fond of her nephew Ivanito. Pilar listens to Celia's stories and paints her portrait many times. Lourdes finds herself unable to forgive her mother. She resolves to help Ivanito leave Cuba, taking him to join the defectors at the Peruvian embassy. Celia sends Pilar to find him, and though Pilar manages to do so, she tells her grandmother that she did not. After Pilar and Lourdes are gone, Celia walks into the ocean a final time.

Marc Schrader, a rookie cop caught red-handed with drugs in a police raid of an illegal rave, joins a homicide investigation conducted by Chief Inspector Minks. The victim is a naked young woman with the skin stripped off her back, killed as she staggered into traffic.

As Schrader and Minks investigate the murder, the case is complicated by a finger found in the stomach of the victim. Forensic examination proves the finger belongs to Nobert Günzel, who was previously convicted of rape and assault. The police raid Günzel’s residence, and discover a blood-stained table with restraints and bits of human flesh in his basement. They also find video equipment and preserved, tattooed skin from the victim’s back. Soon, they find dead bodies buried in the garden. Günzel then goes missing.

As the complex investigation progresses, Schrader discovers Mink has a personal stake in the investigation; he wants to find the missing daughter of an old friend. He realizes later that the missing girl is actually Mink’s runaway daughter. As the body count rises, the duo has to come to terms with their inner demons, and the truth is much darker than it seems.

The plot resembles the Roald Dahl short story "Skin."

Jaime, who knows a thing or two about showbiz, is on a television shoot in Los Angeles when weird things start to happen. As a woman whose special talent is raising the dead, her threshold for weirdness is pretty high: she’s used to not only seeing dead people but hearing them speak to her in very emphatic terms. But for the first time in her life — as invisible hands brush her skin, unintelligible fragments of words are whispered into her ears, and beings move just at the corner of her eye — she knows what humans mean when they talk about being haunted.

She is determined to get to the bottom of these manifestations, but as she sets out to solve the mystery she has no idea how scary her investigation will get. As she digs into the dark underside of Los Angeles, she’ll need as much Otherworld help as she can get in order to survive, calling on her personal angel, Eve, and Hope, the well-meaning chaos demon. Jeremy, the alpha werewolf, is also by her side offering protection. And, Jaime hopes, maybe a little more than that.

After the sudden death of their father, teenagers Chris and Cathy Dollanganger and 5-year-old twins Cory and Carrie are forced to travel with their mother Corrine to live with her wealthy parents, who disowned her years ago.

Corrine's mother Olivia, a religious fanatic, takes in her daughter and grandchildren on the condition that the children must be sequestered in a locked room, so her dying husband Malcolm will never know of their existence. The children are shut inside one of the mansion's bedrooms, with access only to the attic via a secret stairway. Their grandmother reveals the truth of what caused Corrine to be stricken from her father's will: Corrine's husband was her father's half-brother, making their children the product of incest. Returning to the children that night, Corinne is forced to show that she has been bullwhipped by her mother as punishment for marrying her uncle and having children. Corrine explains that because her father does not know about the children, she still has a chance to inherit his fortune when he soon dies.

The children struggle with their confinement as their mother's visits become infrequent, and clash with their ultra-religious grandmother. Olivia becomes obsessed with the belief that Chris and Cathy are lovers, echoing Corrine and her uncle. Finding them sleeping in the same bed, Olivia smashes Cathy's ballerina music box, her father's gift. She discovers the siblings talking while Cathy is bathing, and Chris chases her away, but Olivia ambushes Cathy in the bedroom, locks Chris in the closet, and hacks off Cathy's hair. She starves them for a week, and Chris is forced to feed Cory his own blood.

The children are often sick, especially Cory and Carrie. Chris and Cathy remove the hinges from their locked door to occasionally sneak out, and discover their mother has been living a life of luxury and dating a young lawyer, Bart Winslow. She visits them and they confront her for neglecting them, but she storms out. Cory becomes deathly ill, and Olivia and Corrine agree to take him to the hospital, but Corrine returns to inform the children that Cory has died. The children are devastated, but find their pet mouse dead after eating a cookie Cory did not finish. Chris discovers that Cory and the mouse were killed by arsenic in the sugar on the cookies they are served with breakfast. Believing their grandmother has been poisoning them, the siblings decide to escape.

Chris sneaks out to steal money before they flee, and learns their mother will marry Winslow at the mansion the next morning. Chris suggests they sneak out during the wedding in fancy clothes from the attic. When Olivia enters the next day, hoping to catch them in an "evil" act, Chris beats her unconscious with a bedpost. Cathy tells Chris they should tell their grandfather the truth; they had once found him sleeping while investigating their mother's absence. They find his room empty with the bed dismantled – their grandfather has been dead for months. They also find a copy of his will, two months old, with a clause that if it is ever revealed, even after his death, that Corrine had children from her first marriage, she will be disinherited. The children realize that Corrine, not their grandmother, was poisoning them to secure her inheritance.

Crashing the wedding, the children expose their mother to the guests and the groom. Corrine refuses to acknowledge the children as her own, and Cathy and Chris scold her for breaking her promise to free them after her father died. Chris reveals they found the recent will, and Corrine denies their accusations, but Chris reveals the dead mouse as proof. Cathy tries to force her mother to eat an arsenic-coated cookie, chasing her onto a balcony where Corrine falls and is hanged to death by her own veil. The children leave the mansion as their grandmother looks on with scorn.

The narrator, an older Cathy, explains that the children survived on their own; Chris became a doctor and Cathy resumed dancing, although Carrie was "never truly healthy". She wonders if her grandmother is still alive, anticipating Cathy's eventual return.

The film chronicles twenty year-old Daniel Carter's (Webber) attempt to help an eight year-old, Boone (Ortiz), find a better life. Daniel First meets Boone while doing community service at an East Village grade school. The boys strike up a friendship during which Daniel learns that Boone's mother is sick and may be hospitalized. He also learns that Boone has an older sister, Charlotte, who lives in Dallas. When Boone does not show up for school a few days later, Daniel begins to ask questions and learns that Boone was placed into a temporary foster care in Upstate New York. After being turned down as an adoption candidate, and failing to convince his Father to help him gain custody, Daniel decides to rescue Boone from the orphanage. He puts all his street smarts to use and they head to Dallas. While the goal is to locate Boone's sister, the heart of the story is the unexpected bond Daniel and Boone form throughout their road trip adventure.

Nicky Singer (Ventimiglia) is a down on his luck Brooklyn native who has parlayed his Yale education into a job eking out a living as a professional poker player. Using his wits to navigate the seedy world of underground poker, Nicky must balance his own interest with those of his father (Young), a retiree whose own gambling debts have pushed him to the brink of eviction. In a struggle to keep his head above water, Nicky encounters a diverse group of wannabe mobsters, thugs, and other eccentric characters.

India, 1857. Just when Tremal-Naik's life was getting back to normal, the Thugs of the Kali cult return to exact their revenge by kidnapping his daughter Darma. Summoned by Kammamuri, Sandokan and Yanez De Gomera immediately set sail for India to help their loyal friend. But the evil sect knows of their arrival and thwarts them at every turn. Have our heroes finally met their match? It's the Tiger of Malaysia versus the Tiger of India in a fight to the death!

In the winter of 1812, a band of deserters from all the armies of the Peninsular War - French, British, Spanish and Portuguese - descends on the isolated hamlet of Adrados, on the Spanish-Portuguese border, led by Pot-au-Feu (Sergeant Deron, formerly Marshal Soult's chef). They slaughter the residents, sparing a number of women on pilgrimage to a convent in the village, including Lady Farthingdale and Madame Dubreton, the English-born wife of a French colonel of cavalry.

Major General Nairn sends Richard Sharpe, recently promoted to the rank of major to deliver the ransom demanded for Lady Farthingdale. Upon reaching Adrados, they encounter French Colonel Dubreton and his sergeant on a similar mission, to free Dubreton's wife. When they meet with "Maréchal" (Marshal) Pot-au-Feu, Sharpe is appalled to discover that Obadiah Hakeswill, his longtime bitter enemy (beginning from ''Sharpe's Tiger''), is Pot-au-Feu's "colonel". They see both ladies are safe and deliver the ransom, but Hakeswill informs them that the money only safeguards the women's virtue, and that they must continue making payments. Colonel and Madame Dubreton are careful to conceal their connection from the kidnappers. Sharpe notes that Adrados is extremely defensible, with a castle, a watchtower and a convent. Madame Dubreton gives Sharpe a clue that she is being held in the convent.

Sharpe proposes to take the Light Company and two companies of the 60th American Rifles to make a sneak attack on the watchtower and the convent to free and protect the ladies until Colonel Kinney and his 113th Fusilier Regiment arrive to capture or kill the deserters. Sharpe chooses Christmas Eve for the attack, as the gang will almost certainly be drunk. Nairn foists Captain Gilliland and his unwanted troop of "Rocket Cavalry" onto Sharpe. The Prince Regent thinks rocket artillery is a marvelous idea and wants it field tested; Sharpe finds the rockets to be wildly inaccurate.

Sharpe captures the convent and frees the women. Pot-au-Feu is taken prisoner, but Hakeswill gets away. Recently arrived, aged Colonel Sir Augustus Farthingdale is reunited with his beloved young "wife". "Lady Farthingdale" is actually Josefina Lacosta, a high-class courtesan with whom Sharpe is intimately acquainted.

Shortly afterward, Dubreton arrives with his own forces. Dubreton repays Sharpe for saving his wife by handing over Hakeswill. He then invites Sharpe and the other British officers to dinner. There Sharpe first encounters Major Ducos, a French spy of great influence who will repeatedly trouble Sharpe in the future. The French demand that the British leave by nine o'clock the next morning. Farthingdale readily agrees, but Sharpe has misgivings. His Spanish partisan wife Teresa Moreno arrives and confirms his suspicions; she tells him that a sizable French force is advancing on the village, part of an overall plan to invade northern Portugal. He sends Teresa to take the news to Nairn.

Sharpe decides to make a stand and blackmails Lord Farthingdale into leaving (by threatening to reveal who Lady Farthingdale really is), thus leaving Sharpe in command. He sets a trap for the French, using Gilliland's Congreve rockets (at very close range) to stop the initial attack. British reinforcements arrive just in time to save Sharpe's greatly outnumbered men. Hakeswill escapes during the last hours of the fight and encounters and kills Teresa. He tries to desert to the French, but Dubreton returns him to Sharpe. After a court martial, Hakeswill is shot by a firing squad. He survives, but the grief-stricken Sharpe administers the ''coup de grace'' himself.

The premise of the film concerns ''Philadelphia Inquirer'' reporter Jonathan Neumann (Rob Morrow), who, along with his partner Phil Chadway (Randy Quaid), won the Pulitzer Prize in 1978 for a series of articles exposing Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo (Paul Sorvino) and the Philadelphia Police Department for corruption. According to the articles, suspects were beaten and tortured in interrogation rooms in an effort to meet the high quota of criminal cases solved by Philadelphia detectives. Neumann and Chadway met extreme opposition from the police department, working amidst phone tappings, apartment ransackings, and threats of death and bodily harm.

In the year 2100, 15-year-old Mara lives on the island of Wing, with fellow villagers. The melting ice cap has caused the shoreline to rise and they are now almost out of land. Through her cyberwizz, a laptop-like gadget, she navigates through information to find where they can go. She meets a mysterious creature called Fox, who demands to know where she is. Mara is excited because beyond him she can see a new world, but she loses connection before she can learn more. Mara tells the villagers about New Mungo, a place where they can go which is a new land raised high above sea level. They eventually leave in fishing boats, but are forced to leave behind the elder generation who couldn't part from their home.

Once they reach New Mungo, they realise it is actually not a welcoming place; a huge outer wall surrounds the whole sky-city. They then are forced to join a refugee boat camp and some of them die there, including Mara's best friend Gail. The Sky Police, from New Mungo, occasionally take the strong up to the city in a procedure called Pickings, but Mara has a bad feeling about this. Mara learns all her family drowned in the perilous journey to New Mungo, and attempts to commit suicide. When she realises her will to live is too strong, Mara manages, with the help of an urchin she names Wing (after her drowned island), to enter the city gates. There she meets the people of the Netherworld (a strange twilight place in the shadow of the sky city, with the roofs of the drowned city of Glasgow jutting above the sea), who are known as the treenesters. They immediately recognise her as their messiah, the Face in the Stone, from an old prophecy called the Stone Telling. She lives with them for some time, exploring and helping them to survive.

One day, while she is with her friend Gorbals (a tree-nester) in the forbidden university, Gorbals and Wing are taken by the Sky Police, along with many sea urchins (a wild breed of children without language, but hairy bodies and webbed hands) are slaughtered. Determined to save her friends, she takes the uniform of a police woman that the police accidentally killed in the massacre and sneaks up to the city. She is overwhelmed by its superficial beauty and shallow entertainments. At first, she needed some help with searching. Doll, a computer worker, helps her with the computers. While searching through the Noos, a virtual, evolved version of the World Wide Web, she meets Fox. She discovers it is David, the quiet, hard-working grandson of Caledon, creator of the Sky City and the one who allowed many people to drown if they couldn't pass an intelligence test to allow them entrance to the new world.

Together, they organise an escape plan that involves David crashing the Noos with a 20th-century virus, allowing Mara to free the slaves and then leave the city unnoticed. The only catch is that David would not be able to leave with Mara, with whom he has fallen in love, because he must stay to begin a rebellion against the unfair New World. While executing her plan, Mara fatally stabs Tony Rex, a man she believes is a spy, with an ancient bone dagger, and then rescues Gorbals, Wing and all the people chosen in the Pickings, who have become slaves. They slide down air vents into the Netherworld and board a supply ship. They break free of the city walls, also saving the people in the refugee boat camp and the Netherworld. The boats are programmed to Greenland, a place that is thought to have risen high above the water like a cork. Fox also slides down the air vents, to begin his rebellion outside the reach of his grandfather. The book finishes with Mara wondering how far people will go to save themselves, and if Caledon was right to save a special few. The book ends with the hope that the refugees will reach safety in Greenland.

A screenplay for this book is currently under way. The movie adaptation of ''Exodus'' is not yet scheduled for release.

The story, set in Berlin in 1981, centres around a man in his pajamas and bathrobe who goes out to buy cigarettes and experiences a series of events that have him chased by inept police officers, an angry husband, a taxi driver, and various other characters.

Fitz Wynn (Christopher Plummer), a successful and truly talented but overly satisfied stage actor, wants to star in a new movie written by his wife Lily (Maggie Smith). She does not feel her Fitz is right for the part, and explains to him why and what she is looking for in the role. With the help of his old friend and business partner Jerry (Adolph Green), Fitz orchestrates his own transformation into Roberto Terranova, a blonde Italian alter ego who seems to be exactly what Lily wants for the role. During production of the film in Hungary, Fitz becomes alarmed as Lily seems to fall for his portrayal of Roberto.

Jimmy "B-Rabbit" Smith Jr. is a 23-year old, unhappy blue-collar worker from a poor Missouri family who now are residing in a trailer park near Detroit in Warren, Michigan. Jimmy has moved back north of 8 Mile Road to the run-down trailer home in Warren, Michigan, of his alcoholic mother Stephanie, his younger sister Lily, and Stephanie's abusive live-in boyfriend Greg. Although encouraged by his friends, Jimmy worries about his potential as a rapper. One night, Jimmy chokes during a rap battle at a local venue, the Shelter, and he leaves the stage humiliated.

During the day, Jimmy works at a car factory. (He previously worked at a Little Caesar’s Pizza in Warren, Michigan.) Desperate for money, he asks for extra shifts, but his supervisor bluntly dismisses his request because of his habitual tardiness. Later on, Jimmy befriends a woman named Alex, and he begins to take more responsibility for the direction of his life.

At some point, Stephanie receives an eviction notice, as she cannot pay rent. Despite her best attempts to keep the eviction notice a secret, Greg discovers it and confronts Stephanie. When Jimmy punches Greg for pushing his mother to the ground, they fight, ending in Greg leaving Stephanie for good.

Jimmy's friendship with Wink, a radio DJ with ties to a record label promoter, becomes strained after he discovers that Wink does promotional work for Jimmy's rivals, a rap group known as the "Leaders of the Free World". At one point, Jimmy and his friends get into a violent brawl with the Free World crew, which is disrupted when Jimmy's friend Cheddar Bob pulls out a gun and accidentally shoots himself in the leg; he survives after being rushed to the hospital.

During a lunch break at work, one of Jimmy's coworkers performs a freestyle rap insulting a gay co-worker, Paul. Jimmy raps a freestyle defending Paul. Alex arrives and is impressed by Jimmy's actions and they have sex. Wink arranges for Jimmy to meet with producers at a recording studio, but Jimmy finds Wink and Alex having sex. Enraged, Jimmy attacks Wink as Alex tries to break up their altercation.

In retaliation, Wink and the Leaders of the Free World assault Jimmy outside his trailer. The leader of the gang, Papa Doc holds Jimmy at gunpoint and threatens to kill him, but Wink dissuades him. After the group has left Jimmy alone, his mother arrives with enough money to pay to avoid eviction, having won $3,200 at a bingo tournament.

Jimmy's best friend and battle host, Future pushes him to get revenge by competing against the Leaders of the Free World at the next rap battle. Jimmy agrees, but his boss, having noticed improved effort at work, asks Jimmy to do a late-night shift. He agrees, but it conflicts with the battle at the Shelter. Alex unexpectedly visits Jimmy at work. She says goodbye, as she is going to New York, and she is hoping to see Jimmy at the Shelter later. This motivates Jimmy to do the battle. He asks Paul to cover the start of his shift as a favor while Jimmy goes to the battle.

In all rounds of the rap battle, Jimmy has to compete against one member of the Free World crew. After handily winning the first two rounds against Lyckety-Splyt and Lotto, he faces Papa Doc. Going first, Jimmy preempts Papa Doc's potential insults, acknowledging his own "white trash" roots and difficult life, while also exposing that Papa Doc, despite posing as a thug, had a comparatively stable and even privileged upbringing. Embarrassed and with nothing to say in rebuttal, Papa Doc hands the microphone back to Future, conceding the battle. After being congratulated by Alex and his friends, Jimmy is offered a position by Future co-hosting battles at the Shelter. Jimmy declines, saying that hosting is Future's thing and he needs to do his own. Jimmy leaves alone and returns to work.

Kohei Kaji is a new substitute teacher at a school where he meets a troubled girl who he tries to help. The girl asks him if he could 'change the world'.

The very next day after a few days of lessons Kaji had with his class, the troubled girl 'fell' from her classroom window to the ground floor, engendering in her demise. Teachers tried to console students and 'lessen' the psychological harm by 'quickly getting over the whole matter'. The troubled girl left Kaji a key the night before, and Kaji went to open up the locker. He showed what was inside to the Vice Principal and the bag of items disappeared after the Vice Principal took it and said that she will 'take good care of' and 'use it properly' as evidence.

However, the textbook was nowhere to be found. The lawyer, Tsumuki, was still getting remorseful about the step daughter she had abandoned and how she had treated the now-dead girl when she was still alive. Being resolute on finding out the truth, she went through many things with Kaji during the investigation and came to an interesting ending. Mostly was done by her though. A twisted and deformed pinkie finger, a policeman soliciting high school girls, a cosplayer, a zealous teacher and, lastly, a psychopathic son are all the ingredients of this interesting television drama. Emotional.

Yeo Bong-soon (Eugene) (Aileen Yeo), grew up in the provinces, but is given a chance to become a chef at the presidential residence, the Blue House. At first, she seems out of touch with the real world and people find her naïve. However, her sweetness, thoughtfulness, and diligence made it easier for the people around her to like her and eventually accept her for who she is.

Nam Bong-ki (Lee Min-ki) (Benjie Nam), is a seemingly lazy and self-centered presidential guard, who initially dislikes Bong Soon for her outdated looks and provincial mentality, gradually starts to fall for her. Bong-ki is shallow and arrogant, but being near Bong-soon changes his perspective: he becomes more generous, willing to help, and understanding. When Bong-ki develops feeling for Bong-soon, the story turns into a love triangle, - Bong-soon having already given her heart to a man she saved on a mountain next to her house, the handsome and intelligent doctor Jang Joon-won.

Jang Joon-won (Ryu Jin) (Francis Jang), is the President's son but none of his friends or colleagues know about it, which allows him to keep his privacy. He is a well-loved doctor but he carries a secret that is known only to a select few. After his encounters with Bong-soon he becomes enamored by her. But how long can Joon-won keep his feelings in check, especially since his secret prevents him from falling in love with her?

Khaled has no soul - but he is offered one chance: if his wife comes to love him, despite his lack of a soul, he will become fully human.

Patrick Cullen, a conductor on the New York City subway, is astonished when no one gets off his train as it reaches Flatbush, the end of the line. He's even more astonished when the train starts moving again and travels on via various non-existent stations. He meets a man who introduces himself as Mr Crumley, who says he's practicing to be a god and forthwith converts Cullen to believe in him.

Cullen meets other believers and also gets involved in a conspiracy to depose Crumley. In the end, Crumley is deposed and the train, with Cullen on board, re-enters the Flatbush station.

A Jew named Dovid Bendel (Stuart Townsend) tries to revive his dwindling village by building a railway station next to it. The squire (Rutger Hauer) agrees to provide the land, on the condition that Dovid will read his poetry. A cunning business man (Sean McGinley) is also interested in the land and he tries to compete using money and threats.

The movie takes place in 1944, when Italy was divided between the fascist puppet state Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI), which retained control only of the northern half of the country, and the Allied-occupied southern half.

Fascist bosses gathered in Cremona (in the far North of Italy and well away from the line of fire) pick enthusiast militant Primo Arcovazzi (played by Ugo Tognazzi) to take into custody professor Bonafè, a noted anti-fascist philosopher and agreed upon new government leader among the opposition forces who are preparing the new democratic government after the war. During a first raid at the professor's home, Arcovazzi does not recognize him and Bonafè can escape to his family residence in rural Abruzzo. The fascist is hence appointed again to capture him there, and to lead him to Rome, momentarily still controlled by the RSI. Primo does not understand that the political situation is changing and his faction is about to lose, and is easily lured by the promise of a promotion; while for his superiors, his tardiness and naive fascist faith make him an ideal expendable candidate for the mission.

Equipped with a motorcycle-sidecar combination Arcovazzi manages to capture the professor and the two head back towards Rome. Along the way they have a small accident to avoid running over a girl (Stefania Sandrelli), who turns out to be a confidence trickster and petty thief. They share part of the way after the motorcycle is wrecked, but the girl disappears after having scammed the professor out of 150 lire.

Arcovazzi asks for assistance with his vehicle to a truckload of Wehrmacht soldiers passing by. But his sidecar gets confiscated and the two are taken prisoner by the German forces, who immediately recognize the professor for his academic fame and a have him in a Gestapo list of wanted men, due to a publication opposing the Jews'persecution.

The couple manage to escape thanks to Bonafè's ability to improvise an explosive formula, and taking advantage of confusion during an allied air raid. They don German uniforms to pass unnoticed during the commotion and get momentarily separated. Later they reunite and again, while Arcovazzi is stealing a Schwimmwagen in order to continue his mission of delivering Bonafè to fascist authorities in Rome, the professor tries in vain to desert him.

The following night the two men stop to sleep in a barn, and they meet again by chance the thieving girl. She is afraid but the trio eventually reconcile over the attempts to capture and cook a chicken for dinner.

In the morning the girl wakes up first and leaves with all of Arcovazzi's and Bonafè's clothes and accessories, except for their Schwimmwagen. Depressed by the events but still faithful to his mission, Arcovazzi tries to continue. He attempts to ford a stream, trusting in the Schwimmwagen's amphibious qualities but, due to previous damage or his own ineptitude, the vehicle sinks.

Upon eventually reaching a village on foot, Arcovazzi tries to ask for help at the local fascist party cell ("Casa del Fascio"). The place is however deserted, and the only people around are a couple of teenagers, armed and brain-washed by fascist propaganda. Arcovazzi is questioned to prove his knowledge of fascist lore, and kept at gun point until able to prove his trustworthiness. Only professor Bonafè's help in answering the last question allows him to answer the last challenge and to avoid being shot. But even after gaining the teenagers' trust, there is no support to be had and Arcovazzi is only able to confiscating a tandem bicycle and a pistol, again to resume his struggle of delivering Bonafè as prisoner in Rome.

Again the duo has to stop when bursting a tire, in the neighborhood of the town of Rocca Sabina. Arcovazzi recognizes it as the home of (fictitious) nationalist poet Arcangelo Bardacci, whom he idolizes and whose writings (which he can quote verbatim) prompted him to become a fascist. Upon reaching the poet's house, he is told however that the poet had joined the Royal Italian Army in Albania and perished in the struggle. In reality Bardacci is alive and hiding in the house, biding his time hiding in the cellar until the regime he once endorsed finally collapses.

Arcovazzi is oblivious to the false tale and accepts hospitality in the poet's house, while Bonafè discovers the truth and is allowed to escape in exchange of a promise to assist with Bardacci's political rehabilitation in the future. Despite the head start, Arcovazzi however manages to catch once again his prisoner, and resumes the voyage towards Rome with his captive. For a while the two can travel on a methane powered pullman, but during one of the frequent stops the professor escapes once again. By the time Arcovazzi manages to recapture him, the pullman is long gone and again they must walk, eventually reaching the outskirts of Rome in the dusk hours of early June, 1944.

Unbeknown to them the Italian Capital has just been conquered by the Allies. As they walk, they see increasing signs of the mutated situation, with groups of GIs celebrating their victory, whom Arcovazzi mistakes for war prisoners. Upon meeting once again the young girl, he demands back his clothes but gladly accepts her "even better" mocking offer of a full fascist "Federale" uniform, anticipating his promotion for successful delivery of Bonafè as prisoner.

Despite his new uniform, Arcovazzi is initially just mocked by the U.S. troops that they meet further on within the capital, contrary to fascist propaganda which maintained all allied soldiers were bloodthirsty brutes. He is still continuing his attempt to complete the mission in an increased state of confusion, when he is spotted instead by Italian resistance fighters of the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale that are also convening into the city. Together with other civilians, they attack Arcovazzi who is about to be lynched by the people. Only Bonafè saves his captor, pretending to shoot him but in reality throwing away his uniform and offering his jacket to allow him to hide his compromised political affiliation. Arcovazzi is let go ("You're free now, even if you don't like freedom"), while the professor joins the resistance leaders to prepare a post-war free government.

Elora Danan has slain the dragons that were the embodiment of the soul of Creation. It was the only way to save the dragons from the Deceiver, who could have used them to rule the Realms. In Elora's possession are two last dragon eggs. To protect the eggs, Elora spellbinds herself to her companions Thorn Drumheller, the Nelwyn sorcerer and her sworn guardian, and Khory Bannefin, the dead woman warrior whose body is inhabited by the offspring of a demon.

Pursued by the dreaded Black Rose, the Deceiver's assassins, Elora and her allies must reach the city-state of Sandeni. There they will be reunited with old friends: the brownies Franjean and Rool, the eagles Anele and Bastian, and the young warrior-scribe Luc-Jon.

The movie is based on Tim McLoughlin's novel ''Heart of the Old Country'', which has Mike Manadoro (Kevin Zegers) as a 19-year-old Brooklyn boy who is torn between two worlds. When Mike's photography portfolio wins him a partial scholarship to New York University, he must figure out how to balance his tight-knit Italian neighborhood roots in Bay Ridge with the opportunity to blend into the expansive, sophisticated world on the other side of the East River. Since his job at a local car service doesn't earn him enough to make up for the rest of the tuition, and his father, a retired sanitation worker on disability, refuses out of pride to support Mike's attempts for financial aid, Mike ultimately takes a job making deliveries for Tony, the local mob boss, to make up the difference.

Mike not only has to balance work with his academic assignments, he has to manage his personal relationships as well. This includes his attraction to a beautiful, cool, intellectual young woman, Kathy Popovich (Sophia Bush) he meets at NYU, with his responsibility to his longtime girlfriend Gina (Monica Keena) from the neighborhood whom he's promised to marry. The stakes grow higher as he faces consequential choices from turning his back on all he knows and pursuing a new life.

''The Son of the Red Corsair'' is a mixture of adventure, humor, and romance. Part of the series usually referred to as ''Pirati delle Antille'', it is the story of Enrico di Ventimiglia, the Son of the Red Corsair, as he travels through the Spanish conquests of Central America in search of the stepsister he has never met. In his adventure, the Count is helped by the faithful Mendoza, the incomparable Don Barrejo, Buttafuoco, a nobleman-turned-buccaneer, and bands of pirates of the Caribbean.

The Three Little Pigs, reading their own story in a book of fairy tales, decide to circumvent the plot by selling both the straw house and the wooden house before the Wolf can blow them down.

Bugs is easily conned into buying the straw house for ten dollars (a sawbuck). Along comes the Wolf, also reading the book. As per the plot, he blows down the straw house just as homeowner Bugs starts to greet him.

Bugs then buys the wooden house from the second pig, and the three then hole up in the brick house – knowing from the book that the Wolf cannot blow it down. Along comes the Wolf again, book in hand, and blows down the wooden house over Bugs' objections. That prompts the Bunny to deliver payback to the Wolf.

To get revenge on the Wolf, Bugs dresses up as Little Red Riding Hood and skips down the roadway. He meets the Wolf sitting under a tree, reading the end of the story. The Wolf asks the "girl" where she is going and Bugs flips the Wolf's book a few pages. The Wolf then speed-reads "Little Red Riding Hood" until he realizes that he is behind schedule for ''that'' story.

The Wolf races over to Grandma's house but rather than eat her, he kicks her out of the house with barely enough time to get her nightclothes on. The Rabbit in Red arrives shortly thereafter. When Bugs Bunny says what big eyes, ears, teeth, and feet the wolf has when he is in Grandma's clothing, he pokes both of the wolf's eyes, pulls his ears up and down, and pulls out his teeth and shoves them back in his mouth. The Wolf retaliates by pulling on Bugs' ears, but Bugs counters that by stepping on the Wolf's foot. After both of them strip each other's disguises they argue, with Bugs exclaiming, "Why, Granny! You're just a wolf in cheap clothing!"

Bugs then refuses to give the Wolf the "present" he brought him. After the Wolf begs Bugs to give him his present, Bugs relents and puts the present (a cake) right into the Wolf's face, telling the Wolf "you asked for it!". Pursued down the basement steps of Grandma's house, Bugs turns off the light switch downstairs, making the Wolf go back to the upstairs switch to restore the light rather than risk Bugs' counterattack. After this procedure is repeated once, Bugs tricks the Wolf by saying "click" instead of actually turning off the light, prompting the Wolf to go back upstairs, automatically turn the upstairs light ''off'' and continue down the stairs, allowing Bugs to hit him.

Bugs tries to escape on a bicycle, but it turns out to be a triple-tandem bike with the Wolf in the third seat. Bugs steers into a clothesline, yanking the Wolf out of the seat. When Bugs chides the Wolf for blowing his houses down, the Wolf explains those are the Pigs' houses and that he is doing what the story says. Bugs then sees what is going on.

Arriving at the brick house, Bugs sees the pigs playing cards and gloating about them cheating him into buying their houses. Realizing he was swindled by them intentionally, Bugs directs the Wolf to blow it down. The Wolf says he cannot because the book says so. In his best Brooklynese, Bugs tells him "Book, schnook! Blow da house down!". The pigs laugh as the wolf blows, and then the house suddenly blows ''up''. The Wolf says, "I did it!" The pigs look at him in surprise and ask, "He did it?!" The scene pans to Bugs, who pats a TNT detonator, says "Eh, ''we'' did it!", and laughs smugly as the cartoon irises out.

The cartoon opens with the poet, who looks similar to William Shakespeare, trying to write and coming across a castle with a mailbox with "Macbeth" written on it. At this, he begins to write a story based on this title. He hears the loud screeching laugh of Witch Hazel and watches her stir her cauldron. The witch has Bugs Bunny sleeping on a platter and wakes him up. He believes the cauldron to be a bath and readily climbs in, only realizing his mistake after reading her open recipe book. Bugs quickly jumps out of the boiling cauldron and first angrily confronts, then runs away from Witch Hazel towards the castle when she tries to attack him with a meat cleaver. Witch Hazel pursues Bugs Bunny on her flying broomstick. We then see the poet again trying to write after Bugs and the witch have departed.

At the castle, Witch Hazel and Bugs run into each other and they have a little laughing contest, then Bugs runs up a tall tower, saying "You hoo! Granny! Here I am!" and Witch Hazel says after that "And here I come!" while she is on her broomstick, but it goes backwards; Witch Hazel then says "Oh we women drivers! I had the silly thing in reverse!" Then she flies up to the tower, saying in baby talk "Hello", where Bugs gives her a heavy weight and says, "Good-bye!" As the witch falls down with it, she cries out "Good grief!" then Bugs says, "Good riddance!" She crashes to the ground with her broom destroyed and the chase continues. Bugs acts as Romeo to try to trick Witch Hazel, who starts to quote Juliet's lines from the play, but soon the two improvise. Witch Hazel jumps out of the castle window as Bugs pretends that he will catch her and instead rapidly runs off.

As Bugs runs out from the castle he runs into the poet, who is crying because he says that he will never be a writer. Bugs finds out that he is not William Shakespeare, but is actually called Sam Crubish. Witch Hazel hears this and it appears that the two know each other, but have not seen each other in a while because Crubish had the wrong apartment number (2B). Sam and Witch Hazel leave talking about who made the mistake of saying "2B" and the cartoon closes with Bugs Bunny quoting the famous line from ''Hamlet'' – "To be, or not to be, that is the question."

A one-man Pirate crew Captain Yosemite Sam is sailing over an ocean on his ship singing "Blow the Man Down." Sam looks through a telescope and sees a trading sailship nearby. Captain Yosemite Sam reveals his new desire to steal the ship for himself. He fires a warning shot from his cannon and lines up side-by-side with the ship ordering its surrender. Since Sam is a legendary intimidating pirate the crew on the other ship surrender and abandon it. The captain and crew flee in fear at seeing "Sam the Pirate". Bugs Bunny, lying in a box filled with carrots, hears the commotion on the ship and says to himself jokingly "Sam the Pirate", as that does not sound like a very intimidating name. Sam boards and Bugs says "Ahoy there! What's up doc?" Sam orders Bugs to surrender the ship. Bugs replies with "Surrender? Never hoid of the woid. So you'll have to try to take the ship!" Sam simply responds with a warning shot through Bugs' Napoleonic hat and between his ears, leaving a lump on Bugs' head ("Now, he should know better than ''that''!").

Bugs and Captain Sam battle each other in a fierce duel. Bugs first manages to find and shoot Sam first ("Blast, ya rabbit! Two can play that game!"), and when Sam tries to himself, he ends up being shot again, much to his annoyance.

When Sam is filling his cannons and firing them, Bugs wanders onto Sam's ship and shoots Sam as he is filling one, turning Sam into a pile of rubble.

Later, Sam tries the same method on Bugs but this time, the cannon instead launches backwards into Sam, shooting himself out of the ship's side.

Next, Sam then tries to swing aboard Bugs' ship. ("Prepare to defend yourself, rabbit, cuz I'm a-boarding your ship! Charge!") However, there is another cannon in Sam's path resulting in him landing in the cannon. The cannon fires as Sam tries to retreat (much like in ''Bunker Hill Bunny'').

Then, Sam then makes a model sailship using a barrel of dynamite. He lights it and blows into the sail to push the ship towards Bugs' ship. Bugs tries to blow the explosive model ship back to no avail and then uses an electric fan to blow the ship back towards Sam; when Sam tries to blow it back it explodes when it reaches his face.

Then Sam dresses up in a diving suit, lights a fuse to a bomb and dives underwater (how his bomb does not light out from the water is not explained). When he is swimming towards Bugs' ship with the bomb, a shark comes up from behind and eats Sam. Seconds later the bomb detonates and blows up the shark, leaving only its skeleton behind and Sam himself burned and dazed from the explosion.

Sam eventually corners Bugs on the crow's nest of Bugs' ship. Sam tells Bugs to surrender but Bugs challenges Sam to climb up and get him first. Sam in reply uses an axe to chop down the mast and to avoid being hurt by the falling mast Sam takes cover when it is almost completely cut apart. When it remains still balanced on its last chunk holding it up, Sam walks under the rested mast to chop the final chunk of it off but before he can react the mast falls on itself and crushes Sam.

Sam eventually climbs out of the mast, gets back in shape and glares up at Bugs. He climbs up the net ladders and corners Bugs on the rigging ("A-ha! Now I got ya, ya fur-bearin' critter!"). Bugs decides to take a dive in the ocean instead of facing Sam. When Sam tries to dive after Bugs he lands head-first onto a rock and falls in the water in massive pain.

Sam gives a final warning to Bugs once back on ship. Bugs Bunny tosses a lighted match into the powder room of Sam's ship. Sam frantically retrieves the match and tells Bugs "Ya doggone idjit galut! You'll blow the ship to smithereenies! And if ya does that once more, I ain't a-goin' after it!" Bugs uses this stubbornness as an advantage to throw another match into the powder room forcing Sam to stand and wait like he said he would. After a few seconds, Sam changes his mind and runs after the match but by the time he does so, the ship blows up (similar to ''Buccaneer Bunny'').

An injured, ragged, burnt Sam is blown onto Bugs' ship. To retaliate, Sam lights a match himself and tosses it into Bugs' ship powder room ("What's good for the goose is good for the gander!"). Bugs however refuses to go after it and realizing that Bugs is serious, Sam panics, dives from the ship and swims off. Bugs Bunny reveals that his powder room is actually a make-up room, commenting "I don't know what he's so excited about. Talcum powder doesn't explode." However this is proven false as after Bugs reveals the room, the ship blows up to smithereens, as well. As a defeated Bugs is tossed in the air he sadly stares as he says "I could be wrong, you know".

The cartoon opens with the credits in outer space as the camera pulls up to Earth, to somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. After this, the scene changes to the deserted Highway 17, as a flying saucer from outer space lands and surveys the surrounding area with a periscope. At a city dump nearby, Bugs Bunny returns home, thinking he should move somewhere else, on account of the neighborhood "gettin' terribly rundown."

Inside the spaceship, Yosemite Sam of Outer Space, dressed in a green gloveless spacesuit, sees Bugs on his view screen. Summoning Robot ZX29B to the bridge, he orders the robot to go out and capture Bugs as part of their Earth mission. ZX29B trundles out of the spaceship to Bugs' hole and peeks down at him cleaning up after breakfast, making Bugs get the feeling he's being watched. ZX29B hides among some garbage cans when Bugs comes up from the hole with a pail of trash, making a note to remember to make an electronic trash disposal. Bugs thinks ZX29B is a new garbage can, and so he promptly opens his mouth like a lid and empties his trash into him. When Bugs leaves, ZX29B comes out coughing up the garbage.

Angered at the failure of the "stupidest robot [he's] got", Yosemite Sam summons the Demolition Squad, a trio of red robots, to the bridge and orders them to destroy Bugs. The robots, each with a fuselit barrel-shaped bomb, go into the dump. Seeing them coming, Bugs panics at the sight of the "spacemen" and dives into the pipe leading down to his underground bomb shelter. The robots proceed to dump their bombs down the pipe, and leave to head back to the ship. Escaping the shelter through a back way, an angered Bugs tosses a giant magnet down the pipe to "take care of those mechanized mobsters". The entire squad is pulled down the pipe, where the bombs explode and blow the squad to smithereens, prompting a Medic Robot to appear and sweep up the mess.

Angered at the Demolition Squad's failure, Sam decides he will go after Bugs himself and hops into an indestructible tank that he drives into the dump. When Sam scans the dump, he sees Bugs come up in a machine, that opens the tank hatch so it can drop a lit stick of dynamite into the tank. Sam tosses the dynamite out, but the machine drops it back in and rivets the hatch shut. Sam tries to hammer out the rivets, but the dynamite explodes sending Sam to drive his crippled tank back to the ship.

At this time, Bugs decides to make his getaway by taking a handcar from the Flag Station. Just after he cranks away, Sam gives chase in the spaceship. The spaceship lowers a ladder and Sam starts going down it, but he gets knocked off at a tunnel, falling to the ground stunned. The spaceship picks him up with an extending plunger and pulls him back into itself.

Sam catches up to Bugs via rocket pack and stops him at ray gun point. When Sam brags that Earth creatures ''can't maneuver very well'', Bugs proves him wrong by spinning his ears like the blades on a helicopter and flies away. Sam shouts a catchphrase ("Yosemite Sam of Outer Space!") and tries to catch up by rocket pack, but misses when Bugs moves. When Bugs lands in a hole, Sam decides to wait so he can disintegrate Bugs the moment he comes out. While waiting, Bugs goes underground into an old tree stump behind Sam and secretly replaces his rocket pack with a lit stick of dynamite. Bugs flies out of the stump, and Sam, ready to chase after him, shouts his catchphrase just as the dynamite explodes and destroys his spacesuit ("Yosemite Sam of Outer - BANG! - Space?").

Back at the dump, Sam uses his Robot Ferret in his next attempt to catch Bugs. The Ferret descends into Bugs' hole and encounters a Robot Rabbit built by Bugs out of old war surplus equipment. Sounding like Marvin The Martian, the Robot Ferret threatens the Robot Rabbit with a ray gun to go with him. The Robot Rabbit agrees, provided that the Robot Ferret doesn't press the button on his stomach. Defiantly, the Ferret ignores the request and presses the button, releasing a metal block which smashes him to pieces.

Angered at seeing the Robot Ferret in ruins, Sam decides that he's through fooling around. Bugs, meanwhile, places a time bomb in another Robot Rabbit's stomach and dresses it up like himself. Outside, a huge ray gun emerges from Sam's Saucer and aims down at Bugs' hole, ready to blast Bugs, but Bugs, yelling out that he surrenders, sends out his decoy, which walks into the spaceship. Their mission "complete", Sam and the flying saucer take off and fly back to Sam's homeworld.

Later that night, Bugs turns on his war surplus radio and listens in as Sam presents the Robot Decoy to the planet's Potentate. The Potentate orders the Robot Rabbit decoy to come forward and when he orders the Robot to speak, its time bomb explodes in his presence. The dazed Potentate comments that Earth creatures always shoot off their mouths. Laughing at this, Bugs changes the channels wondering if ''Amos and Andy'' is on yet.

Bugs Bunny and his next door neighbor, Casbah, are preparing to go on a date with Daisy Lou, but a fight for Daisy Lou begins as soon as Casbah and Bugs exit their rabbit holes. Bugs and Casbah both leave their holes with flowers for Daisy Lou. Seeing each other's gifts, they try to outdo each other with bigger and better gifts. Bugs finally throws an anvil on Casbah’s head to get rid of him.

When Bugs arrives at Daisy Lou’s home, he finds a note on her door saying she went shopping and will be back shortly (The fact that Daisy Lou lives in a house instead of a rabbit hole like Bugs or Casbah is an oddity that goes unremarked upon.). Bugs sees Casbah coming and dresses up as Daisy Lou. He lures Casbah over to the porch swing and starts flirting with him. When Casbah isn’t looking, Bugs hits him over the head, puts a mouse trap down, and gives him an explosive carrot.

In addition to tricking Casbah on the swing, Bugs pretends to kiss Casbah by using a plunger and hitting him on the head. He continues tricking Casbah by painting a bomb to look like Daisy Lou.

Casbah is so excited by explosion of the bomb, he accidentally runs into the house. Once again, Bugs tries to trick Casbah by pretending to be Mr. Daniel Cupid and shooting him with an arrow. Casbah becomes enraged and finally sees through Bugs' disguise ("You can't fool me no more! I ''KNOW'' who you are! You're that screwy rabbit!" he shouts, clearly not realizing this description applies just as well to himself). Bugs tries to get Casbah out of hitting him by donning a pair of glasses ("You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would ya?"), but Casbah still punches him in the face, breaking the glasses and making Bugs realize he's angered Casbah ("Ya know? I believe he ''would''"). Casbah then chases Bugs as he is now on the warpath against Bugs, who manages to escape into Daisy Lou's house and slam the door on Casbah's face.

Bugs sees Daisy Lou coming home and runs around the side of the house. Casbah sees Daisy Lou coming up the porch and thinks it is again Bugs dressed up as her. When Daisy Lou enters the house, Casbah hits her upside the head with a giant vase. Daisy Lou screams and, by the sound of it, proceeds to assault Casbah with every single vase in the house, throwing the last one after him as he flees.

The cartoon ends with Bugs showering Daisy Lou with compliments and kissing Daisy Lou after she has eaten an explosive carrot. Both Bugs and Daisy Lou think the explosive effect the carrot lends to the kiss is due to the other's romantic capabilities ("What a man!"/ "What a woman"), and they hop wildly and enthusiastically kiss again.

The cartoon starts when Bugs Bunny, feeling the effects of mixing radish juice with carrot juice the night before, unknowingly climbs out of his hole and into a rocket ship that is about to be launched into space. He realizes what has happened once he screws open the tip of the ship, and is immediately hit by the satellite Sputnik and lands on what appears to be a space station. While there, Bugs meets Marvin the Martian who is trying to blow up the Earth with his Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator (which is actually a stick of dynamite) because "Earth obstructs his view of Venus".

Bugs quietly steals Marvin's explosive, and Marvin quickly discovers what happened. He creates a trio of "Instant Martians" (who somewhat resemble the Martians of ''A Martian Odyssey'' and ''Jumpin' Jupiter'') by adding water to "Instant Martian" pills. The Martians all leave to capture Bugs. Bugs gets on a rocket scooter and is pursued by a Martian. After noticing it mimics his every move to catch up with him, Bugs mimes driving out of the space station, causing the Martian to actually do that. He is then pursued by the Martians and hides behind a door so that he can chase them. The Martians use the same trick to get behind Bugs and chase him, but he uses the same trick again to make the Martians run into a trapdoor and make them fall out of the space station. Bugs then steals a UFO and when Marvin attempts to make more Martians, Bugs swaps the lit Space Modulator for the Instant Martian dispenser. The Modulator explodes in Marvin's hand just after he finishes saying its name, destroying his space station. Standing amid the shattered remains, Marvin concedes defeat and that it is "back to the old drawing board" for his plans to destroy the Earth. Bugs arrives on Earth in the UFO, but crashes into a construction site warning sign and finds himself and the bottle of "Instant Martians" falling into the sewer and splashing all the pills. The ground shakes as Bugs climbs out of the sewer, frantically replaces the manhole cover and warns the audience "Run for the hills folks, or you'll be up to your armpits in Martians!", before proceeding to take his own advice as Martian antennas poke out of the cracks appearing in the ground.

In the Swiss Alps, when the mayorwho bears a resemblance, visual and vocal, to German-American character actor Sig Ruman announces a competition with a prize of "50,000 kronkites" a pun on Walter Cronkite, and a reference to famed vaudeville comedians Smith & Dale's famous ''Dr. Kronkheit'' sketch. Krankheit, pronounced cronk-hite, means "sickness" in German. to the one who can climb the Schmatterhorna pun on the Matterhorn first, Yosemite Sam quickly volunteers.

When he starts climbing, Bugs Bunny emerges from a rabbit hole on the mountain, hearing a band playing the send-off tune and a crowd cheering. He inquires about the sounds, to which Sam brags about his dare and the prize. Bugs decides he wants in, and climbs up the mountain an easier way than Sam. Realising that Bugs now plans on winning, Sam tries to pull him back down ("Get down, ya long-eared mountain goat!") In the process, he causes Bugs to pull down a boulder, which chases Sam back down the mountain and flattens him.

Sam climbs back up and pretends to form a partnership with Bugs. He climbs up with a rope tied to him, and another rope tied to Bugs, which he throws up to Sam. Bugs then shouts his "What's up, doc?" catchphrase, to which Sam replies "Not what's up, what's down!" revealing that he has double-crossed Bugs, tied his rope to another boulder and is about to push it over. However, it turns out that the rope around the rock is also tied to Sam! Despite his attempts to free himself with a Swiss army knife, he is pulled to the bottom of the mountain with the rock. As he prepares to try again, the band and crowd also sound again.

Sam runs back up and struggles to climb over a ledge. Bugs "helps" him over it, but Sam ends up sliding back down the mountain (Music and crowd again).

Sam runs back up to a cliff, which Bugs is climbing up. Sam tries to push another boulder over the cliff, but as soon as he lets go, it rolls after him, chasing him off another cliff. When he lands, the impact causes the boulder to fall after him, crushing him through the ledge onto the ground below.

Sam catches Bugs under a pile of snow. Bugs attempts to warn him to be careful to prevent an avalanche. Sam attempts to use this to his advantage by shouting and shooting his pistol, hoping the avalanche will get rid of Bugs. Instead, all the snow falls on Sam. A St. Bernard pulls a frozen Sam out of the snow, makes and drinks a cocktail, then runs off hiccuping.

Sam chases Bugs all the way to the top of the mountain. Once Bugs states that they have reached the top, Sam pushes him off, then starts celebrating. However, it turns out that he is on top of the Eiffel Tower, and Bugs says "Well, as long as he's happy, why tell him?" The band (who is at the base of the tower) plays the same song one last time, continuously into the "That's all Folks!" end titles.This is one of the rare post-1937 Warner Bros. cartoons to have music from the cartoon playing past the iris-out or fade out through to the end card; this was common in MGM cartoons, but rare in Warner

This original story marries three different elements into one plot.

Alex Stokes (Andrew Roth) is a self-destructive, down-on-his-luck investigator who takes cases wherever he can. When a mysterious man offers him a healthy sum to follow his beautiful wife Claire (Melantha Blackthorne), Alex can't resist. Her seemingly mundane day-to-day activities take a strange turn when she tries to kill herself.

After saving her, their chemistry proves too much to resist and they become romantically entangled. But the fun has just begun as her demonic possessions escalate and Alex's entire town gets sucked into a vortex of evil. Can one lost soul get it together in time to save mankind?

The movie is considered a film noir because it involves a self-destructive, down-and-out investigator who takes on a case that may be more than he can handle. Incorporating standard elements like a beautiful woman, excessive drinking and subtle voiceover, the piece is set up like a standard detective film.

Bart Carter has sacrificed a writing career so he can support his wife Peggy and their five children by working as a clerk in a New York City publishing house. When his former girlfriend Mildred Bronson, a literary agent who has been working in the Paris office, returns to the States, she arranges for Bart to draw his regular salary while working on a novel. Because his home life is so chaotic, Bart writes at Mildred's apartment during the day and frequently stays for dinner, and the two soon discover their old feelings for each other have been revived.

Bart's novel is published, and when ''Seed'' becomes a critical and commercial success, he abandons his family and moves to France with Mildred. Peggy opens a dress shop and lives with the children in an apartment above the store.

A decade later, the now-married Bart and Mildred return to New York. His grown children are delighted to see their father, who wishes to make amends for having left them. He suggests enrolling his daughter Margaret in finishing school, sending the twin boys to Harvard University, finding employment for his oldest son, and having the youngest boy live with him and Mildred. At her children's urging Peggy reluctantly agrees, although she feels she is losing them. Mildred assures her they will return to her one day, whereas she believes their renewed relationship with their father will place her own future with Bart in jeopardy.

A decade earlier, Jonesport, Maine preacher Seth Parker and his wife took in motherless infant Robbie Turner after he was abandoned by his sadistic alcoholic father Rufe; young Robbie has always considered the Parkers his parents. Mary Lucy Duffy, whose father has banished her from their home for fraternizing with farmhand David Clark, is also living with the Parkers, and her romance with David attracts the attention of the local gossips. David's mother had run off with a stranger years earlier, and when she returned to Jonesport with an illegitimate infant son, they were shunned by the townspeople.

Mary Lucy and David plan to elope to Bangor, but Seth encourages them to stay by offering to pay for a proper wedding. Rufe breaks into the Parker home to kidnap Robbie, attacking Mary Lucy when she tries to protect the boy. Seth pursues Rufe and Robbie and manages to intercept them before they board a train. Because Seth is not Robbie's legal guardian, the boy is placed in an orphanage until a decision can be made about his future. Meanwhile, Seth lectures the townspeople about tolerance and implores them to accept Rose and her newlywed son and his bride. Robbie returns to Jonesport, having been legally entrusted to the Parkers' care.

Suzie Austin (Jack Hourigan) has cancer and her most recent prognosis is unfavorable. Fearing that this may be their last Christmas together, husband Andrew Austin (Andrew May) takes Suzie and their two children, Chris (Charlie May) and Mary (Julia May) to the family's summer home on Lake Erie to celebrate the holiday. There they meet Gus (Angus May). Andrew comes to terms with his past as the family deals with his wife's failing health.

In 16th century Brazil rival French and Portuguese settlers are utilizing the indigenous people as allies in their struggle to establish control. The Tupinambás, who live in the Guanabara Bay area, are allied with the French, while the Tupiniquins are allied with the Portuguese.

A Frenchman who has been captured by the Portuguese is then captured by the Tupinambás after they attack and kill a group of Portuguese. He tries to convince his captors by speaking in French (reciting the poem by Étienne Jodelle found in André Thévet's ''Singularities of France Antarctique'') but the Tupinambás don't believe that the Frenchman was a prisoner of the Portuguese they have killed, and the Chief thinks he is Portuguese because "No Frenchman would shoot at the Tupinambá." The tribe's shaman predicted they would find a strong Portuguese man to cannibalize as revenge for the chief's brother being killed by a Portuguese musket ball. Now they have one.

However, the Frenchman is allowed free run of the village area, is eventually provided with a "wife," and adopts traditional Tupinambá attire in place of his Western clothes.

A French tradesman comes to the village and tells the Tupinambás that their prisoner is indeed Portuguese – he then promises the outraged Frenchman that he will tell the Tupinambás the truth if the Frenchman finds a hidden treasure that another European has hidden in the area. He also instructs him to collect wood, and pepper for him on his return.

The relationship between the Frenchman and his Tupinambá "wife" remains enigmatic. It is unclear for most of the movie if she intends to save him from the group that wants to eat him, or if she has been assigned to win his trust and prevent him from escaping.

The Frenchman gathers cannon powder from the abandoned Portuguese cannons, and brings it to the Tupinambás, who use it to defeat the rival Tupiniquins in battle. The Tupinambás then eat the Frenchman as celebration.

In the last seconds of his life, the Frenchman refuses to play along with the ceremonial script that the Tupinambás expect him to follow and instead angrily (and loudly) tells the Tupinambás that his death will not revitalize them (as his death and the subsequent cannibal feast is intended to do) but rather will doom them all to extermination.

The movie ends with a postscript that reveals the rival Tupiniquim were later exterminated by their supposed allies, the Portuguese.

The story begins with Donna Troy having a dream where she is locked in constant battle; she is in fact seeing her "death" at the end of the story.

The story then begins proper with the fictional Optitron corporation offering to fund the Titans and/or Young Justice. Their sales pitch fails on the Titans because of Nightwing's impatience and Omen's ability to read minds, revealing their ulterior motive as a large tax write-off, though they do indeed want to help. Arsenal convinces Nightwing to wait and hear them out. The corporation (which is secretly owned by Batman's company Wayne Enterprises) would later fund Arsenal's Outsiders in the new ''Outsiders'' title that followed this series, which Nightwing would join.

Meanwhile, a mysterious robot, later revealed to be named Indigo, arrives in the DCU's present and begins to search out other cybernik lifeforms for help. After she accidentally destroys Platinum, Lead, and Iron of the Metal Men, she is led to Cyborg, one of the Titans' members and former ''New Teen Titans'' character, who is with the rest of the team and Young Justice at the Optitron corporation's building. But the Titans, specifically Argent, see Indigo's attempt to interface with Cyborg and use him to install a self-repair program (which was her intention in earlier scenes) as an attack, which causes the robot to switch into a defensive mode. A battle with Titans and Young Justice members ensues and leaves Argent and Empress hospitalized, Impulse injured, and Cyborg badly damaged. She then flees, badly damaged, and the injured super-heroes are rushed into a hospital at the start of the following issue.

The battle leaves Robin, Nightwing, and Wonder Girl questioning their team's and their own personal effectiveness. While the wounded heroes are tended to, Indigo attacks a S.T.A.R. Labs facility in Silicon Valley in desperate need of repair. She fights off the armed forces stationed there leading to her releasing a Superman robot that rampages, nearly destroying the facility. Responding to seeing the rampaging "Superman" on television, the remaining able-bodied Titans and Young Justice members (and Impulse, who is able to heal faster due to the Speed Force) confront the robot, thinking it to be Superman at first. When Lilith (who has met the real Superman before) cannot sense his thoughts, she approaches the robot, which breaks her neck, killing her instantly. The robot then badly injures Tempest.

The fight between the remaining heroes and the Superman robot encompasses nearly the whole of the third issue. The robot has all of Superman's abilities minus his invulnerability (though still very resilient) including ice breath, heat vision, flight, and super speed, making it more powerful than most of the characters fighting against it, and is shown to be faster than Impulse and Superboy and at least a match for Donna Troy. Of note, Nightwing acts as an "overall leader" during the fight, commanding the members of both teams. Donna is able to take the Superman robot away from the compound for a more even fight. While she, Superboy, and Nightwing battle it there, Indigo tells Arsenal and Robin that she can stop the robot and they can fix her. While they do, "Metamorpho" (in fact, Shift) returns. Presumably, he was in the same compound that the Superman robot was kept. The robot is fixed in time to stop the robot (with only one hit), but not fast enough to stop it from attacking Donna, whom it seemingly kills with its heat vision after she saves Nightwing from it and pummels it.

The series ends with a grand funeral for Donna (Omen's funeral was a quiet one that happened off panel) and the aftermath, which are two arguments. The first, between Robin, Superboy, and the incredibly disillusioned Wonder Girl, is the disbanding of Young Justice (Cyborg is seen looking, preempting the new ''Teen Titans'' series) and the second, between Arsenal and the incredibly disillusioned Nightwing, is the ending of the Titans. Many people are in attendance, including super-villain Angle Man, who previously became enamoured with Donna in the ''Wonder Woman'' comic. On another world, Donna awakens and heads into battle.

Kratos, Gaia, and the other Titans ascend Mount Olympus to destroy the Olympian gods. Poseidon launches an assault against them, but is killed by Kratos and Gaia; his death causes the oceans to flood Greece. Reaching Olympus' peak, they try to attack Zeus, but he drives them back and knocks them off the mountain. As Gaia clings to the mountainside, she refuses to save Kratos, calling him a pawn for the Titans' revenge.

Kratos falls into the River Styx, where he loses the Blade of Olympus before the souls of the Underworld weaken him and ruin the Blades of Athena. Climbing from the river, he is greeted by Athena's spirit, who was brought to a higher existence after she sacrificed herself to save Zeus from Kratos, and she now can witness truths which she previously could not. She gives him the Blades of Exile and tells him he must extinguish the Flame of Olympus to kill Zeus. After finding the three Judges of the Underworld and the Chain of Balance, Kratos briefly meets the spirit of Pandora, whom he briefly mistakes for his dead daughter, Calliope. Following an encounter with the Olympian blacksmith Hephaestus and recovering the Blade of Olympus, he kills Hades and releases the souls of the Underworld. Kratos considers searching for Calliope's soul, but Athena reminds him of his quest, and he leaves the Underworld. Arriving at Olympia, he finds the wounded Gaia, who begs him for help. Resentful of Gaia's earlier betrayal, however, Kratos severs her arm, causing her to fall to her apparent death.

Kratos continues his ascent, murdering powerful foes such as the Titan Perses and the god Helios; plunging Greece into eternal darkness in the process. This leads to an encounter with Hermes, who mocks Kratos for his past sins. Kratos chases Hermes until he arrives at the Chamber of the Flame, where he discovers that Pandora's Box is held within the Flame of Olympus, which Athena says can only be quelled by Pandora herself. Kratos continues after the overconfident Hermes, whom he catches and kills, releasing a plague upon Greece. At the Forum, he has an audience with the drunken Hera, who ignores his request for Pandora's location and summons Hercules. After discussing his jealousy of his half-brother, Hercules attacks Kratos, but is killed. Kratos then encounters Aphrodite, who is indifferent to his war on Olympus. She leads him back to her estranged husband, Hephaestus, through Hyperion's Gate. The blacksmith sends Kratos to Tartarus to retrieve the Omphalos Stone, claiming he will forge a new weapon for the Spartan, though he secretly planned to kill him. Kratos faces Cronos, kills the Titan for the stone, and returns to Hephaestus. After forging the weapon, the god tries to kill Kratos himself; however, the Spartan kills Hephaestus in self-defense. Before dying, Hephaestus claims that he was trying to protect his daughter Pandora, who was imprisoned in the Labyrinth after Kratos opened her box, and pleads with Kratos to spare her. Reusing the Hyperion Gate, Kratos travels through Hera's Gardens, where he kills Hera for disrespecting Pandora, ending all Greek plant life, before making his way to the Labyrinth.

The imprisoned architect, Daedalus, tells Kratos to unite the Labyrinth. Completing this task, Kratos fights his way through the aerial puzzle and rescues Pandora. Neutralizing the judges and breaking the Chain of Balance, Kratos raises the Labyrinth, and Pandora tries to enter the Flame. Zeus intervenes and fights Kratos, but Pandora sacrifices herself despite Kratos' reluctance. Finding Pandora's Box empty, Kratos attacks Zeus. Having survived her apparent demise however, Gaia returns and tries to kill them both, but they escape through her body and continue their battle inside her chest. Kratos impales Zeus against her heart, killing Gaia and apparently Zeus. Believing he is done, Kratos is attacked by Zeus' spirit, who removes his weapons and powers. Before Zeus can finish him off, Kratos is saved by a vision of Pandora during a journey into his psyche. With help from the spirits of Calliope and his wife Lysandra, Kratos forgives himself before regaining consciousness, regaining his god powers along with the power of Hope, forcing Zeus' spirit back into his body; Kratos beats him to death. His revenge complete, Kratos looks upon the apocalyptic Greek landscape, a result of him killing Zeus and the Greek Pantheon.

Athena reappears, demanding that Kratos return what she thinks he took from Pandora's Box. When Kratos tells her it was empty, she refuses to believe this, explaining that when Zeus sealed the evils of the world in the box, she placed the power of hope in it as well; foreseeing that it would eventually be opened. Athena realizes that when Kratos opened the box to defeat Ares, the evils escaped and slowly corrupted the gods while Kratos was imbued with hope, which had been hidden by his guilt. She demands Kratos return her power, but he refuses and seemingly kills himself so mankind can have it instead. Athena leaves empty-handed, as Kratos collapses on a mural of a Phoenix.

In a post-credits scene, a trail of blood is seen leading away from the abandoned Blade of Olympus; implying Kratos' survival but leaving his whereabouts unknown.

Part I

Ross is selected to deliver a keynote speech at a paleontology convention in Barbados, and invites the gang to accompany him. Phoebe can't stop thinking about her ex Mike, while going out with David. Rachel has feelings for Joey but doesn't know how to tell him. Monica and Chandler try to prevent David from proposing marriage to Phoebe.

Part II

Joey and Charlie see they have nothing in common and decide to break up. Charlie tells Ross that she also broke up with Joey because she had feelings for "someone else" and then they kiss. Joey, after seeing this, goes to kiss Rachel. Meanwhile, Chandler and Phoebe are bored watching Monica and Mike play an extremely long game of ping-pong. After Monica hurts her wrist, Chandler takes over for her and wins the game.

At the private island retreat of wealthy industrialist George Stark, a group of people have assembled for a weekend getaway; among the guests is scientist Professor Gerry Farrell. The first night passes uneventfully, but Farrell is enraged the next morning to discover that Stark and the other guests planned the weekend to coerce him to sell his latest invention: a formula for a revolutionary industrial resin, which he is reluctant to divulge due to his colleague's death during its invention.

Farrell's wife, Trudy, is having an affair with Stark's artist wife, Jill. Stark's business partner, Nick, is verbally abusive to his coquettish wife Marie, but does not object to her sleeping with other men, one of whom is the Starks' manservant, Charles. Stark is less of a husband to Jill than he is a business manager. He arranges for her to have her paintings and artwork publicly displayed and is a source of constant criticism. The sole happy couple is Nick's co-worker Jack and his wife Peggy. Also on the island is Isabelle, the teenage daughter of Stark's game warden; Isabelle's parents are away for medical reasons.

As Stark, Nick, and Jack badger Farrell for the formula - the original documents for which he has secretly destroyed - by offering him cheques for $1 million each from their Swiss bank accounts, Jill discovers the dead body of Charles on the beach. Having already sent the motor launch away to prevent Farrell from leaving the island, and with the radio out of commission, Stark has no way of contacting the mainland. Charles' body is moved into a large walk-in freezer. The next morning, Farrell is walking alone on the beach. Trudy and Jill, walking hand-in-hand nearby, hear a gunshot and find Farrell's body. They run away to tell the others. The sniper, Isabelle, drags Farrell's body to the sea.

As tempers flare to Farrell's apparent death and disappearance, the killings escalate. Peggy, standing on the balcony of her room, is shot dead by an unseen assailant. Jack arrives on the scene first and accuses Stark of being responsible. Marie is found to have been tied to a tree and stabbed in the chest. Jill turns up dead in her bathtub, her wrists slashed in an apparent suicide. Each of the bodies is placed in the freezer. The four remaining survivors - Stark, Jack, Nick, and Trudy - hold up in Stark's living room for the night. After bickering with Trudy, Nick storms off. The next morning, he too is found dead, and his body is placed in cold storage.

Stark offers Trudy his cheque for Farrell's formula, which she reveals still exists on a microfilm, and uncovers a previously-hidden motorboat which will take them to the mainland. As he returns to the house to get supplies, Jack confronts him and reveals he killed everyone, except for Farrell, to steal their cheques; he also killed Peggy for nearly discovering his plan. Jack shoots him dead. Confronted by him in the freezer, Trudy offers to give him the formula in exchange for his cheque; during the handover, they simultaneously shoot each other; Trudy dies first. Isabelle steals the cheque and the formula, but not before an expiring Jack tries to stop her.

Sometime later, a now-wealthy Isabelle visits Farrell in prison, where he is awaiting execution for the murder of his colleague, the rightful discoverer of the resin. Isabelle claims that she loves Farrell and had decided to save him by rendering him unconscious with a sodium pentathol pellet of the kind her father had used to tranquilize animals, but was unaware of sodium pentathol's truth serum properties, leading him to confess to killing his partner to the authorities. Isabelle reveals that she is broke, having cashed and spent George's and Jack's cheques but not Nick's due to her not knowing the account number. Aware of his inescapable fate and thankful to her, Farrell gives Isabelle the number, and she happily leaves, instructing her chauffeur to drive her to Lausanne.

When a mysterious explosion destroys a space station on the edge of the galaxy, five survivors manage to board an escape shuttle. Left adrift without communications, food or any means of leaving the system, the survivors are forced to work together to survive. But soon evidence surfaces that one of them may actually be the saboteur who caused the station's destruction. Can the dysfunctional group band together long enough to be rescued, when no one knows who they can trust?

Sam Palmer has always been fascinated with insects, but now he has become obsessed. Suddenly insects also appear to be fascinated with Sam. Wherever he goes, a few wasps follow him. One day he finds a horse-fly in his room. He gently corrals it in a glass and sets it free, informing it that it is not very smart. But that fly knows more than Sam could ever imagine.

Meanwhile, an army in the state of Vermia in another world called Aurobon prepares for war against humans on earth. Their weapon: a virus to be spread by mosquitoes. As they refine their technique, word comes that "the Dreamwalker" has been found—and that she has a son. Odoursin, Vermia's evil emperor, demands the boy be brought to him.

Sam takes a bike ride and notices a peculiar cloud of wasps. He cannot resist following them. Pain stabs his neck, and then everything goes black.

He awakens to nighttime in a strange landscape, marshlands lit with blue-green light. Confused and frightened, he walks toward distant city lights. But his travels are disrupted by a horrendous encounter with a slavering pack of creatures like no one has seen on Earth. The crazed beasts are intent on killing him. Sam realizes he will surely die, but then a group of soldiers appears. His relief is short-lived, however, when the soldiers act like he is a criminal, violently hauling him off to prison. What is going on?

Vermia's enemy state is called Vahlzi, and the army is led by Commander Firebrand. Realizing the Dreamwalker's son has been kidnapped by Vermia, Firebrand decides to send a rescuer, Skipper, who is his best pilot despite her young age.

In prison, Sam meets Skipper who gives him hope of escape. Looking through the window of his cell, he sees three moons and realizes he is in a whole new world. When Sam learns the truth behind his plight, he is shocked. He must fight the evil that seeks to destroy Earth's humans. Meanwhile, his damaged body on Earth remains in a coma.

In the midst of an urgent plot fueled by a dangerous mission, we find humor, a gutsy female role model, friendship, family relationships, questions about the guardianship of Earth and the balance of nature—plus a subtle, thrilling celebration of life itself.

Adam, the judge of the small town of Huisum in the Netherlands, is found dressing a wound on his leg by his secretary Licht, when Licht enters Adam's home in the morning. Licht also notices a large gash on Adam's face. Adam tells Licht that he received these wounds when he fell down after getting out of bed this morning and hit his head on the fireplace. Licht also comments on Adam's clubfoot.

Licht informs Adam that Walter, a government inspector who travels through the country to inspect the finances and the proceedings of the town courts, will arrive this day to take a look at Adam's court. Licht also tells Adam that a judge in a neighboring town has tried to commit suicide after Walter found problems at the court. Additionally, today is court day, and no one can find Adam's wig, with Adam's maidservant insisting that Adam arrived home without the wig late last evening.

When Walter arrives, he insists that Adam immediately start the day's trial. The parties are the plaintiff Marthe, a widowed farmer who is there with her daughter Eve and the defendant, Ruprecht, Eve's fiancé together with his father, Veit. Before the trial Eve tries to speak to Ruprecht, who rejects her and calls her a harlot. Adam also speaks to the parties before the trial, especially Eve, seemingly trying to influence her testimony. Walter admonishes Adam and requests him to start the official trial immediately.

When the trial starts, an enraged Marthe accuses Ruprecht of having destroyed a water jug which was intricately painted and had rich family history and because of that had a large emotional value to her. Other people suggest that her disappointment of Ruprecht's treatment of Eve may also have something to do with her anger. Marthe claims that she found Ruprecht in Eve's room last night with the door broken down and the jug broken. She also claims that Eve had accused Ruprecht of breaking the jug.

When it is Ruprecht's turn to testify, he explains that he secretly went to Eve's home and heard her talk with somebody in her room. He mentions that he suspected it to be a man called Lebrecht, who had previously shown interest in Eve. When Adam hears that Lebrecht is suspected, he eagerly requests that information to be noted in the protocol. Ruprecht says that he broke down the door, entered the room and saw someone flee through the window. He was able to hit the fleeing man twice over the head with a broken off door handle but could not identify the person. He also admits that he is not absolutely sure if it was him or the fleeing man who broke the jug in the chaos.

When it is Eve's turn, Adam again talks to her, seemingly trying to influence her testimony. Walter again admonishes him. Eve testifies that it was not Ruprecht who broke the jug but that she will not name the actual guilty person.

During a pause in the proceedings, Adam tries to get Walter drunk. Then, Brigitte, a lodger in Marthe's house arrives with Licht and a wig in her hand. She states that she found the wig last night in Marthe's garden and that she and Licht found a club-footed trail in the fresh snow and both followed that trail to Adam's house.

Walter asks Adam to come clean but Adam refuses and instead hands down his ruling: Ruprecht is convicted and shall go to jail for his insubordination against the court. Eve now exclaims that it was Adam who was in her room last night and who broke the jug while fleeing. An enraged Ruprecht attacks Adam, who flees the court room unharmed. Walter ensures Ruprecht that his conviction will be overturned, Ruprecht and Eve reconcile and their parents approve of their wedding.

A guy named Ron finally settled up and decided to marry his girlfriend Melinda, whom he met just two months ago. Her brother, Todd, hates Ron and tries to persuade Melinda that he is just marrying her to use her money for himself. He tries to talk Melinda out of the wedding, but before that, he tries to show who Ron really is so he decided to make a wild bachelor party, in hope of catching Ron and canceling the wedding.

The game begins with Homer having a candy-induced fantasy about a world of chocolate where he tries to catch and eat a white chocolate rabbit; upon waking up he is upset to find that it was all a dream.

Meanwhile, Bart goes to the video game store and bribes the clerk to let him buy the new and violent ''Grand Theft Scratchy'' game, only to have it confiscated by Marge. While Bart mopes, a video game manual falls down from the sky in front of him. Reading through the manual, Bart discovers that he and the rest of his family have special powers. Bart uses his Bartman powers to stop the school bullies Jimbo, Kearney, and Dolph from robbing the Natural History Museum on the orders of Principal Skinner to use the museum exhibits for the science class, Homer uses his ability to win an eating contest, Lisa uses her powers to stop a deforestation project, and Marge uses her powers to influence crowds to stop the release of ''Grand Theft Scratchy'' in Springfield, although Lisa points out it is hypocritical that she used violence to stop a violent game.

During dinner, the family is euphoric with their new powers. However, it leads to an argument about what they should be doing with them. Aliens Kang and Kodos decide to strike Earth, and an alien invasion unfolds. Realizing none of their powers are strong enough to defeat the aliens, Bart and Lisa visit Professor Frink. They visit his house to find him not there, but they stumble upon a portal that sends them to a place called the game engine where all video games are made. After saving him from a giant gorilla, Frink gives them ''The Simpsons Game'' s player's guide to teach them how to better use their powers as well as gain new ones, and the Simpson family sets out to stop the alien invasion. First, Bart and Lisa assist Captain McCallister in fighting back mind-controlled dolphins that are attacking the city aquarium. Then, Bart and Homer defeat the Lard Lad statue which has come to life. Finally, they save the Springfield Mall and Cletus from an alien force led by Sideshow Bob.

In order to find out the truth, the family turns to the Internet to discover more about the powers they have in the game, but are sent to the game engine when Homer accidentally spills beer over the keyboard. There, they discover Will Wright, who is destroying copies of an old 8-bit ''The Simpsons'' game and its characters. The family manages to save their 8-bit predecessors before they are destroyed by Wright, and discover that they will also become obsolete when the next ''The Simpsons'' game is released. The only way to prevent this is to talk to the creator of the games and convince him not to destroy them. In order to access his mansion, the family needs to acquire four key cards from four upcoming ''Simpsons'' games. First, Homer and Marge defeat a two-headed dragon whose heads are those of Patty and Selma in the ''Neverquest'' game. Next, Homer and Bart travel to France during World War II to thwart Mr. Burns' plan to steal priceless French paintings, in the ''Medal of Homer'' game. Lisa and Homer then travel to ancient Japan to defeat the evil Mr. Dirt as Milhouse and his "Sparklemon" in the ''Big Super Happy Fun Fun Game''. Marge and Lisa then travel to ''Grand Theft Scratchy'', eliminating all offensive material and replacing it with more family-friendly material.

Once they have all four key cards, Bart and Homer infiltrate the creator's mansion. They are greeted by Matt Groening, who sends ''Futurama'' characters Bender and Dr. Zoidberg after them. The family manages to defeat them, however, and Groening admits that he is only creating new games for the money, and destroys the game engine. The Simpsons, along with several other characters from the games, escape to Springfield, where the aliens are still attacking. Lisa uses her power to create a stairway to heaven in order for the family to ask God for help. Along the way they have to defeat deceased historical figures William Shakespeare and Benjamin Franklin, and several other "recycled" enemies that the family had killed during previous levels of the game. After God is defeated in a game of ''Dance Dance Revolution'', He reveals that the video game that they are in is a mini-game in another video game about Earth. He dropped the video game manual by accident, thus endowing the family with superpowers. Realizing His mistake, He promises to restore Springfield, let them keep their powers, and to improve the working conditions of all video game characters. He also gives Homer three wishes. Lisa asks if God ever wonders if He Himself is a character in a video game. As God nervously scoffs at this theory, it turns out that Ralph Wiggum is playing the entire game before he looks at the screen, wondering who is looking at him.

The Trollsvotin volcano in Iceland violently erupts and kills a USGS survey team. Volcanology professor Dr. Peter Shepherd takes four of his graduate students to study Grímsvötn, a dormant volcano. It also erupts suddenly, but the group is able to escape. While escaping by helicopter, Brianna witnesses Grímsvötn producing pyroclastic surges, an unusual amount of ash, and extremely runny lava. Meanwhile, Shepherd visits Dr. Oscar Vallian, a wheelchair-using volcanologist who recently quit working for the USGS. He explains his story about many dormant volcanoes, and he had formulated a theory known as Exodus, in which all of the Earth's volcanoes could erupt within a short period of time. Vallian leaves for Honshu, Japan, to be on the front lines when Mount Fuji erupts.

Shepherd travels to Washington, D.C., to explain the Exodus theory. Dr. William Kincaid, the head of the USGS, has a conflict of interest with O'Neil and Shepherd and is tasked to review their data. He promises the President's representative, Stephen Daugherty, to disprove the theory. Shepherd returns to his students to explain that the government will not act unless they get proof.

Natalie, a Park Ranger, arrives at work at Yellowstone National Park to be told that Old Faithful hasn't done anything for the last day. In Honshū, Vallian and his companion, Melanie, wait for Fuji's expected eruption. Shepherd plans with his students to go to South America to check out another volcano. That night, Shepherd calls his estranged wife. The next day, Fuji erupts, destroying much of the island of Honshu and triggering large tsunamis. Vallian calls Shepherd to bid farewell before a pyroclastic surge kills him and Melanie. Shepherd spends the night in a bar, mourning his friend. His student Brianna offers comfort and advice while listening to him explain how his marriage ended.

In the morning, news explains that Mount Kilimanjaro has erupted, so the group heads to Pasto, Colombia to do some investigating in a mine. The miners' leader halts the group with a gun, and Peter tells of the group's presence and asks what is going on. He then explains why the mine is closed, saying that some men were working earlier until liquid fire poured from the earth, causing havoc, killing some miners, and resulting in the mine's inactivity. Exploring the mine, they do not realize that they had unknowingly moved from the mine's shafts into attached lava tubes. Students Jacques and CJ take samples while Shepherd and Brianna head back. Sudden tremors result in Jacques and CJ falling. Magma falls from the ceiling as it collapses, and lava spills into the tunnel, killing Jacques, severely injuring CJ, and blocking the entrance to the mine. The others survive, but the magma, which has some iron from the Earth's core mixed in with it, has given CJ severe burns, which will require a skin graft.

The news reports that Mount Vesuvius and Mount Etna have erupted and destroyed most of Italy. Kai tells Dr. Shepherd that the samples from the mine were of the same composition as iron, which is why it looks similar to molten iron and why it moves at speeds normal lava cannot usually reach, and someone from the USGS had hacked into their server. Kincaid admits to hacking and stealing the data and plans to present the findings to Washington as his own. During his presentation to the President and Daugherty, Shepherd and his group interrupt and explain that they have additional evidence that Kincaid had not managed to steal. Dr. Shepherd explains to the President the full Exodus theory. Predicting that the Earth will head into another Ice Age within two weeks, Dr. Shepherd explains his solution that the Earth's pressure is controlled under the ocean rather than letting the Earth choose. He plans to use nuclear warheads at strategic points within oceanic faults.

After the meeting, Shepherd calls his ex-wife again and demands that she leaves Yellowstone National Park as Yellowstone is also becoming more volcanically active as the Old Faithful geyser has given previous signs earlier. Still, she doubts Peter's warning as she states Yellowstone has not had a violent eruption in years though a supervolcano can erupt at any time regardless of its condition. While he's on the phone, Daugherty calls to let him know that the President has approved their plan and they now have all of the resources of the CIA at their disposal to map the ocean and figure out the plan. With the coordinates set, Daugherty lets Shepherd know that he and one of the students will work hand in hand with the naval fleets from two of its flagships, the Hyperion and the Reprisal. Brianna is left at the USGS as the go-between.

Shepherd boards the Hyperion, in the Pacific Rim, by jumping from a helicopter and diving down to the sub. Kai boards the Reprisal in the Atlantic. Shepherd shows the Hyperion captain where the explosions must go in the middle of the Mariana Trench. In the morning, Natalie starts packing up her campground while another Ranger and some scientists examine Old Faithful. Kai contacts Brianna to confirm the coordinates for his sub, which will also be passed on to Russian and British submarines.

Meanwhile, the Hyperion gets bounced around by volcanic activity in the trench, which pummels them with debris. Natalie arrives at the next set of campgrounds, only to find an eruption already taking place, and she flees. The Hyperion suffers heavy damage but is able to reach its coordinates and launch the warheads. It fires its first round of torpedoes, but one goes off track and hits the trench wall. Two more are fired and hit successfully.

At the same time, the Reprisal has also fired its first four torpedoes. However, it takes heavy damage from the resulting debris. Shepherd loses contact with Kai while the Hyperion continues to strike its remaining targets. Natalie tries to flee Yellowstone as geysers start spewing molten magma, killing multiple park visitors. The President explains that the Earth, for the past few weeks, has been experiencing a series of violent volcanic eruptions and that a total of forty-four nuclear-tipped torpedoes are being fired to try and heal the Earth. As Shepherd prays for his wife, the lava flow at Yellowstone stops just before reaching Natalie and a large group of visitors. The Reprisal sinks, killing its crew and Kai. With the last of the torpedoes fired, the plan succeeds, and the Hyperion is able to stabilize. The volcanoes of the world return to normal. Shepherd turns down a position as head of the USGS and reconciles with his wife.

"During which part of our life did we miss the chance of our love?"

Nian Zhong meets Jia Qi, during his teens by accident and falls in love with her. Jia Qi, having the same feelings, plays a trick by putting one of her emerald necklaces into Nian Zhong's pocket. She believes that as long as she has the other pair of it and the other one kept with him, they will be forever in love as told by her father before he died. The only reason why Nian Zhong could not admit his feelings for her is because his best friend, Nie Kai liked her first. Soon after, his mother dies and he is forced to leave Hainan Island for Shanghai. Jia Qi is left heartbroken, assuming Nian Zhong never loved her.

Years have passed and fate, yet again brings them together. Nian Zhong and Jia Qi meet in the midst of the crowded streets of London. Both with bottled up feelings for each other, unable to confess to each other, one is hurt and the other is regret. Nian Zhong tries to reconcile with her, and soon confesses his love for her. Jia Qi unhesitatingly accepts his love, but their love does not last long. On the last day of their love Nian Zhong waited for Jia Qi all night, until the next day, and the following day but she never appeared again. Nian Zhong finds out that Jia Qi had died in a car accident afterwards.

Many years later, Nian Zhong returns to Hainan Island, he takes a position at a Hotel, and is now engage to be married to his fiancee Pei Yu (Yvonne Yao) that he brings with him to Hainan Island. But fates miserable tricks have yet again come into action, Nian Zhong meets Jia Qi again. She is now paralyze in a wheelchair and unable to walk. Jia Qi and her mother were both forced to leave London because of her mother's outstanding gambling debts on the day Nian Zhong had waited for her. Jia Qi refused to get on the plane and went to meet with Nian Zhong, on her way to see him the taxi she was riding in was involve in a traffic accident. Nian Zhong who still loves Jia Qi, breaks off his engagement to Pei Yu and runs back to Jia Qi. Jia Qi although reluctant she accepts him once again. Their parents and Pei Yu soon also learns to accept them. Right when everything is fine and they are about to be married, another tragedy strikes.

Jia Qi turns back to see the bustling scene in Hainan's airport once more, in her heart, she knows how much she loves Nian Zhong.

Nian Zhong walks along the shore and reminisce their past memories together, he takes out a necklace with an emerald on it from his pocket and smiles.

The film opens with a mother preparing a cake for her husband Big Ed’s birthday. In the adjacent room, son Ed attempts to clean his father’s hunting rifle but accidentally fires it. The bullet passes through the wall, striking and killing Ed’s mother. Upon returning home, Big Ed discovers his wife's body, causing him to suffer a break from reality, and his relationship with his son is permanently soured.

Years later, Ed, now in college, is asked by his father to close up the family's beachfront condominium at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, primarily used by the latter as something of a clubhouse for himself and his hunting partners. Ed's friends, Linda, Mike, Ralph, Sue, and Pam, eager for something to do over fall break, accompany him. Unbeknownst to the group, Big Ed is waiting for them in the basement of the condominium and plans to kill his son. Ed and his friends soon arrive.

Over the course of the night, Big Ed murders Ed's friends one by one, drowning Linda in the pool, cutting open Mike with a boat motor, decapitating a police officer, impaling Ralph with a flounder gig, and gutting Sue with a large fishing gaff, storing their bodies in the condominium's basement.

When Ed and Pam stumble upon the remains of Big Ed's victims, they notice him approaching and hide. Ed is ultimately found by his father, who stabs him in the leg but is unable to kill him. Pam intervenes, stabbing Big Ed. Big Ed attacks the two again, but Pam is able to start the car and use it to drive him into a concrete wall, cutting him in half.

As Big Ed lies dying, police arrive on the scene, and an officer has his leg cut off by Big Ed before he succumbs to his injuries. The movie ends with Ed and Pam at the hospital, seemingly recovering from their ordeal.

Nicky Singer (Ventimiglia) is a down on his luck Brooklyn native who has parlayed his Yale education into a job eking out a living as a professional poker player. Using his wits to navigate the seedy world of underground poker, Nicky must balance his own interest with those of his father (Young), a retiree whose own gambling debts have pushed him to the brink of eviction. In a struggle to keep his head above water, Nicky encounters a diverse group of wannabe mobsters, thugs, and other eccentric characters.

The film tells the story of a love triangle set in a stylised version of Sydney's criminal/boxing underworld in the 1920s. The story is about Iris' rise to the apex of a love/power triangle that includes her English con man, lover, McHeath, and Art an honest, young boxer. Within the flawed moral landscape each character struggles to establish their sovereignty.

Lincoln Fields, a rich Earthling from New York City living on Mars, is discussing the merits of the highly developed sense of sight and hearing that humans possess, which the Martians do not. Garth Jan, his Martian friend, counters with the merits of the senses that the Martians possess, and unintentionally lets slip that there is also one secret sense. Fields asks him to give it to him but Garth Jan refuses at that time. Six months later, using Martian social law in an unethical fashion, Fields forces him to let him feel this sense and Jan reluctantly agrees.

Fields is injected by a Martian physician with a hormone extract that will activate the sense in him, but only for five minutes, after which it will be unusable ever again. Jan's music teacher commences playing a musical composition on a Martian instrument, the ''portwem''.

After a few minutes, Fields starts to experience the wonders of the portwem, first with colours and sounds and odours all directly affecting the senses, which transition into a new, indescribable sense. He is devastated, as Jan knew he would be, when his time is up and he loses the ability to experience the secret sense.

After a night of drug use, Simon Dykes wakes up in a world where chimpanzees have evolved to be the dominant species with self-awareness, while humans are the equivalent of chimps in our world.

The story takes place almost completely outdoors on a large estate. A man in his twenties inhabits the area, going about his daily upkeep of the property. In the final sequence, the young man plays piano, looks in a mirror with an air of satisfaction and showers with his clothes on.

The novel uses the common nineteenth-century device of a "framing story" to set its narrative in context and augment its believability. The story proper was written supposedly by Deucalion, a warrior-priest of ancient Atlantis; the text having been partly destroyed inadvertently by one of its discoverers at the time of its finding, it is not entirely complete. Deucalion's account describes his heroic but ultimately doomed battle to save Atlantis from destruction by its avaricious and selfish empress, Phorenice.

In the near future, a maintenance vehicle is orbiting the Earth on a mission to repair nuclear-armed satellites. Suddenly, the crew experiences a mysterious, inexplicable power failure that cannot be accounted for. As the ship grows colder, they find themselves drifting toward the dark side of the Moon. An old NASA shuttle, the ''Discovery'', drifts toward them, although NASA has not been operating for 30 years.

Two of the crew members board the ship, hoping to salvage parts to repair their ship, but instead they find a dead body. The mission records of the crew's own ship indicate that the shuttle they have found disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle many years before. The area in space the shuttle is found in corresponds to the earthbound Bermuda Triangle.

As they attempt to solve this mystery, it quickly becomes apparent that a malevolent force has been waiting on the NASA shuttle, using the aforesaid dead body as its host. It now begins to stalk the crew members one at a time. As they fight the force, it becomes apparent they are facing the devil.

With time, air and power running out, the captain decides to make the ultimate sacrifice.

At the morning of a normal day of a Naples that begins to hear complex and not always positive effects of the economic boom, a stentorian voice (Nicola Rossi-Lemeni) which seems to come down from heaven announces that "At 18 begins the Last Judgement!". The announcement is repeated with increasing insistence, first treated with disdain and then more and more frightening. The plot is fragmented into a series of scenarios and stories intertwined: the preparation of the great ball of the Duke to whom all Naples is requested, the struggle to get dressed up in the poorest districts, bored rich you are courting, a husband who accidentally discovers his wife with her lover, a cynical imagine that ekes out a living selling children in America, a young man of good company made the subject of sneers from fierce populace, the unlikely defense of a lobbyist by a wordy lawyer (the by De Sica), and the impact of the increasingly mysterious voice shaking innovation of this human variety. Those who repent too late, he who gives himself to the mad joy, who flaunts a false indifference. Announced time, the city is impacted by a terrible flood (the mysterious voice that has already passed the stage of sanctions?) After which, with great solemnity, the Last Judgment begins and ends, however, as mysteriously as it is announced. The sun came out, people rushed to the ball of the Duke and soon everything is forgotten, the sound of an ironic "Lullaby", coined shortly before by a hypocritical and false slavery.

The film features several episodes in which actors Ugo Tognazzi and Vittorio Gassman are the greatest performers. The themes of the short stories are intended to offer a clear picture of the habits, vices, of cheating and taste typical of the majority of Italians in the Sixties. Obviously the characters and funny situations are written and staged in a way that touches the limits of satire and coarseness, however many of these issues are still recognized by the Italian company. The satire of the episodes affects people of both noble origins of poor people, both political and police officers who abuse their power and, last but not least the middle classes. To remember are the episodes as'' The Monster'' in which a man who has killed the whole family and has barricaded himself in the house was arrested by two policemen (Gassman and Tognazzi) and photographed with the present. However, although the man is a murderer, the two cops are real monsters of ugliness. Another episode to remember is ''Education'' in which the parent Ugo Tognazzi educates his son (Ricky Tognazzi) being a perfect cheat to appear more masculine and smart, to pay much less and not plunging into heavy or boring situation would certainly not born. He instructs his son in beating their classmates who do not want him to copy the tasks and lie age when he went to the fair to not pay the ticket. When the child grows, the first thing it will do is make amends for his teachings repaying his father with a pistol and with the theft of all his possessions.