From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== John Leeming is every sergeant's worst nightmare -- immune to discipline and punishment, and given to random acts of defiance, such as wearing his cap backwards on parade for no particular reason. Thus when a mission to fly a prototype spaceship behind enemy lines comes up, he is the ideal candidate to fly it. The ship is untested but should be able to outrun anything else in the galaxy. It carries no arms but is an ideal spy vessel for discovering the movements of the ships of the Lathians and their allies. Since the odds of returning alive are pretty slim, it is also an ideal way of dealing with Leeming. For his part, Leeming is ready to jump at any alternative to life in barracks and the stockade. He is equipped with a survival kit designed by a top bureaucratic committee, so it contains an exquisite miniature camera that is of no conceivable use if he needs to survive on an alien world, as well as the usual inedible food. For a while the mission goes well, and Leeming relieves some of the boredom by listening in on routine ship-to-ship messages. He overhears conversations in a language that sounds exactly like English, but used to make bizarre statements, such as "Mayor Snorkum shall lay the cake", "What for the cake will be laid by Snorkum ?", "I shall lambast my mother!". Leeming starts tossing in his own comments, resulting in an aggrieved response "Clam shack?" Later, the ship malfunctions and Leeming is forced to land on an alien world, which turns out to be inhabited by the speakers of quasi-English. They are a dour, reptilian race who make ideal prison guards. On being locked up, Leeming is told by the guard "We shall bend Murgatroyd's socks" to which he can only reply "Dashed decent of you". Leeming winds up in one half of a POW camp, of which the other half is inhabited by members of another allied race. Unfortunately they have never seen a human and so do not trust him. To find a way out, he learns the alien language and tries to get the other prisoners to trust him. He begins to cultivate an imaginary friend whom he calls Eustace. He convinces the guards that Eustace can go anywhere and spy for him, and also that every human has a Eustace who can do the same. In addition, Eustaces can wreak revenge on those who harm their partners. Events help him here, in that one guard he threatens with Eustace is shot for allowing a mass escape attempt of the other prisoners. Furthermore, Leeming alleges that the Lathians, the leaders of the enemy alliance, also have invisible companions called Willies, although these are far inferior to Eustaces. He tells the aliens to ask human prisoners on other planets two questions : "Do the Lathians have the Willies?" and "Are the Lathians nuts?", a "nut", according to Leeming, being someone with an invisible companion. Leeming's captors are convinced by the responses and fear that if they start accepting human prisoners, they will have thousands of invisible Eustaces running wild across their planet, spying and causing mayhem. They immediately release Leeming and smuggle him home, at the same time withdrawing from their alliances and convincing other races to do the same. The enemy alliance collapses and the Lathians have to make peace. On arriving home, Leeming's behaviour is, if anything, even more erratic and insubordinate than ever. It is not clear if this is due to his sense of elation at having beaten his captors, or to his having suffered a nervous breakdown from the stresses he has endured. The plot has obvious similarities to E. H. Jones's The Road to En-Dor – an account of that author's escape from the Yozgad prisoner of war camp in Turkey during World War I. ===== Stan and Ollie are suffering during the Great Depression and begging for food. A friendly old lady provides them with some sandwiches. Enjoying their meal they hear that the old lady will be thrown out of her house because she is robbed and cannot pay her mortgage. They don't know that the old lady is rehearsing a play. Stan and Ollie decide to repay the old lady by selling their car. During the auction a drunken man (Billy Gilbert) puts a wallet in Stan's pocket. Ollie accuses Stan of having robbed the old lady but when they return to the old lady's place they hear the truth. Stan takes revenge on Ollie. ===== Age of the Five is set in a universe overseen by a pantheon of five gods (the Circle) who are the only apparent survivors of the War of the Gods. Before this war, it is understood that hundreds of gods existed on Earth. The Five control the destiny of the northern half of the world through a priesthood known as the White (the Circle's five representatives in the human world, Ithania). In southern Ithania live opponents of the White, who claim to worship five different gods (known as the Five). Both factions vie for control over their opponents, and eventually engage in war. Auraya (protagonist) is chosen to be a White. Beginning with diplomatic missions, she later moves on to fighting in a major battle between the north and the south. She discovers she has innate powers far exceeding those of her peers; it later turns out that she is a potential new Wild (a group of immortal sorcerers who have been persecuted by the will of the gods). Later in the series the Wilds are discovered to be at the final stage before godhood, and they discover a way to kill the existing pantheon of gods. Throughout the series Auraya's attitude towards her gods changes from obedience to distrust to hatred, as she realizes their moral defects. In the end, the pantheon are trapped by the Wilds, whereupon one of the Gods commits suicide killing all the other gods too. The epilogue reveals that humanity spends the next fifty years warring in the power vacuum left by the gods until a new religion (with a single, all- powerful god, the Maker) is adopted by the Sennon emperor to keep the peace. ===== A group of gypsy caravans set up on the edge of a wood. They realise they are camped on the estate of Count Arnheim who will not tolerate their presence. The gypsies sing and dance to entertain themselves. Stanley Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the misfit pair of Gypsies in the group. When hen-pecked Oliver is out pickpocketing, fortune-telling or attending his zither lessons, his wife (Mae Busch) has an affair with Devilshoof (Antonio Moreno). A cruel nobleman, Count Arnheim (William P. Carleton), persecutes the Gypsies, who are forced to flee, but Mrs Hardy, in revenge for Devilshoof being lashed by the count's orders, kidnaps his daughter, Arline (Darla Hood), and Mrs. Hardy fools Hardy into thinking she is their daughter since he believes everything she tells him. She soon elopes with Devilshoof, and leaves Oliver and "Uncle" Stanley holding the toddler. Arline is too young to remember her old life. Twelve years later, the Gypsies return to Arnheim's estate. When grown-up Arline (Jacqueline Wells) accidentally trespasses in Arnheim's garden, she recognises the place and Arnheim's voice, but is arrested by a constable (Jimmy Finlayson) and sentenced to a lashing. Stan and Oliver try to save her, but Stan is too drunk and both are arrested. Just as Arline is stripped in order to be lashed, she is rescued in time by Arnheim, who recognises a medallion she wears and a family birthmark, and both try to rescue Stan and Oliver. It is too late though: Laurel and Hardy had already been worked over in the torture chamber: Hardy emerges stretched to a height of eight feet, while Stan has been crushed to only a few feet tall and the constable just stands yelling and moaning. ===== Six hundred years ago, a mighty treasure fleet set out to sail the oceans of the world. They reached every continent, discovered every land long before history's great explorers stole the credit for their feats. Now, in modern-day Los Angeles, seven men with nothing in common but their destinies are drawn together in the service of a mysterious young woman. An ancient prophecy must be fulfilled. Something terrible is reaching out across the centuries. There's a world to be saved... and the only hope for us all is a motley crew of so- called brothers and a power too terrifying to be used. ===== The land is under the cruel control of three evil demonic dragons, who descended on a kingdom to bring darkness and destruction. From the ruins emerged a barbarian hero, who seeks to slay the dragons and restore the kingdom to its former glory. ===== The film is about a spoiled rich kid, Ajay (Rajkumar Gupta), who is a problem child and is sent away to a boarding school by his uncle. The boarding school is run by Shekhar (Abhi Bhattacharya), who tries to instill good values in the students using unorthodox teaching methods. He gains the students' trust and educates them about the heritage of their country and encourages them to become model citizens. At the boarding school, Ajay continues his ways and gets into trouble all the time, including with Shekhar. Meanwhile, Ajay meets and befriends a crippled boy named Shakti (Ratan Kumar) whose character is the opposite of Ajay's: dutiful and obedient. Shakti tries very hard to help Ajay change his ways, but Ajay's stubborn nature gets in the way. Finally, one day, Ajay attempts to leave the school residence and Shakti finds out. Shakti tries to go after him and stop him, but his handicap slows him down and his earnestness to get Ajay back causes him to lose track of the heavy traffic on the road, causing him to be run over by a car and killed. This is a transformative moment for Ajay, who realizes that Shakti died because of his stubbornness. This moves him to change and become a better person. He goes on to excel in academics and sports. Meanwhile, Shekhar's method of teaching wins approval by the education board. He decides to leave the boarding school to spread his message elsewhere through his unorthodox but successful ways. ===== Caterina (Alice Teghil) is the 13-year-old only child of Giancarlo Iacovoni (Sergio Castellitto), an aspiring novelist and teacher of accounting at a country school in an area north of Rome that one character describes as "hillbilly country." In spite of his often lucid assessments of modern society, Iacovoni is a typically burned-out teacher whom his job (perhaps among other, undisclosed personal experiences) has imbued with bitterness and social resentment, with a sheer lack of perspective concerning human relations, and with an overbearing, holier-than-thou demeanor that is a major plot point throughout the movie. He relocates his daughter Caterina and his timid, long-suffering wife Agata (Margherita Buy) to his birthplace, Rome, after having finally secured a long-coveted teaching position. The family settles in Giancarlo's former district, where he reconnects with his neighbor and childhood friend, Fabietto (Silvio Vannucci). Once settled in the Italian capital, Caterina enrolls in a fast-track high school. She immediately finds herself pulled between two competing student cliques: a leftist bohemian contingent headed by Margherita Rossi-Chaillet and a right-leaning group headed by Daniela Germano. Both clique leaders come from socially prominent families. Margherita's mother is a noted intellectual and political writer. Daniela's father is a right-wing government minister (loosely inspired by real politician Gianfranco Fini) who married into a wealthy family. Margherita instantly adopts Caterina as her new best friend. The two girls attend rallies, visit graves of poets, and listen to Nick Cave records. Margherita kisses Caterina, but it's a bit ambiguous as to whether this is to imply sexuality or a pact between them, as she says, to never betray each other. Caterina eventually has a disagreement with Margherita due to being caught by her father drunk and having just gotten a tattoo from Margherita, and begins to gravitate toward Daniela's group. Daniela invites Caterina to join her at a wedding, where Caterina observes a group of neo- fascists pay homage to Daniela's father Manlio who, it is heavily implied, is a covert fascist himself. There is also a subtle hint at an intimate relationship between Daniela and her father's bodyguard. Meanwhile, Caterina's father is trying to capitalize on his daughter's connections. While Caterina is friends with Margherita, Giancarlo secretly gives Margherita a copy of his manuscript to pass along to her mother (with instructions not to tell Caterina), a highly placed editor. Once Caterina becomes friends with Daniela, Giancarlo pays a visit to Daniela's father's office to solicit favors, after having become enraged on a talk show and a laughing stock. He was fired due to hitting a student who was mocking his TV performance and lost his job, leading him to his visit with Signor Germano. After failing to get help from this source as well, he slowly becomes more and more despondent. Caterina then finds out that Daniela and her friends don't like her and "tried to make her civilised", a disappointment which is compounded by a failed romantic liaison with a wealthy boy from Daniela's clique whom his grandmother forbids from seeing Caterina again. She then lashes out at Daniela and runs away from home only then taking comfort with her neighbor, a young Australian about her age. He has been watching their family and describes them as a soap opera and that she is his favorite character. She then returns home but her family is still in misery. Her father, then, begins shouting about all that matters in the world is tightly knit groups. This is one of the first moments in the movie where Caterina's mother shows her stress and unhappiness by screaming and smashing plates on the floor. Caterina's father remains in his miserable life only working on his motorcycle until he fixes it. Once he does, his newfound optimism is cut short when he casually finds out that either his wife and Fabietto are having an affair or it is a mere question of time before they do—a fact all the more surprising to him since he had surmised Fabietto to be gay. Unaware that her husband is listening, Agata concedes to Fabietto that she wants to leave Giancarlo but is unable because she doesn't think he could make it on his own. Upon hearing this, Giancarlo then rides off on his motorcycle and is never heard of again; as phrased by Caterina, he "doesn't bother our family more, we like to think he's in a place that's making him happy". Caterina graduates middle school and is encouraged by Margherita to apply to the conservatory of music. Before leaving on holiday, her young Australian friend explains that he is going back to Australia because his parents are getting back together. She then tells him that, if they ever meet again, she would like to be his girlfriend. She abruptly kisses him; embarrassed she runs back to her mother's car wanting to speed off. The summer includes her playing with her second cousin on the beach, while spending time with her mother and Fabietto. The last shots are of Caterina singing in a performance at her conservatory of music. ===== "The Lion" will be landing. And at New York's JFK Airport, an elite American task force waits as the notorious Libyan terrorist prepares to defect to the West. Then, aboard Flight 175, something goes eerily, horribly wrong - a mere prelude to the terror that is to come. Ex-NYPD cop, now Task Force contract agent John Corey - together with his formidable and beautiful new partner, Kate Mayfield - will follow a trail of smoke and blood across the country. His quarry: a foe with the cunning of a lion and all the bloodlust of a man. To win a desperate game with no rules at all, Corey must invent a strategy that leaves room for no luck at all. ===== In 1997, NYPD detective John Corey is on the back porch of his uncle's waterfront home on the North Fork of Long Island recovering from three gunshot wounds while working in his town of Manhattan, NY. He enjoys the fact that the tourist season is just about over so that it's just him and the locals. He listens to music while sitting in a chair and using binoculars to spy on people in a distant boat who are enjoying themselves. The local police chief, Sylvester Maxwell, comes to the back porch and asks Corey to act as consultant in a local murder investigation, as Corey is personally acquainted with the two victims, Tom and Judy Gordon, both employees on the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a facility suspected of carrying out biological warfare research. They go to the house the victims owned, a waterfront property that appears to have been robbed or searched, and where the two victims have been shot in the head on their own dock. Corey concludes that the victims were near their killer because it is hard to hit a person in the head with one shot at such a range. They cannot find the bullet shells, but by the direction of the wounds conclude that the bullets are in the bay. Max is unhappy because although he's not a homicide detective, his expectations of Corey's findings were high. Beth Penrose, the Suffolk County police dete, arrives. Corey instantly figures out she's in charge of the case without her stating it. She yells at him a bit for being on the crime scene because he appears to be a civilian. He ignores Beth and searches the speed boat that the Gordons temporary docked. When he gets out of the boat she pulls his own gun on him and makes him state who he is. Just before he goes, he asks if they found the chest in the boat that the Gordons used as a trunk while boating; they reply that it's missing. Corey goes to the local bar and orders junk food. He is watching the game as Beth comes in. She invites him to come back to the Gordon house with her to see the government agents involved. They return to the crime scene and go into the kitchen, where they meet George Foster, an FBI agent, and Ted Nash, who claims to represent the Department of Agriculture but whom Corey immediately recognises as a CIA agent due to being at a crime scene at the late hour. They discuss theories of the deaths, such as the Gordons trading the deadly diseases to which they have access for money and using the boat chest as a container for the items. The TV shows news coverage of the murder and exaggerates the importance of the Gordons' work. Corey silently dislikes how the reporter exaggerates it because there is no public evidence of the work connecting them to biological warfare or theft. Corey is jealous of Beth liking Ted Nash. The two clash over who is the alpha male of the room. Beth, Corey, and Max are able to make Ted cave in to letting them go on Plum Island the next day. Corey then goes through the Gordons' book shelves and pulls out a map of the local boating water. He notices a mysterious code written on one of the pages. The next day he arrives early at the ferry station and sees George and Ted with the security director and other people in suits coming off the ferry, confirming his thoughts of a cover up. They do not see him and he gets on the ferry to Plum Island with the rest of the group from the previous night with Paul Stevens, the security director, who pretends he doesn't know Foster or Nash. They are brought to the island and given a bus tour. The group then walk through the long hallways with the head of the research center who has some humor, but seems to be scripted. The group meets a few scientists who are friends of Tom and Judy who were directing a project. The scientists also act like they are on a script and give cover up theories that suggest that the Gordons were underpaid government workers who stole a vaccine so they could "discover" it elsewhere and become rich and famous. Ultimately, the killer is proven to be Frederick Tobin, owner of a local winery, whose motive was financial. ===== Lamas plays "Soldier" Jack Kelly, a police officer who served in the Marine Special Forces "Snake Eater" team in Vietnam. Kelly uses the talents that he learned in the Snake Eaters to hunt down the criminals who killed his parents and kidnapped his sister. The criminals covered their crime, using a bear costume "The Bear". This fooled authorities for their various murders and arson. They also attempted to rape women over the course of many days of captivity, but always failed. ===== Mike Brennan, a tough, crude, decorated NYCPD detective lieutenant, has a dark side and a partnership with certain organized crime figures. Brennan shoots dead a small-time Puerto Rican criminal and then threatens witnesses to testify that he acted in self-defense. The Head of the District Attorney's Homicide Bureau, Kevin Quinn, assigns the case to Deputy District Attorney Aloysius "Al" Francis Reilly, a young lawyer and past police officer and the son of an NYCPD cop killed in the line of duty. Reilly collects a deposition from Brennan, who claims to have been acting on an informant's tip and acted in self-defense. Reilly's information leads him to "Bobby Tex", a Puerto Rican crime boss called Texador, whose wife Nancy Bosch is an ex of Reilly. She ended their relationship years ago after interpreting Al's surprise when she introduced him to her black father as racism. Al tries to rekindle their romance, but she rejects him because with Bobby she feels loved, protected and accepted for who and what she is. Al, along with detectives Sam "Chappie" Chapman and Luis Valentin, has doubts about the shooting, knowing the environment of the Puerto Rican underworld. Investigations reveal a link between Quinn and Brennan while Brennan seeks out Roger "the Dodger" Montalvo, the only witness who can disprove his testimony. Brennan tries threatening Valentin and offering to bribe Chappie for help in finding and silencing Montalvo. Meanwhile, Bobby Tex is "invited" by the Mafia to step aside as a drug dealer, as Brennan's support remains useful to them. Bobby, in turn, begins looking for Montalvo as leverage against Brennan. He also begins shutting down his business to retire with Nancy in Puerto Rico. Bobby finds Montalvo before Brennan does and they leave for Puerto Rico where Bobby owns a mansion and a yacht. Al is summoned to share relevant information. Al, after informing Chief Deputy District Attorney Bloomenfeld, goes to the island, where it is revealed that Quinn (nicknamed "Skinny") was once part of Bobby's street gang, and shot a rival gang member. Brennan appears to be hunting down the gang's former members on Quinn's orders to erase Quinn's past, to fulfill his ambitions to run for NY State Attorney General. Brennan has no choice because Quinn holds an abuse of authority charge over him from his early years on the force. The Mafia intends to close accounts with both Bobby and Brennan, whose position is increasingly untenable. They fail in attempting to kill Bobby, who has announced his retirement. Meanwhile, Brennan finds Montalvo's lover, the transgender José Malpica and, using a voice message from Roger that he is "on a boat chalked the 'Nancy' in Puerto Rico, kills Malpica after listening to a message from Montalvo on his answering machine that reveals his location. Brennan finds Montalvo and strangles him. He then slices the boat's fuel line and waits for Bobby to arrive. A phone call made by Al saves Nancy, but Bobby is killed in the explosion. Al procures an arrest warrant for Brennan but fails to catch him at the airport. He returns to the DA's office to find Brennan waiting. Brennan reveals the truth about Al's father; that he was a bagman and bigot, who was part of a "line" to keep minorities down, and shoots Chappie when he tries to intervene. Brennan is then shot dead by another officer. Al is summoned by Quinn, who informs him that he is aware of his activities, but the Department is going to hush up the incident to avoid embarrassment given the upcoming mayoral election. When Al threatens to go to the papers, Bloomenfeld tells him that he has ways of preventing that and reminds Al that sources in the mayor's office could leak evidence of misconduct on the part of his late father, which would deny his mother her widow's service pension. Feeling betrayed and disillusioned, Al trashes his office and resigns. He searches for Nancy, hoping she will return to him but when he finds her, she meets his marriage proposal with silence as she is mourning Bobby's death. ===== Emma the King has lost his senses, causing him to lose order of his Underworld domain – enabling evil entities to roam freely. The player controls Bonze Kackremboh, a Buddhist priest who is son of the Divine Dragon. Kackremboh must now go on a journey to find and confront Emma. In order to find Emma, Bonze must survive against hordes of yokai, such as snakes, giant eyeballs, ghosts, kitsune, spiders, entities appearing to be hitodama/will-o'-the-wisp, as well as other evils. ===== On his son Georgie's 17th birthday, Andy LaMain is beaten with a cane by Al Judge, a crippled newspaperman. He does not fight back, confusing Georgie, who also wonders why his widower Dad's girlfriend Frances did not come to the birthday party. Georgie gets a gun and goes looking for Judge, first in a boxing arena where he is introduced to a Dr. Cooper. They go to a jazz club and soon Georgie gets to know Cooper's girlfriend, Julie, and sister, Marion, who kisses him but hides his gun. Finally finding Judge, he holds him at gunpoint and demands to know where Frances has gone. Judge explains that Frances was his sister and committed suicide because Georgie's father refused to marry her. A struggle for the gun ensues and Judge is shot. The police come to arrest Andy, believing him to be the shooter until Georgie confesses. The police reveal that Judge was not shot but only suffered powder burns. Andy reveals to his son that he didn't wed Frances because he was still married to Georgie's mother. She is not dead after all, but ran off with another man. ===== ===== Kyle Kingsbury is rich, handsome, and popular; he is also selfish, shallow, and cruel. He plays a mean practical joke on an outcast girl in his class. The girl is really a witch named Kendra in disguise. The witch then curses him for his cruelty. He is turned into a beast; however, because he performed a small act of kindness shortly before his transformation when he gave an unwanted rose corsage to a girl working a ticket booth, she gives him two years to break the spell, or remain a beast forever. The only way he can turn back to normal is if he truly loves a girl and gets her to love him in return, proving the love with a kiss. Kendra later offers Kyle further aid by giving him a magic mirror that shows him whomever he wishes to see. He is locked in a mansion-like apartment by his equally shallow, image-obsessed father. His only company is his housekeeper, Magda, and, at his request, a blind tutor named Will. Kyle finds solace in a greenhouse for roses that he tends himself. After a year of being in this state, and trying and failing to find love, Kyle changes his name to Adrian, meaning "the dark one", to reflect his feelings of being a completely different person from the conceited, materialistic boy he used to be. When a robber stumbles into his garden Adrian offers him a deal; he will not report the robber to the police if the robber brings Adrian his daughter, Linda. She is Adrian's last chance to break the spell before his two years are up. Adrian realizes that Linda is the same girl to whom he gave the rose corsage. He fixes up a room for her, leaving roses and books for her to amuse herself with. When she arrives, she at first wants nothing to do with him as she feels he kidnapped her. As time passes, she slowly warms up to him and he finds himself falling in love with her. The two begin to have tutoring sessions together and during winter they go to a lodge. Shortly before the last year is up, Linda wishes to see her father once more. Adrian lets her see him with the magic mirror and she finds that he has become sick through drug use. Adrian quickly lets her go to him and offers for her to return to the apartment in the spring if she desires, this time as a friend and not a prisoner. On the last day of the second year, Adrian looks for Linda in the mirror and sees her being dragged into a building by a man. He rushes to her rescue and is shot in the process. As he lies dying, he asks Linda for a kiss. She kisses him, breaking the spell and turns him back to normal. He explains everything to Linda and the two go back and live in the apartment together. Adrian had also made a deal with Kendra, because of which, Will regains his sight and Magda is allowed to return to her family. Kendra reveals that she was Magda, punished to remain a servant forever because of her careless spell but she can now return home as well. ===== The game begins on a beach beauty pageant runway. Wearing swimsuits, Natalie and Alex must each individually fight their way from the beach through the community and warehouses to the docks. Joined there by Dylan, the three continue to each fight their way through a series of further locations. ===== The Hour of the Pig is set in 15th-century France and is based upon the career and case files of Bartholomew Chassenee, an actual lawyer of the time who served as an advocate for animals who were accused of crimes.Marston, David W.; "Entertaining stories fill docket in court lore" Baltimore Sun, 4 September 2005 At the time, animal trials were used to determine if animals were the perpetrators of supernatural mayhem.Kadri, Sadakat; "The Trial: A History from Socrates to O.J. Simpson" HarperCollins, 3 July 2006 () Animals were subject to the same civil laws and penalties as human beings under French law, 1403–1596. Richard Courtois (Firth) and his clerk Mathieu (Carter) have left the decadence of Paris in order to practise law in what they believe to be a quiet rural village, Abbeville, in the province of Ponthieu, then part of Burgundy rather than France. Courtois quickly becomes involved in a number of back-logged cases. For his first case, he defends a farmer who is accused of killing his wife's lover. Courtois gets him acquitted (the farmer mutters, "I should have done him years ago" as he leaves and offers to help Courtois any time). In his next case, Courtois fails to save Jeannine, a woman accused of witchcraft. He asks for rats to be called as witnesses to testify that she did not bribe them to infect her neighbor; when the rats do not appear the following day as summoned, this charge is struck off. However, Courtois is unfamiliar with the difference between the Roman law of France and the Ponthieu customary law, and she is sentenced to be hanged anyway. As she is led away she tells Courtois, "There is darkness all about you, you can bring the light. Look to the boy, maître. Look to the boy." At her execution, Jeannine says she will not curse the town but blesses it, saying a fine knight will arrive and deliver them from their lying and evil. Courtois takes on a case defending a pig that is accused of killing a young Jewish boy. The pig, however, belongs to a band of Moors (alternatively/first thought to be Gypsies, being referred to as coming from "Little Egypt") passing through town. Two of the Moors, Mahmoud (Sami Bouajila) and his sister Samira (Annabi), appeal to Courtois to save the pig, as it is their only source of food for the coming winter. Courtois declines. Samira later enters Courtois's room at night and quietly strips naked, offering her body in return for his services, but he refuses this. The next day he offers her enough money to purchase two pigs, but she does not accept this. As Courtois delves deeper into the case and becomes more involved with Samira, he discovers that there is more at work than a simple murder. His work is brought to the attention of Seigneur Jehan d'Auferre (Williamson), who has his own designs on Courtois. Soon, Courtois finds that he is being used as a pawn in a complicated game of sociopolitical intrigue that extends beyond mere racism and corruption. The Seigneur subtly offers to bribe Courtois, also hinting that his daughter Filette is available in marriage. The Seigneur's son and daughter are eccentric to the point of insanity. The son's main hobby seems to be torturing birds. Courtois's relationship with Samira becomes common knowledge. The Seigneur decides to sit in at court and uses this knowledge to threaten Courtois into letting the pig be executed. Just as the case seems to be over, the Advent festival begins and the case is adjourned. The prosecutor Pincheon (Pleasence) tells Courtois that he moved from Paris to Ponthieu as Courtois did, in order to shine in a village in a way he could not in Paris. He urges Courtois to go back to Paris and not waste his life among ignorant, superstitious peasants. The skeleton of another Jewish boy who went missing over a year ago is found while Courtois's house is being built. Courtois now suspects a human serial killer is at large and the pig has been framed. On Christmas Day, Samira performs for a gathering of notables at the Seigneur's chateau. She is almost arrested for drawing a knife on the Seigneur's son after he pours wine down her blouse. Courtois boldly leads her away. That night, he rescues a boy from a masked horseman wielding an axe. Courtois confronts the Seigneur, telling him his son is the killer. The Seigneur does not deny it and reveals that his son has left for England to be treated. At the trial, the pig is acquitted when Valliere, the farmer Courtois saved in his first case at Abbeville, brings in a replica pig which he claims absconded at the time of the killing. As Courtois leaves, he sees a knight arriving just as Jeannine had foretold. After he has left, the knight takes off his armor to reveal that he bears the characteristic buboes of the Black Death. ===== The game follows the same plot as the 2005 film of the same name. The game also features the original actors reprising their roles in the game, except for Joan Cusack (Abby) and Don Knotts (Mayor Turkey Lurkey) (who are both replaced by Pamela Adlon and Jeff Bennett respectively). ===== The film starts with the loading of a ship called the Merry Maiden. Oliver is first mate on the ship and described as "a bully, the nastiest crew member, after the captain of course". He features a beard and a mustache, rather than his usual solitary mustache. Stan plays Willie Brisling a guy who is engaged to Nelly and they are in love. The captain leaves his ship, he sees Nelly and decides he wants her. Stan has a tattoo of a ship on his chest and shows it to the captain. The captain pours a jug of water down Stan's sweater and abducts Nelly. The captain takes Nelly to his ship and Stan sneaks on board to rescue her. Oliver starts to look for Stan. Stan decides to save Nelly his last hope is to get rid of the crew, one by one. Stan disguises himself as a loose woman. The crew begin to fall for his charms. Stan calls one of the crewmen over, he hits the crewman with a cosh and knocks him out. Then he throws the cosh at Oliver, who thinks the crewman threw the cosh. Oliver throws the crewman overboard, this is repeated until all of the crew are in the sea. Nelly is being harassed by the captain. The captain's wife appears at the ship. The Captain takes a fancy to Stan. The wife appears as Stan is sat in the captain's lap. The captain's wife takes a gun and goes to shoot her husband. Stan stops her and takes off his wig. Stan says "this was a test to see if you really love your husband". The captain and wife begin to make up. But then the captain indicates he's going to "deal with Stan later". Stan is peeved, he opens the door and Nelly appears. Stan indicates the captain has been up to no good with Nelly and that four other loose women have already gone. The captain's wife is furious, Stan gives her the gun back. Stan and Nelly leave. There is a gunshot in the room. The wife, still angry, sees Stan and Nelly through a porthole and shoots them. Stan and Nelly's clothes fall off revealing their underwear. ===== Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) is a well-respected designer of film special effects. He uses his expertise to design high-end robotic toys, such as a robot clown controlled by a telemetry suit and named Bluey, or to create fun effects such as safely setting his finger aflame with a gel covering. When his girlfriend’s ex-husband, Mike Brandon, is assigned to stakeout a killer who had murdered a model but served a reduced sentence, he asks Rollie to create a trap to put the murderer back in prison. The trap involves using a supermodel getting ready to have a shower in the apartment across the street from the murderer, and once he’s shown to the team watching him that he’s about to take violent action, the supermodel is switched out the apartment’s back door and Mike takes her place to arrest the murderer. Rollie set-up small cameras in the apartment as well so that he could watch from his van in the street. As the murderer enters the apartment, another man appears behind Mike and kills him. Rollie sees this and rushes towards the apartment, passing Mike’s killer in the stairwell before recognizing him. Meanwhile, Mike’s boss (Ray Silak) enters the apartment with the team and shoots the model murderer. Rollie tells Silak that the killer got away but Silak wonders why he would think that there was a third person in the apartment. Rollie is suspicious and secretly collects his hidden cameras but must leave one behind. Rollie immediately calls Leo McCarthy, a cop he had worked with before, and leaves a message to say that he’s in trouble and needs help. The next day, Rollie, his girlfriend Kim and her son Chris go to Mike’s house to collect some personal items. The house is being thoroughly searched by cops. They are even searching through the files on floppy disks, including Chris’s game disk which is snatched away by Kim. Silak is there. He gives Rollie back the camera from the crime scene, asking why the apartment was being filmed. He now knows that Rollie saw Mike’s killer and plants the idea that it may have been a cop. He asks Rollie if Mike mentioned any old cases he was working on. As soon as they leave Silak, Rollie suspects Mike was set up and drives Kim and Chris to her sister’s house to keep them safe. That night at their loft, Rollie looks through the camera’s footage. He sees Silak planting evidence to indicate that the model murderer also killed Mike. Rollie doesn’t notice the door bolts being unlocked as he searches the recording. Just as Rollie finds footage of the killer, the killer appears before him and demands the recording. Rollie is able to manoeuvre the killer to be in range of Bluey and uses the telemetry suit to control the robot’s actions while it fights the intruder. The killer overcomes the robot and the fight leads to the fire escape, with Leo showing up to save the day in the nick of time. At Leo’s closed bar, he listens to the story from Rollie and deduces that Silak is interested in an old, unsolved case that Mike was working on in his spare time. The next day, he asks his old police contact Velez if she would discreetly check into Mike’s cases. Meanwhile, Rollie sneaks into Silak’s office and taps his phone. Back at the bar, Leo and Rollie intercept a call from Silak to someone named Neely, an inmate who is given the details to say for his court appearance in exchange for information. The next day, Leo arrives in court to listen to the case that Neely is testifying for. His testimony makes the case. Leo meets with Neely’s lawyer after the court session, an old friend of his named Liz Kennedy. He warns her that Neely’s testimony was supplied to him. Leo visits Neely at the prison and sees him visiting the bedside of a dying old inmate. Although Neely refuses to speak with him, Leo finds out that the old man is Carl Becker. Back at the bar, Leo brings Rollie up to speed with Becker’s notoriety. The old inmate had stolen solid gold medallions that were cast by Michelangelo depicting the bronze figures in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He was arrested quite shortly after the theft but the coins were never recovered. This was the case that Mike had been working on. While this conversation is happening, the killer follows Kim as she leaves her workplace. Rollie remembers the floppy disk that had Chris’s games on it had a file named Becker. He calls Chris and learns that Kim went to work even though he had told her it was unsafe. Rollie leaves to find Kim while Leo arranges for Chris to send the file to Velez by modem, the nearest one being at the mall. At the mall, Chris is ready to send the file just as his mom arrives, followed closely by the killer who then threatens her. Chris begins the file transfer. Leo is waiting with Velez and watches as the file is received. One name that is new from the file is Samson. The mall closes just as Rollie arrives and barges his way in. He finds Kim and Chris being threatened by the killer. He manages to get them away from the killer and into the mall grocery store. Rollie uses the items he can find to create traps for the killer while they find a way out. All exits are blocked, so Rollie lures the killer to the meat packaging machine and incapacitates him. Leo takes Velez for a celebratory dinner at his favourite Chinese place - a street vendor in Chinatown. Just as they begin to eat, a single gunshot kills Velez before a drive-by shooting targets the street vendor. Meanwhile, Neely makes a last visit to a dying Becker, asking him to unburden his soul by sharing the location of the coins. Later, Leo drinks in the near dark of his bar as Rollie comes in. They update each other about Velez and the killer, who is just a hired thug. The thug did give up the information that Silak has a helicopter booked for that weekend. Leo visits Liz. His superficial wounds are looked after as her cat demands his attention. He tells Liz his plans regarding capturing Silak at the location where the chopper will be and insists that she be there in person, as it would help her career. Neely meets Silak and they are both followed by Rollie. They go to a cathedral so that Neely can retrieve the hidden coins. Cut to Rollie gathering special effects gear in the back of his van. That weekend, Neely and Silak enter a large, secluded house with the gold medallions. They are met by several guards, the buyer, and an authenticator. Meanwhile, Rollie sets off various effects to trap the guard dogs and take the guards out of commission one by one. Leo and Liz arrive and Leo gives her a gun just in case there’s trouble. As the authenticator examines the coins, Leo walks into the room with his gun drawn. He is soon unarmed by Liz herself and relegated to informing Neely and Silak about the buyer - he’s part of the mob. The coins are authenticated, a guard takes them out to the boat, and the chopper arrives. Leo asks questions of everyone about the situation and learns that the mob plans to return the coins to the Vatican. Suddenly, an explosion outside unnerves everyone. Leo presses Liz to give up her gun and he is shot as she panics. Neely takes her gun just as the guard, on fire, bursts into the room from the backyard. Neely and Silak grab the money and the coins from the guard and run to the chopper. Once there, Neely shoots Silak but the gun has blanks. Silak shoots Neely instead and boards the chopper. Liz turns her attention away from the chaos outside only to see Leo very much alive. The burned guard turns out to be Rollie covered in the firesafe gel. Rollie runs out to the boat while Leo makes his disappointment known to Liz. He had discovered her involvement in the scheme when he saw the name given to her cat - Samson. Her criminal involvement was confirmed when the backup she was to arrange for didn’t show up. Sirens are heard approaching. It’s the backup that Leo had called just in case they were needed. Liz is left to wait for them. Leo joins Rollie in the boat. In the chopper, Silak becomes worried when the helicopter changes direction and begins to fly haphazardly. He berates the pilot only to see that it’s a clown. Rollie, in the telemetry suit in the boat, has Bluey let go of the controls, which Silak quickly grabs. The clown robot reaches behind its seat for the case with the money then jumps from the plane. Rollie and Leo fish the robot and case from the water. Leo wonders how long it will take them to dry the money when Rollie produces the gold medallions that he had safely hidden. Leo informs him that the mob was going to return the coins to the Vatican so he shouldn’t have stolen them. A collection plate is being passed around a church service. It stops between two men and they drop a set of golden coins into it. Afterwards, Leo and Rollie leave the church and decide what they should have for lunch with their newly-dried money. As they walk and banter about food, the camera pans out to show that they are in Rome. During the credits Silak is still in the helicopter and thus ends the movie. ===== Hong Kong 1938 During the Second Sino- Japanese War, a shy, inexperienced university student, Wong Chia Chi, travels from Shanghai to Hong Kong and attends her first year at Lingnan University. A male student, Kuang Yu Min, invites her to join his patriotic drama club, and soon she becomes a lead actress, inspiring both her audience and her colleagues. Inspired by the troupe's patriotic plays, Kuang persuades the group to make a more concrete contribution to the war against Japan. He devises a plan to assassinate Mr. Yee, a special agent and recruiter of the puppet government of Wang Jingwei set up by the Japanese occupation in China. The beautiful Chia Chi is chosen to take on the undercover role of "Mrs. Mai", the elegant wife of a trading company owner. She manages to insert herself into the social circle of Mrs. Yee. Chia Chi catches the eye of Mr. Yee and tries to lure him to a location where he can be assassinated. Chia Chi is still a virgin, and she reluctantly consents to having sex with another student involved in the plot, in order to practice her role as a married woman if she were to sleep with Yee. Kuang, who has feelings for Chia Chi, is upset by this, but agrees to the arrangement. Attracted to Chia Chi, Yee nearly falls for the trap but withdraws at the last minute. Soon after, Mr. and Mrs. Yee suddenly move back to Shanghai, leaving the students with no further chance to complete their assassination plan. While they are preparing to disband, an armed subordinate of Yee turns up unannounced and tells them that he is aware of their plans. After a violent struggle, the university students kill the subordinate and then go into hiding. Shanghai 1942 Chinese spy Zheng Pingru, generally believed to have been the inspiration for the story Three years later in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, Chia Chi again encounters Kuang, who is now an undercover agent of the Kuomintang (KMT) secret service the Juntong, which is seeking to overthrow the Japanese occupation forces and their puppet government. He enlists her into a renewed assassination plan to kill Yee. By this time, Yee has become the head of the secret police department under the puppet government and is responsible for capturing and executing Chinese resistance agents who are working for the KMT. Chia Chi is trained to use weapons and other spy tools. Her advances to become Yee's mistress are apparently reciprocated, and during their first sexual encounter, Yee violently rapes Chia Chi. Over the next few weeks, their sexual relationship becomes more intense and causes conflicting feelings in Chia Chi, who is still involved in the assassination plot. When Chia Chi reports to her KMT superior officer, she exhorts him to carry out the assassination soon so that she will not have to continue her sexual liaisons with Yee, but she is told that the assassination needs to be delayed for strategic reasons. Chia Chi describes the inhuman emotional conflict she is in, sexually and emotionally bound to a man whom she is plotting to assassinate. When Yee sends Chia Chi to a jewelry store with a sealed envelope, she discovers that he has arranged for a large and extremely rare six-carat pink diamond for her, to be mounted in a ring. This provides the Chinese resistance with a chance to get at Yee when he is not accompanied by his bodyguards. Soon after, Chia Chi invites Yee to accompany her to collect the diamond ring. While entering the jewelry shop, she notices that all her friends involved in the assassination plot are undercover outside. When she puts on the ring, she is overcome by emotion and quietly urges him to leave. Understanding her meaning, Yee immediately flees the shop and escapes the assassination attempt. By the end of the day, most of the resistance group are captured. Yee's deputy was aware of the resistance cell, but did not inform Yee because he hoped to use the opportunity to catch their leader. Emotionally in turmoil, Yee signs their death warrants and the resistance group members, including Chia Chi, are led out to a quarry and executed. As all the members of the resistance group are forced to their knees while the executioners take out their pistols, a sad Kuang gazes at her. Meanwhile, Yee sits on Chia Chi's empty bed in the family guest room while his wife asks him what is going on, since his secretary and two men had taken Chia Chi's belongings and some papers from his office. Yee tells her to keep quiet and to continue playing downstairs, to avoid letting anyone know that something is amiss. If anyone asks, he says, Chia Chi has returned to Hong Kong. ===== The show revolves around Buddy, a beagle separated from his 10-year-old owner Jeffy in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Woof, a large bulldog (to whom Buddy refers as obsessed) who runs away from his owner. Both canines try to survive in the streets of Hollywood and avoid conflict with the Dog Catcher. The show lampoons celebrity stardom in various ways; for example, many of the characters based on real celebrities have other voice actors impersonating their voices (such as Steve-O from Jackass and Wildboyz, who appeared in the third episode). The animation for the show was produced at 6 Point Harness. ===== A young spy, Cammie Morgan, falls in love with a boy, Josh, but cannot reveal the truth about herself to him. This caused misunderstandings later on and they broke up in tears. In the end, Josh finds out about her being a spy, and all wrongs in the past had been corrected, and hope came back to Cammie. But just as soon as Josh learned the truth, Cammie's mom gave Josh some serious tea that made him forget the truth about Cammie. ===== Mr. Freedom (John Abbey) is a Washington D.C. police officer who moonlights as a government-sanctioned, vigilante superhero. After the 1968 Washington, D.C., riots, he is summoned to the Freedom Tower-- an office building housing the U.S.'s most powerful companies- to meet with Dr. Freedom (Donald Pleasence), his handler, who informs him that another superhero, Captain Formidable, has been killed in France by operatives of the mysterious French Anti-Freedom (FAF)A pun on the French slang term faf “fascist”. organization. Warning that this could be the first salvo in a Soviet invasion, Dr. Freedom dispatches Mr. Freedom to investigate his death and bring France back under the sway of western capitalist influences. As a last resort, Dr. Freedom equips him with "the big one," a portable nuclear device to destroy the country in the event that it falls to Communist influence. In France, Mr. Freedom joins forces with Captain Formidable's sidekick, the femme fatale Marie-Madeleine, to lead his own anti-communist Freedom organization; Marie-Madeleine explains that she and Captain Formidable ran a string of state-sponsored brothels, using the money they earned to finance anti-Communist activities while also gathering intelligence on the various diplomats and politicians who use their services. Arriving at a pro-USA rally, Mr. Freedom delivers an extended speech extolling the virtues of democracy and capitalism while also espousing white nationalist sympathies and warning of the encroaching influence of African Americans, Jews, Asians, and other "undesirables" on the national stage. Assembling an army from the attendees of the rally, he expresses his intention not only to secure France against Communist influence, but also build a "white wall of freedom" around the United States. Mr. Freedom travels to the U.S. embassy (a supermarket) to meet with the American ambassador to France, who warns him of the influence of a pair of foreign superheroes-- the Russian Stalinist Muzhik Man and Chinese Maoist Red China Man-- have been exerting in the country. Mr. Freedom meets with his French counterpart, Super French Man, who expresses sympathies with their Communist ideologies, prompting Mr. Freedom to kill his sidekicks. Later he meets in a metro tunnel with Muzhik Man and Red China Man (the latter a giant, talking Chinese Dragon) and the three discuss the virtues of their various political ideologies; Muzhik Man makes friendly overtures to Mr. Freedom and disavows responsibility for the death of Captain Formidable. After he accidentally knocks himself unconscious, Muzhik Man takes Mr. Freedom back to Communist Party headquarters to recuperate; after waking up, Mr. Freedom kills Muzhik Man's girlfriend, Marie-Rouge. Returning to Marie- Madeleine's apartment to have sex with her, Mr. Freedom suffers a crisis of conscience when her son calls him a fascist; he later realizes that his guilt is in fact coming from Red China Man, who is broadcasting subliminal messages to a radio receiver hidden in one of his teeth. After having the tooth removed, Mr. Freedom oversees the construction of a secret base from which his operatives can carry out anti-communist activities in France, and delivers a speech that works his followers into a violent frenzy, prompting them to begin looting, raping, and rioting. In response, the French begin holding anti-US demonstrations. Mr. Freedom opens fire into a crowd of peaceful protestors with a machine gun, to the horror of Marie-Madeleine, who subsequently reveals herself as an ally of Red Chinaman and a member of FAF. She further admits that she was the one who killed Captain Formidable. Mr. Freedom kills her, but FAF forces, demonstrators, and Mr. Muzhik's soliders- seeking revenge for Marie-Rouge's death- breach his compound and kill the rest of his followers. Resolving that France neither wants nor deserves American democracy, Mr. Freedom detonates "The Big One;" in a cutaway, Dr. Freedom admits that he really supplied Mr. Freedom with a "medium one;" the resultant explosion kills Mr. Freedom but leaves everyone else unharmed, and the French continue their anti-US rally. ===== Ellen Harrod appears to have a happy marriage to David, although his frequent work-related absences are beginning to take a toll on her. While taking night school classes with her neighbor and best friend, Marge Bracken, she is introduced to Larry Retzliff. Ellen and Marge accept a ride home from Retzliff the same night while David is away. Once Ellen is in her apartment, Retzliff arrives claiming car trouble and asks to use the phone. When Ellen lets him in, he overpowers and rapes her. Unable to reach David by phone, and emotionally unable to report the crime, Ellen decides to put the attack behind her, and tries through three showers to literally wash away the rape. When David returns, she is still unable to get his attention long enough to tell him about the attack. Having had an anonymous blood test, Ellen makes a serious effort to forget the attack and resume her life. This attempt comes to a crashing halt four days after the initial attack in a parking garage when Retzliff, who has been waiting for Ellen behind the front seat of her car, rapes her again, this time beating her viciously. After reporting the attack, the treatment that Ellen receives from the police, doctors, and detectives is anything but sympathetic. While the District Attorney, Leonard Alexander, appears to have her best interests at heart, he clearly has his reservations. Defending Retzliff is ruthless attorney Muriel Dyer who bullies and interrogates witnesses and Ellen herself on the stand in an attempt to get Retzliff off. Dyer's efforts succeed and Retzliff is found not guilty. Following the trial, attorney Alexander comments, "Never try a rape case unless your victim is a 90-year-old nun with at least four stab wounds." After this, Retzliff mockingly apologizes to Ellen, saying "no hard feelings", but Ellen calmly but coldly tells him, "If you ever come near me again, I'll kill you." A voiceover narration at the end of the movie reveals that shortly after the trial, Retzliff attempts to rape someone else. While trying to escape from the police, he is shot and wounded, and ends up pleading guilty to the rape and sentenced to prison. Ellen and David's marriage is strained by the events of the film, and the narration reveals that Ellen later files for divorce. ===== Penelope Elcott (Natalie Wood) is the wife of wealthy banker James Elcott (Ian Bannen). Penelope decides to disguise herself as an old woman and rob her husband's bank. While the police, including Lieutenant Horatio Bixbee (Peter Falk), rush to get to the bank, Penelope escapes in a red wig and yellow suit. She donates some of the stolen money to a Salvation Army worker and donates the suit to a second- hand thrift shop. Con artists Sabada (Lila Kedrova) and Ducky (Lou Jacobi) immediately recognize the suit as an original designer outfit from Paris, and purchase it for a mere $7. Penelope visits her psychiatrist Gregory (Dick Shawn) and tells him all about her criminal activities. She says it began in college when a professor (Jonathan Winters) lured her into his laboratory and attempted to rape her, but she escaped, leaving her dress ripped off in the process. During the chase, she stole the watch fob of the professor. She next stole on her wedding day. When she caught her maid of honor Mildred Halliday (Norma Crane) kissing James, she swiped Mildred's earrings and necklace. Gregory suggests she is stealing to attract attention from her distant husband. A young woman, Honeysuckle Rose, is accused of being the thief. Gregory wants to return the stolen money to the bank, but panics when he hears police cars arriving. Penelope confesses and tries to clear the innocent Honeysuckle, but Horatio the cop and husband James do not believe her. Ducky and Sabada pay a visit, trying to blackmail her, but Penelope foils their blackmail attempt. Penelope hosts a dinner party, having stolen from all the invited guests. She tries to return the stolen items, but all claim that they never have seen them before. Penelope, confused and frightened, runs away. She again robs James' bank, but unlike the previous time, she is crying. James begs Horatio to find her. Penelope goes to Horatio with the stolen money, but the cop knows James would not press charges against his own wife. The psychiatrist explains the dinner guests denied recognizing the stolen items because they would lose the fraudulently inflated insurance claims they collected. Gregory breaks down and begs Penelope to run away with him. She refuses, telling him she is cured. James realizes that he has neglected Penelope and starts seeing her face everywhere he turns. He goes to the psychiatrist's office, where James and Penelope happily reunite. ===== Eccentric Miss Pudd (Katharine Hepburn) is the owner of what she considers an antiques store but most would call a junkyard. She frequently refuses to part with her merchandise because of its sentimental or historical value. However, she does agree to lend some items to two boys, Alby (Kevin McKenzie) and Chris (Dennis Dimster), who befriend her. The boys explain that they are repairing an antique hot air balloon that belonged to Alby's grandfather, an adventurous stunt man named The Great Sandusky. In honor and memory of Alby's grandfather, who died one year earlier and is sorely missed by Alby, they plan to take the balloon aloft to celebrate the grandfather's birthday. The balloon is accidentally inflated and launched, with the two boys and their English sheepdog in the basket. Miss Pudd chases after them in her antique car and ends up riding the anchor dangling from the bottom of the basket. After she is pulled up, the balloon continues to drift and gets lost in a fog. That night, they drift finally to Los Angeles, where a police helicopter demands that they land. The balloon lands on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl, at an outdoor concert where the orchestra is playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Amidst fireworks, the audience thinks the balloon landing is part of the show and is enthralled as the ragamuffin crew disembarks and is sent home. ===== ===== Kerrick's tribe, which now includes the two male Yilanè who have elected to remain with him, live an almost idyllic life at a small lake. Until one day a raiding party from Alpèsak captures and rapes one of the males, who later dies. The tribe moves east and find a peaceful island. Later Herilak's tribe joins them. The scientist Ambalasi studies the primitive Yilanè, in between solving the problems involved in getting the Daughters of Life to work, since they are all regarded as equal, so none may lead the work force. Vaintè makes her way along the coast to a Yilanè city. She persuades the leader there to let her lead a group in search of the Daughters of Life, secretly planning to seek out and kill Kerrick and the other humans. The weapons the humans stole from the Yilanè begin to die. Without them, they won't be able to kill the larger dinosaurs which threaten their safety this far south. However, the expedition goes wrong and Lanefenuu, who is the leader of Alpèsak now learns their presence. Ambalasi contacts Lanefenuu to divert the attention while the Daughters of Life try to recruit new members and some males. This mission also fails. The expedition of Vaintè contacts Lanefenuu and learns the whereabouts of the Daughters of Life. They capture Ambalasi as ordered, but then Vaintè turns on her leader and takes Enge hostage. She finds Kerrick, but before killing him, the surviving Yilanè male kills her. ===== During the Vietnam War, two Special Forces soldiers attempt to avoid combat duty. ===== The book details the six-week journey West made, with her husband, to Yugoslavia in 1937. During the trip West and her husband travelled to Croatia, Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Old Serbia, and Montenegro. ===== Two years ago, six school friends – Ta, Kim, Por, Tair, Noot, and Ko – were faced with a grudge. Ta's mother died when he was young, and his father remarried Ta's teacher, Miss Panor. Kim was his girlfriend (but is now dating Por). The boyish Tair and stylish Noot might be lovers (though this is never made clear), and Ko is their fun-loving friend. During their last year at school, Miss Panor seduces Por (though this is not known to his friends). Por subsequently discovers he's not the only one in her bed. In addition to being married to Ta's father, Miss Panor is also having an affair with the sports coach. Fuelled by jealousy, Por suggests filming Panor and the coach to 'prove her infidelity' to Ta's father. The friends, save for Kim, do so, and broadcast it to the entire school. The coach soon discovers it was them and holds the group at gunpoint while he sexually abuses them. Seeking revenge, the students approach a Shaman who agrees to curse the coach. A few days later, Por goes back to the shaman and asks him to curse Miss Panor, too. The coach dies in which numerous fish hooks appear from his body. Miss Panor, who is embarrassed at her sexual exploits being revealed, is found stabbing herself repeatedly in the legs. She subsequently becomes a recluse, returning home to her cottage on the river, away from the city. In the present, the six friends gather together after Ta's father commits suicide in order to head to the remote village and pay their respects to Miss Panor. Upon arrival at Panor's cottage on the river, Noot's cell phone rings; her uncle wants her to return because her father is in the hospital, so she makes her goodbyes and heads back to the city. Miss Panor is a polite hostess (if a little distant), and Ta's great-grandmother seems harmless enough, though he warns everyone that she is a bit senile. As the group stays at the cottage, Kim experiences some strange occurrences around it such as, the door moving on its own, a white figure appearing underwater, and seeing Ta's great-grandmother devouring a cat. Miss Panor retires to a secret hut in the jungle, where she has several corpses gathered round, all of them sitting at desks, like students. Each corpse has a photo attached to it, indicating which former student it represents. At dinner that night, as the friends eat the soup Panor has made for them, each student spits out something: Ko spits up a fingernail, Por spits up a piece of tongue with a piercing on it, Kim spits up an eye contact lens and Tair an eyeball. The group realizes that the meat, which is actually the dismembered body parts in the soup is, in fact, Noot. They search the cottage for Miss Panor. Kim finds a video camera with a tape that shows Miss Panor killing and cannibalizing the shaman who cursed her, and then rushing towards the camera with a tree branch raised and bringing it down on whomever is holding the camera. Tair begins to have hallucinations of corpses shambling around everywhere. The group flees the house and sees a light outside. They call to the boat for help, but it drives past them. The driver takes a fatal fall from the boat after seeing Miss Panor coming towards him from the other side, which sinks. Kim tumbles into the water and has a vision of Panor and Ta's father. In the vision, Panor is shown torturing Ta's father by ripping off his toenails, on the premise that if she hobbles him, he can't leave her. When Panor leaves the room, Ta's father shoots himself in the head. Kim relates this to the others, and they find the gun. In the same room, there are also some jars filled with pickled mangoes. In one of these jars, the group finds Ta's dead father. The group runs to the house's dusty old shrine to hide and pray. Tair has a laughing fit and is temporarily possessed by Miss Panor. Ko threatens Tair with the gun, but suddenly starts to writhe and flail as dozens of salamanders claw their way out of his body, killing him. The youths now decide to split up: Por and Ta go off into the jungle to find Panor, leaving Kim and Tair sitting outside the shrine, with Tair (now free of possession) still seeing visions of corpses. She panics and runs off, and Kim follows into the dense jungle. The boys hear Kim fall down. They run to find her, but are separated. Ta finds Kim and wrenches a piece of metal from her leg. Alone, Por has creepy visions of Panor. Ta leaves Kim to look for Por. Tair bursts from the jungle, cowering away from her visions. After seeing Kim as a walking corpse and in hysterics, Tair rips out her own eyes. Por finds Kim, who appears to him as Miss Panor, taunting him about their love affair. Firing the gun at Kim, but Ta rescues her just in time. Por runs off into the jungle and discovers Panor chanting in her secret hut. Por flees, but a vision of Panor appears, hamstrings him, and starts pulling out his teeth; Por crawls away and confesses that he had a love spell placed on Panor causing her to seduce him, became jealous when he found out she was also sleeping with the coach and took part in filming them and then placing a pain-inducing curse on Panor as punishment. Suddenly, his vision clears and he sees Kim and Ta. Kim is repulsed by Por's confession; she and Ta leave Por in the jungle. Miss Panor arrives, ties up Por, and takes him to her secret hut. She stabs him in the neck with a syringe full of a paralytic agent, then pours boiling water down his throat and slowly burns every inch of his skin with a blowtorch. In the jungle, Ta is carrying Kim on his back. She begs him to continue without her, but he refuses. The two of them come across a small shrine, on which is hanging Noot's bag. Her cell phone rings: it's her uncle, wondering where she is. In the secret jungle hut, Miss Panor is performing CPR on fatally burned Por in order to inflict more torture on him. Meanwhile, police officers converge outside the hut. As Miss Panor starts to use a power drill on Por's head, the officers break in and shoot her. Kim is rushed to a hospital. She recovers, and Ta comes to visit her. As they chat, the TV in Kim's room broadcasts a news show, which reports that the five students who visited Miss Panor are dead. Also discovered in the secret hut was Ta's charred corpse. In horror, Kim turns to see that Ta is actually a badly burned, walking corpse. He never went with them to visit Miss Panor; he was already dead by then. As he pets Kim's hand, Ta explains: the video of Panor eating the shaman was taken by Ta's father, who had threatened divorce after witnessing the tape of her and the coach. For this, Panor tortured him and he killed himself. Panor locked Ta's great-grandmother in a closet and left her to starve. It was Ta's great-grandmother who had told Panor that in order to break the spells placed on her she had to kill the shaman that was paid to perform them and eat his flesh. She also warned Panor that it could drive her insane (it does). It also becomes clear that the coach had also placed a love spell on Panor to instigate their affair just like Por did. Miss Panor was the victim of all these spells. Her attempt to free herself and seek revenge led her into insanity. She tortured Ta in all the ways that will be experienced by his friends. Ta's vengeful spirit had lured the group there so they could feel the pain that he went through. He only saved Kim from being killed because he still loves her. A flashback of their days in school returned. Kim and a classmate had a crush on Ta. Kim makes a bet with her classmate that if Ta doesn't court Kim within a week, she will "offer" Ta to her. Kim was then seen with the shaman who appeared earlier, who warns her, "Once you start, it will follow you till you die." She receives a clay doll and thanks the shaman. The film ends with Kim jumps out of the hospital window to her death, holding the clay doll. Ta's burnt form lies beside her declaring his love for her. ===== Rick Latimer (Jim Belushi) is a high-school teacher with a drinking problem. Spotting his ex-wife Kimberly (Sharon Thomas Cain) in a bar one night, Rick gets into a fight with the man she is with, culminating in his beating the hapless man's car with a baseball bat. The board of education finds that Rick's behavior is reflecting poorly on the school district's image. They unanimously decide to transfer him to another school, in another district: Brandel High, a crime-ridden and gang- dominated institution, where he is made the new principal. Initially, Rick is under the impression that this move is a promotion for him — but he soon comes to realize that it is actually a punishment, because he is viewed as being as lost, incorrigible, & hopeless as the students of “Brand X” (the nickname that everyone derisively uses to refer to the school). Believing he can repair his image by cleaning up the school, Rick attempts to have an assembly to declare his intentions: "No more." No more drugs, running in the hallways or being late to class. While he's giving his speech, Victor Duncan (Michael Wright), the leader of the main gang in the school, walks in, derides Rick in front of everyone, then walks out, which eventually results in a small riot, which earns Rick the enmity of not only the teachers but also school head of security Jake (Louis Gossett Jr.). Eventually, Rick manages to enforce his policy of getting rid of the drugs being dealt in the bathrooms and clearing out the hallways — but not always with success. Because the students are now forced to go to class, some of the more unruly students become increasingly disruptive, including White Zac (J.J. Cohen), who eventually attempts to rape one of the teachers, Ms. Orozco (Rae Dawn Chong), with whom Rick is beginning to form a close friendship. She is able to throw a chair out the window, alerting Rick, who was talking with Arturo (Jacob Vargas), who has a crush on Ms. Orozco. Rick rides his motorcycle into the school and chases down White Zac, who he leaves in a trash can after beating him unconscious. Victor, meanwhile, continues to assert his influence on the school, going so far as to brutally beat a former member of his gang and hang him by his ankles when the member warms to Rick and actually starts learning. After a confrontation in the lunch room, Victor threatens Rick, telling him that if he shows up the next day, he's going home in a body bag. Rick scoffs and walks away as Victor continues to threaten him. The next day, after classes have been dismissed, Victor and his crew show up and sneak into the school. Jake goes to chain the doors, and while attempting to call the cops, Rick discovers that Victor's crew has cut the phone lines. A game of cat and mouse ensues. Rick hides in the girls' shower room with a baseball bat, waiting for Victor. However, Victor and Jojo (Reggie Johnson) get the drop on him. While holding Rick at gunpoint, Victor gives Jojo the order to cut him. Jojo refuses, telling Victor that killing Rick would bring down the crew. Victor shoots him in the head, killing him, and is about to shoot Rick as well when Arturo intervenes, striking Victor with Rick's baseball bat. The distraction leads to a showdown in the school halls between Victor and Rick, with Victor seemingly having the upper hand until Rick overpowers him. Rick beats Victor, much to the shock of the rest of the school who witness the beating. Several students cheer Rick on, much to the chagrin of Victor's gang members. After a small fight breaks out Rick again declares, "No more!" Victor is taken away in a police car, and as a student derisively asks, "Hey man, who the hell do you think you are?", Rick responds "I'm the principal, man!" and rides away on his motorcycle. ===== Chris McCormick is a highly paid fashion model whose image serves as the driving force of the ad campaign for a popular brand of lipstick and can be seen in magazines and on billboards all around the world. Gordon Stuart, a part-time composer and full-time music teacher, eagerly accepts Chris's 13-year-old sister Kathy's invitation to come to a secluded beachside photo shoot, so Chris can listen to some of his music. He arrives at her apartment one day to visit her, but is interrupted by a phone call from her lover, Steve Edison. As Chris talks to Steve, Gordon begins to fume at the thought of Chris' obvious rejection. His hurt soon turns to anger, and he enters her room and smashes a picture of her brother Martin, a priest, before throwing himself on top of her. During Chris's struggle to fight him off, Gordon slams her head against one of her bedposts and screams at her to show him where she keeps the lipstick that her face sells to the public. When she tells him it is in her bathroom, he takes her in there and smears it across her face, then forces her to perform fellatio on him to leave the traces of the lipstick on his genitalia. Returning her to her bed, he ties her down with silk scarves, and sodomizes her to the accompaniment of his discordant compositions. Near the end of the ordeal, Kathy returns home from school and walks in on Chris and Gordon, and flees. He gets up and suggests Kathy join them and "have some fun," but instead cuts Chris free and leaves. Gordon is arrested, but as Chris learns from Carla Bondi, the prosecutor assigned to handle the case, Gordon's conviction is hardly a sure thing, and she asks her to testify against him. Gordon's attorney argues that the sex was consensual, and that its roughness was the result of Chris's own twisted desires. He also suggests that even if Gordon acted without her consent, she provoked him by appearing naked in front of him at the photo shoot where they first met, and by the inherent sensuality of the photographs from which she makes her living. Gordon is ultimately acquitted. Chris leaves her job modeling for the lipstick company, and plans to relocate to Colorado with Kathy after her last shoot. By a terrible coincidence, Kathy's old school is using the same building where Chris's shoot is to rehearse a new ballet being orchestrated by Gordon. As Chris poses in a red sequined gown, Kathy runs into Gordon, who, despite her protestations to the contrary, a part of her still believes is innocent. Gordon chases her through the abandoned building and rapes her. Kathy returns to the photo shoot and tells Chris what happened. Chris, in a frenzy runs outside to her car and grabs a Remington Slide-Action Rifle she had intended to take to Colorado with her. Chris spots Gordon driving his car in the parking lot, and shoots at it. Gordon is hit by a bullet. He tries running Chris over, but the car swerves and overturns on its side. As he climbs out of the car, Chris shoots him three times. As he convulses, Chris approaches his body and shoots him in the groin, and continues to shoot at his corpse, even after the rifle is empty. Later, Carla Bondi speaks to a jury, telling them that their acquittal of Gordon earlier resulted in Chris losing faith in the law. The jury ultimately finds Chris not guilty. ===== Conrad Tesdinic lives in Stallery, a small town in the English Alps, a mountain range present in Series Seven worlds where the British Isles are still connected to the European mainland. Conrad's father is dead; his sister Anthea has left home to go to university; and his mother, Franconia, is an eccentric feminist author whose books are sold exclusively in her brother's bookshop, where she and Conrad also live. In the mountains high above Stallery lies Stallery Mansion, known as a "possibilities mansion," and home to the Count and his family. Conrad's uncle tells him that someone up at Stallery Mansion is pulling the possibilities – that is, changing the details of the world. Judging from the affluence of Stallery, this person is making a great deal of money by doing so, perhaps by playing the stock market; but this is adversely affecting the rest of the world. At first only small details change – the colour of the postboxes, the titles of books – but the changes keep getting bigger and bigger. According to his uncle, Conrad is going to die within the year unless he kills the person pulling the possibilities—someone he should have eliminated in a past life. To kill this person, Conrad will need to secure a position at Stallery Mansion, and then summon a Walker, someone who will give Conrad what he needs to defeat his nameless foe. Conrad's uncle and his group of magician friends work a strange spell on a cork, giving Conrad, who has possession of it, the power to summon a Walker at will. Conrad needs to be sure who this person is before he summons the Walker, however, so instead of moving forward in school with his friends, he is sent to work at Stallery and study its inhabitants, one of which is the person Conrad needs to defeat. Conrad soon finds that he is not the only one snooping around the mansion. He befriends his fellow servant-in-training, Christopher "Smith" (really Christopher Chant), who is searching for his friend Millie. Together, they discover that she is trapped in one of the possibilities. Conrad and Christopher must stop the person behind all the mischief, rescue Millie, and fix Conrad's fate, all without spilling soup on the Countess although Conrad's bad Karma isn't helping along the way. ===== Max Donigan and Leo Porter are two "seasoned" treasure hunters whose adventures rarely result in any notable success. After their latest stint gone wrong, they are recruited by a seemingly-psychic woman, Patricia Goodwin, owner of a treasure map. She convinces them that the map leads to a huge stockpile of gold belonging to the "Firewalker." She then says that someone, or thing, else is searching for the map: a red cyclops. The map leads them to a cave on a local Native American Reservation. Patricia warns them that the cave is home to "old people, sleeping"; they later discover it is a mass grave filled with skeletons. They find a Spanish Conquistador helmet and mural depicting Aztec and Mayan art, with an anachronistic date of 1527. As Leo studies the mural, Max finds a ruby-pommeled dagger hidden inside a skull. They are ambushed inside the cave by a small group of men and Patricia is taken by one of them. After killing their attackers, Max and Leo confront the kidnapper; upon seeing the dagger, he screams and throws himself into a pit. While discussing the nature of the dagger at a local bar, Max, Leo and Patricia hear from the barkeep about El Coyote: a local that believes himself descended from the Aztecs —and also happens to be a one-eyed man with an eye patch. The barkeep also directs them to Tall Eagle, a local Native American. He tells them that the Firewalker was a powerful being that flew away to walk in the fires of the sun and gives Patricia a small bag of "magic" to protect her. While trying to figure out where to go next, Patricia stabs the dagger into a map, then faints, giving them a location of San Miguel. Max is later drugged by a woman; El Coyote chants while holding a snake as the woman attempts to murder Max. A chanting Tall Eagle causes Patricia to suddenly wake and rush to Max's defense; she and Leo stop the woman from succeeding. They capture her, but she disappears overnight and a snake appears in her cell. They travel to San Miguel and barter for information. A man named Boggs directs them to a contact in a village named Chajal; Boggs is later seen to have been working for, and is killed by, El Coyote. Dressed as priests and a nun to avoid detection, the trio make it to Chajal and find it completely deserted. Local militia chase them into the jungle on foot; they escape and make camp for the night. They are found in the morning by a friend of Max's: Corky Taylor, leader of a small group of Central American freedom fighters, who provides them with a vehicle to finish their journey. When they stop that night, Leo disappears; Patricia and Max believe him dead when they find blood and his glasses by the alligator-infested river. The next morning, Patricia and Max find the temple they have been searching for. Inside, they find Leo alive and dangling from a rope, along with El Coyote. He offers Leo in exchange for the dagger, claiming he has no use for the three of them. After suggesting that Patricia can go free, she leaves and is sealed in a passageway. El Coyote laughs and explains that he will kill them and sacrifice Patricia to appease the gods and become the Firewalker. Max throws the dagger at El Coyote to kill him, but he catches it and leaves the chamber. Max rescues Leo as El Coyote prepares to kill Patricia. They reach her just in time; Max shoots El Coyote in the chest, seemingly killing him. Patricia finds the gold by placing the dagger in a slot on the altar, opening a chamber below it. After gathering the gold, El Coyote attacks them. Patricia stabs him in the back with the dagger just as he prepares to kill Max. With El Coyote stunned, Max is able to fight back, kicking him onto the altar. Patricia then sprinkles the magic bag on El Coyote's body; he bursts into flame as they leave the temple with the gold and the trio reap the rewards of their successful journey. ===== A guide and a tourist are birdwatching in the shades of Camp Blackwood. They are suddenly attacked by a man wearing a boiler suit and clown mask with a machete. Two hunters come and discover the guide still alive. The clown then appears and murders all of them. The story then focuses on four campers, who are planning a trip to Camp Blackwood. On the way, they meet the madcap Bromley Thatcher. After a brief exchange that includes a warning from Thatcher - "I'm not talking about a ghost here boy, I'm talking about a man, a REAL man, and he's in those woods!" - the group head into Camp Blackwood, now known to the audience as 'Camp Blood'. In the woods, they meet their guide, a butch lesbian known as 'Harris'. After spending the day doing menial tasks such as collecting firewood and setting up camp, the group settle down into their respective tents to enjoy a session of late-night love making. The group awake in the morning to find the burnt-out carcass of Harris on the campfire (apparently murdered by the killer clown). The majority of the plot then revolves around the clown chasing the various characters through the woods and brutally murdering all of them but Tricia, who manages to run away from the clown. In attempting to escape the murderous clown, Tricia runs to her deceased boyfriend's automobile. At this point, she meets Thatcher, who attempts to aid the clown by hindering Tricia's escape. In the ensuing melee, Tricia hacks Thatcher to death with the clown's machete, and enters the car and runs over the clown, who is revealed to be Harris. Just as Tricia is driving away safely, the clown appears in the back seat and strangles Tricia into unconsciousness. When Tricia regains consciousness, she is in a mental asylum. After giving Tricia an injection, the 'doctors' depart from the room. It is at this point that Tricia hallucinates the clown entering the room. ===== Billy Jack is introduced as an enigmatic, half-Indian Vietnam veteran who shuns society, taking refuge in the peaceful solitude of the California Central Coast mountains. His troubles begin when he descends from this unspoiled setting and drives into a small beach town named Big Rock (Morro Bay). A minor traffic accident in which a motorist hits a motorcyclist results in a savage beating by members of the Born Losers Motorcycle Club. The horrified bystanders (including Laughlin's wife, Delores Taylor, and their two children in cameo roles) are too afraid to help or be involved in any way. Billy Jack jumps into the fray and rescues the man by himself. At this point the police arrive and arrest Billy for using a rifle to stop the fight. (The irony here is that, unknown to Billy, the motorist is the one who starts the fight by inexplicably insulting one of the bikers.) The police throw Billy in jail and the judge fines him heavily for discharging a rifle in public. He is treated with suspicion and hostility by the police. Meanwhile, the marauding bikers terrorize the town, rape four teenage girls (Jane Russell plays the mother of one of the girls), and threaten anyone slated to testify against them. One of the girls, played by Susan Foster, later recants, saying she willingly gave herself to the biker gang. (Foster would go on to play a larger supporting role in Billy Jack.) Co-scriptwriter Elizabeth James plays Vicky Barrington, a bikini-clad damsel-in-distress who is twice abducted and abused by the gang. The second time, she and Billy are kidnapped together. After Billy is brutally beaten, Vicky agrees to become the gang's sexually compliant "biker mama" if they release Billy. At the police station, Billy is unable to get help from the police or the local residents and must return to the gang's lair to rescue Vicky by himself. Billy, armed with a bolt-action rifle, captures the gang, shoots the leader (Jeremy Slate) between the eyes in cold blood, and forces some of the others to take Vicky, who's been badly beaten, to the hospital. As the police finally arrive, Billy abruptly rides away on one of the gang's motorcycles. The anti-authority sentiment continues up to the end when a police deputy accidentally shoots Billy in the back, mistaking him for a fleeing gang member. He is later found, nearly dead, lying by the shore of a lake. He is placed on a stretcher and is flown to the hospital in a helicopter as Vicky and the sheriff give him a salute. ===== Seattle cop Cliff Garret (Chuck Norris) is severely wounded in a drug bust gone bad—shot by his corrupt partner Ronny “Del” Delany (Michael Parks). Garret dies momentarily in the emergency room, but is revived with a defibrillator. His police supervisor has the hospital conceal his survival, and Garret is given a new identity. Garret becomes hit man Danny Grogan, and he infiltrates the organization of mob boss mafioso Marco Luganni (Al Waxman). The plan is for Grogan to bring together Luganni and his rival, French Canadian mafioso boss André LaCombe (Marcel Sabourin), so they can both be taken down together. After two years of working the plan, a gang of Iranian drug dealers looking to muscle in on everyone's territories suddenly enter the picture when they make a hit on one of Luganni's teams just as they finished making a hit on a team of LaCombe's money carriers. Grogan plays all parties against one another while befriending a fatherless boy named Tim Murphy (Salim Grant), who lives in the apartment down the hall and is being bullied by a racist white kid in the neighborhood. Tim's mother works three jobs, so he begins spending time with Grogan. Grogan teaches Tim how to fight after seeing him bullied on the street one day. When Tim stands up to the white kid, he gets the best of him, then watches as the white kid is dragged off by his father and beaten for losing the fight. Grogan walks across the street, punches the father in the nose through a screen door, so hard that it knocks the father to the ground, then Grogan walks away. Grogan’s past returns to haunt him in the person of Ronny Delany, who is secretly working with Luganni. Delany recognizes Grogan as Garret, and ties Tim to a chair loaded with explosives in a bid to force Grogan to cooperate. Delany sets off the chair bomb, but Grogan is unharmed and Tim survives. Grogan turns the tables on them all. At a meeting to set terms of an alliance, Delany has Luganni's men kill LaCombe and his men. Then the Iranians and Delany kill Luganni, but Grogan arrives on the scene and kills all of them. In the end, Grogan blows up Delany while tied to a chair hanging outside a window, in retribution for what he did to Tim. ===== Vietnam veteran and retired CSA agent William Lansing works on a wildlife refuge in Northern Alaska, and has been exchanging letters in a pen-pal relationship with Irena Morawska, a 13-year-old orphaned girl in Warsaw, Poland that he's helping out financially. When the letters suddenly stop coming, Lansing heads to Poland to figure out the reason. He discovers that the orphanage that Irena was staying in, which is financed by honest - and unsuspecting - good intentioned Samaritans, is a front for a human trafficking syndicate run by a notorious crime boss and freelance terrorist named Faisal. The operation is worth billions and all the girls are sold and traded to the highest bidders from all over the world. Through his letters to Irena, Lansing has taught Irena how to use secret codes, which she uses to keep him updated on where Faisal is taking her to. Lansing stays on Faisal's trail, teaming up with Polish police detective Kasia Lato to rescue Irena and the other girls, and bring down Faisal's human trafficking network. ===== Compared to Findley's other work, Spadework takes a lighter, more straightforward turn — which does not mean it is simple-minded. The complexity lies in the everyday drama of human relationships, enhanced by the intensity of the theater atmosphere and the ambition of young actors at a crossroads that may lead to a brilliant career or mediocre success. A cut telephone wire points to failed communication and sets off a series of events that irreversibly shape the lives of the principal characters. These events force the protagonists to re-examine their sexuality and their loyalties at the face of temptation. ===== A large, dimwitted baby duck wreaks havoc on those who he comes in contact with as his attempts to help and or play result in hilarious consequences. Huey is often unaware of the havoc he is causing, maintaining an innocence even as a hungry fox attempts - and fails - to eat him. ===== Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, mixed breeds, cultures and religions, though humans predominate. When desperate people have nowhere else to turn, they sometimes go to him for help. ===== Casper and his friend Hairy Scarey are in a house about to be demolished on Christmas Eve and go out to look for a new place to move to after Christmas in California. Then Yogi and his friends get lost and arrive at Casper and Hairy's house and clean and decorate it to celebrate Christmas. Then Casper befriends Yogi and company only for Hairy to try to ruin the party with Casper and his new friends. Then Hairy has a change of heart and celebrates Christmas with Casper and his new friends and ending with Santa Claus saving the house and turning it into Hairy's Haunting Lodge. ===== On Halloween night, Hairy Scarey, Winifred Witch and Screech Ghost are plotting their mean-spirited spookings. Casper refuses to join them and decides to go trick-or-treating dressed as a real boy, but neighborhood kids see through his disguise and run away in fear. Casper is heartbroken until he meets a special group of orphans who accept him for who he is, a ghost. But their fun is soon spoiled as Hairy Scarey and his ghostly crew interfere. Now it is up to Casper and his new friends to stop their ghastly games and save Halloween before it is too late. ===== Kibosh, the perfidious King of Ghosts, decrees that Casper must scare someone before Christmas Day or he will be banished to The Dark, together with his uncles for all eternity. To make sure this happens, he confiscates the Ghostly Trio's Scare licenses and flings them to the Christmas-influenced town Kriss, Massachusetts where they meet the Jollimore Family. When Casper's good behavior starts to act up, which includes befriending the daughter of the family, Holly, the Ghostly Trio call in Casper's lookalike cousin Spooky and his girlfriend Poil to do the job. ===== Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not. ===== Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not. ===== Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not. ===== Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not. ===== Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of Tun Faire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not. ===== Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not. ===== Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not. ===== Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not. ===== Garrett is a detective living in the city of TunFaire. When people have problems, they come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding him. Garrett is at home when Playmate visits, with a kid, Kip Prose. Kip has made friends with creatures that cannot quite be described, but because of his relationship with these creatures, other parties are trying to kidnap Kip. Despite his protests, Garrett gets drawn into the mess. While searching Playmate's stables for clues, Garrett and company are attacked by another group of indescribable assailants. Morley, Saucerhead, and Pular Singe wake Garrett and Playmate after the scuffle, but Kip Prose is gone. Playmate and Garrett talk to Kip's family, hoping to find clues to his whereabouts. Despite some leads, Playmate and Garrett are unable to locate Kip, although they do encounter an "elf" named Casey, who assures them Kip is in no immediate danger. When Playmate goes missing, Garrett and Pular Singe track him down, with the Roze triplets tagging along. Pular tracks the scent to Casey's apartment, where there are more mysterious elves. The trail eventually takes Garrett, Pular and the Rozes into the country outside TunFaire, where they find more of the elves, their spaceships, and an unconscious Playmate, Saucerhead Tharpe and Kip Prose. Garrett decides it is time to involve the Watch, who can hopefully clean up the mess. Meanwhile, a ratman named John Stretch, Pular Singe's brother, attempts to kidnap Pular for his own purposes. While Garrett and John Stretch come to an agreement, Colonel Block and Deal Relway try to manage the situation with the remaining elves. Garrett strikes a deal between Kip Prose, Max Weider, and Willard Tate, in which the involved parties agree to manufacture "Three Wheels", a revolutionary new method of transportation for the citizens of TunFaire. As a final twist, Casey escapes, thwarting the attempts of Garrett and the Watch to discover the true nature of the "silver elves". Though Relway is angry and suspicious of Garrett, Garrett is on top of the world, with his new stake in the Three Wheel business booming and the Goddamn Parrot missing in action. ===== On the first day of high school, freshmen Wade and Ryan witness two bullies, Filkins and Ronnie, attack a geek, Emmit, by stuffing him into his locker. Wade intervenes. Filkins and Ronnie begin endlessly targeting Wade, Ryan and Emmit. Emmit also befriends the duo, much to Ryan's dismay. Wade suggests hiring a bodyguard. They place an ad on the Internet, and after a series of disturbing interviews with ex-cons and hired guns, they end up selecting Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson). Drillbit pretends to be a martial arts expert and mercenary, but is really a homeless beggar. His real intention of becoming their bodyguard was to rob them and use the money to buy a ticket to Canada. Drillbit tells the boys to find some common interests and become friends with Filkins and Ronnie. Ryan challenges Filkins to a rap battle, but gets carried away and ends up humiliating Filkins. As an angry Filkins, alongside Ronnie, ambushes Wade, Ryan, and Emmit, the boys try using a tactic Drillbit taught them; it ultimately fails. The boys are furious with Drillbit's teachings. But they decide to bring him to school as a substitute teacher, and in that capacity he is able to protect them. While there, Drillbit meets a teacher, Lisa Zachey (Leslie Mann), and they start a sexual relationship. One morning as his mother is driving him to school, Ronnie sees Drillbit taking a shower at the beach; his mother reveals that he is homeless. Ronnie tells Filkins and Filkins finds the boys and punches Drillbit. Later on, at Wade's house, they catch Drillbit's homeless friends stealing everything in sight, leaving the house completely empty. Drillbit confesses that his real name is Bob and he went AWOL from the U.S. Army and his name was drillbit because he hurt his pinky in high school with a drillbit. The boys fire Drillbit, who later recovers all of Wade's possessions and places them back before Wade's parents return home. Unfortunately, the boys accidentally let slip about Drillbit. Their parents take things up with the principal, who contacts the police. Filkins plays innocent and charms all the adults; Filkins continues to ridicule the boys after Drillbit's disappearance. Tensions finally burst when Filkins interrupts Wade's attempt to ask his crush, Brooke Nguyen, out. Without realizing what he was doing, Wade challenges Filkins to a fight. After Ryan insults Emmit, he refuses to help them. Wade and Ryan arrive at Filkins' house, where he is hosting a party; initially the duo knock him down, but he soon overpowers them. Ronnie shows up to help Filkins against them. Emmit, who has a change of heart, comes to their aid and for a while causes quite a lot of pain to Filkins, and almost defeats him; but Ronnie knocks him out while he is trying to break Filkins' leg. Drillbit shows up and Filkins punches him. Drillbit refuses to fight back until it is revealed Filkins is not a minor (he's 18, therefore, he's not really emancipated). Upon learning this, Drillbit quickly begins fighting to defend the freshmen. He is about to attack Ronnie, but he is spared when he reveals he's only 17. Within minutes, the police arrive and Drillbit flees for fear of prosecution. Filkins then throws a samurai sword at the boys as retaliation, but Drillbit catches it. He saves them, at the cost of half of his pinkie finger in the process. Ronnie reveals to the police that Filkins had bullied him into being his accomplice when they interview him. Filkins is arrested and shipped off to Hong Kong to be with his parents as an alternative to being sent to prison for breaking several underage drinking laws. Wade, with renewed confidence, asks Brooke out and she accepts, while Ryan finally accepts Emmit, and declares him a friend. Drillbit is taken to jail, but ends up being released within three weeks. He is reunited with Lisa and the boys and is soon employed at their school as a nurse. A post-credits scene shows a student entering the nurse's office telling Drillbit he received bruises from being beaten up. Drillbit then tells him to give the name of the student, assuring he'll be safer from then on. ===== Garrett is a hardboiled detective living in the city of TunFaire, a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions, and species. When people have problems, they often come to Garrett for help, but trouble has a way of finding Garrett on its own, whether he likes it or not. ===== In a case of mistaken identity, a naive young columnist for The Daily Beast is sent to cover a war in Ishmaelia. A confused editor, Mr. Salter (Denholm Elliott), acting on the orders of his much feared 'boss', Lord Copper (Donald Pleasence), tells William Boot (Michael Maloney) to cover the ongoing war as the correspondent for the Beast. Boot normally writes about British country life, but is too timid, and worried about losing his job for good, to say otherwise when he is ordered overseas. Boot is soon up to his neck in intrigue. All the foreign journalists are confined to the capital of Ishmaelia, and they are not allowed to leave unless permission has been given by the Minister of Propaganda. The journalists stick together, drinking and trying to pass time, but they watch each other jealously for signs that someone may have a story to send home. However, Lord Hitchcock, the correspondent for the Daily Brute, is noticeably absent, and this sends the reporters on an insane quest into the desert in the hope of finding the sought-after 'scoop'. The story is full of bizarre characters: an insane Swedish diplomat who goes berserk when he drinks too much absinthe, the mysterious Mr. Baldwin (Herbert Lom), and a German woman who claims she somehow or other lost her husband. The hapless William Boot appears to be completely out of his depth in the middle of all this chaos and confusion. ===== In 1854, Major Geoffrey Vickers (Errol Flynn) and his brother, Captain Perry Vickers (Patric Knowles), are stationed in India, with the 27th Lancers of the British Army. It is during the period of East India Company dominance over the Indian subcontinent. Perry has secretly betrayed Geoffrey by stealing the love of his fiancée Elsa (Olivia de Havilland). During an official visit to local tributary rajah, Surat Khan (C. Henry Gordon), Geoffrey saves the rajah's life while hunting, for which the rajah promises eternal gratitude. Later, Maj. Vickers is stationed at the British garrison of (fictional) Chukoti, along with British military families, within the part the North-Western Frontier controlled by Surat Khan. A British miscalculation leads to premature withdrawal of troops to (fictional) Lohora, unnecessarily exposing Chukoti. Faced with an overwhelming siege, the British commander, Col. Campbell (Donald Crisp), surrenders Chukoti to Surat Khan, who then massacres the inhabitants, including British families. Surat Khan allies his forces with Imperial Russia, whom the British are fighting in the Crimean War, but spares Maj. Vickers and Elsa as they flee the slaughter. This repays his debt to Geoffrey. The love triangle and the quest for vengeance resolve at the Battle of Balaclava. Aware that Surat Khan is inspecting Russian positions opposite the 27th Lancers, Maj. Vickers secretly replaces written orders by Sir Charles Macefield (Henry Stephenson) to the commander of the Light Brigade, Sir Benjamin Warrenton (Nigel Bruce), to withdraw from the Balaclava Heights. Vickers instead orders the famous suicidal attack so the lancers can avenge the Chukoti massacre. Before the charge, Maj. Vickers reminds troops of the Chukoti Massacre and directs their anger: "Our objective is Surit Khan"! Although the 27th Lancers lose nearly all their 600 strength, they successfully breach Russian artillery positions. There, Vickers finds and kills Surat Khan with a lance, at the cost of his own life. Later, it emerges that Maj. Vickers wrote a letter to Sir Charles Macefield explaining his actions, which he forced Perry to deliver under threat of court martial, sparing his brother almost certain death during the 27th's charge. After receiving Maj. Vickers' explanation of why he defied orders and the charge happened, Macefield takes responsibility and burns the letter to protect Vickers and to honor him for his conspicuous gallantry in avenging the Chukoti Massacre. ===== Following the settlement of Maula's family feud, Maula has renounced violence and is in charge of administering the peace of his village and its surrounding villages. The film begins with Maakha Natt chasing a girl. She asks for help but as soon as people hear that she is being pursued by Maakha, the brother of Noori Natt, they ask her to leave and not share her misfortune with them. She arrives in Maula's village and asks for help. Maula's Bhabi Daani calls Maula Jatt. Maula Jatt arrives and advises Maakha. When Maakha disagrees with Maula, his friend Moodha beats up Maakha and leaves a scar after kicking him on the nose. Maula decrees that if Maakha wants to avoid the fate of being killed by his 'Gandasa', he should marry the girl whom he has dishonoured and marry his sister off to her brother. As girl has no family, so Maula orders Maakha to marry his sister to Moodha. When Makha returns home to plot his revenge, his sister Daaro incensed upon hearing what he has agreed to, kills him. The Natt clan now try to avenge the humiliation that Maula Jatt has caused them while Maula Jatt tries to ensure that his decision is enforced and justice is done. When Noori Natt gets out of jail, he tells jailor that he has ran out of competition and now he wants a worthy opponent. On jailor's advice he pays a visit to Malik Haku. Haku doesn't tell Noori the name of his old rival and warns him not to get in his way if he ever finds out about him. On returning home, he gets to know the whole incident. Noori starts a quest to find Maula. Noori finally arrives in Maula's village, but instead he gets Moodha. When Moodha tells Noori that it was he who left a scar on his brother's nose, Noori beats him up badly and breaks his leg. Maula returns and finds a brocken legged Moodha, he then swears to take Noori's leg. Maula and Noori finally face off but police stop them from killing each other. Later on, Maula and Noori get together for a final clash, in which Maula overpowers Noori. Just as he is about to deliver the final blow, Daaro, comes to the rescue and requests Maula to spare Noori and considering that Maula had called her his sister. Maula agrees but Noori amputates his own leg so Maula's revenge is completed. The film ends with Daaro agreeing to marry Moodha and their rivalry resolved forever. ===== The Magician was published in 1971 and uses a violent incident in a high school to explore the wider issues of the time. It challenges the view that America is a classless society, and suggests racism was still prevalent in a decade that would see momentous change and decay. It is also a bitter critique of the justice system. ===== Tinker Bell (Mae Whitman) is born from the first laugh of a baby, and is brought by the winds to Pixie Hollow (which is part of the island of Neverland), and Queen Clarion (Anjelica Huston) welcomes her. She learns that her talent is to be one of the tinkers, the fairies who make and fix things. Two other tinker fairies, Bobble (Rob Paulsen) and Clank (Jeff Bennett), show her around Pixie Hollow, teach her their craft and show her her house. While out working, the trio are hit by sprinting thistles, a type of menacing weed. Tinker Bell meets Silvermist (Lucy Liu), a water fairy; Rosetta (Kristin Chenoweth), a garden fairy; Iridessa (Raven-Symoné), a light fairy; and Fawn (America Ferrera), an animal fairy. They tell her about the fairies who visit the mainland to bring each season. Tinker Bell is thrilled and cannot wait to go to the mainland for spring. After meeting them, she notices Vidia (Pamela Adlon), a fast-flying fairy who immediately dislikes her because of her unusually strong talent. Vidia challenges her to prove she will be able to go to the mainland, and Tinker Bell creates several inventions, but messes up with them while showing them to the Minister of Spring (Steve Valentine). Tinker Bell then learns from Queen Clarion that only nature-talent fairies visit the mainland. She talks with Fairy Mary (Jane Horrocks), the tinker fairy overseer, who tries to please her with who she is, but instead inspires her to "switch her talent". She tries her hand at nature skills; making dewdrops with Silvermist, lighting fireflies with Iridessa, and trying with Fawn to teach baby birds to fly, but she fails miserably at all of these. Meanwhile, Bobble and Clank cover for Tinker Bell when questioned by Fairy Mary. When Tinker Bell returns, she tries to explain, but Mary simply responds that she knows, and expresses her disappointment with Tinker Bell's actions. On the beach, Tinker Bell finds parts of a music box and figures out how to put them together. Iridessa, Fawn, Silvermist, and Rosetta witness her doing this, then tell her that she should be proud of her talent — if this is what she's good at, the mainland should not matter. But Tinker Bell still wants to go to the mainland. She asks Rosetta if she will still teach her to be a garden fairy, to which she doesn't respond any differently. As a last resort, Tinker Bell asks Vidia to teach her how to be a fast-flying fairy, then explains that her friends gave up on her. Vidia craftily tells her that capturing the sprinting thistles would prove her worth as a garden fairy. However, once she sees Tinker Bell making progress, she lets the captured thistles loose, and in attempting to recapture them, they destroy all the preparations for spring. Tinker Bell decides to leave, but after talking with Terence (Jesse McCartney), a dust keeper fairy, about how important his job is, she realizes the importance of a tinker. Tinker Bell redeems herself by inventing machines that quicken the process of decorating flowers, ladybugs, etc. This allows the other fairies to get back on schedule, thus saving the arrival of spring. Vidia is punished for prompting her to cause the chaos, and Queen Clarion allows Tinker Bell to join the nature-talent fairies when they bring spring to the mainland, which she declines having realised her talent. However, Fairy Mary arrives with the music box Tinker Bell fixed, and gives her the task of delivering it to its original owner, who is shown to be Wendy Darling. The narrator ends by saying that when lost toys are found or a broken clock starts to work, "it all means that one very special fairy might be near." ===== ;Act I The show begins with two new-age hippie friends, Star Birdfeather (Sears) and Amber Windchime (Williams) driving back to Tuna, Texas at night. They are returning so that they can meet with old friends due to the 4th of July Homecoming Reunion and Fireworks display. They are nervous to see the state of the town, and are also nervous as to whether or not people will remember their 'past lives' from when they still lived in their hometown. They become so upset that Amber forces Star to pull over, and they hum to calm their inner peace (Until Star attempts to hum a Nancy Sinatra song, which angers Amber). They drive on apprehensively under the cover of the night. The next morning, local radio station OKKK signs on and the DJ's Arles Struvie (Williams) and Thurston Wheelis (Sears) begin giving the daily announcements, which are focused around the 4th of July celebrations. The hot topic of the day is the dropping out of Didi Snavely (Williams) and Pearl Burras (Sears) from the Reunion queen contest, essentially ensuring that the stuck-up Vera Carp (Williams) will win. Also mentioned are several issues which are addressed throughout the show, including the Prayer Posse (led by Vera)'s drive to censor hymns, the members of Free White Texas attempts to declare the town of Tuna a free, independent white nation, and the wedding of Arles and Bertha Bumiller (Sears) the next day. The news is suddenly hit with a new hot topic, in that gay theatre director, Joe Bob Lipsey (Sears), has stormed off from his summer production of *Red, White, and Fabulous!* due to Vera saying he cannot sing a song about alcohol in a dry county. Local animal rights activist, Petey Fisk (Williams), also makes an announcement denouncing that all creatures with more than four legs are pests. Meanwhile, at Bertha's home, she is doing her morning cleaning when Petey knocks on the door. They converse, and Petey brings up the subject of how Bertha only has six dogs left (the seventh having just died). Bertha suspects he has brought her another dog, but he explains how it is actually a cat that thinks it's a dog. She ends ups taking it after he shows how well it fends off a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses, that Bertha dislikes because "[she] can't stand a Christian who doesn't like war." She agrees to take the cat, and sends Petey away. Her extremely pregnant daughter, Charlene (Williams) comes down and is having one of her usual fits over her military husband, Rayford, being gone overseas. Bertha attempts to talk her down, but Charlene eventually has a tantrum over the lack of malted milk balls and locks herself in her room. Her brother, Stanley (Williams), comes downstairs hearing the commotion. They both tell Bertha that they aren't going to the Reunion for different reasons. Stanley leaves to go visit his Aunt Pearl. Bertha receives a call from her best friend, Vera, who has graciously offered to host the wedding at her home. Their phone call (focused on how Vera thinks Bertha shouldn't wear white tomorrow, as "[she] *is* marrying a divorced man"), is constantly interrupted by Vera's menace of a son, Virgil, and one of her Hispanic maid's (all named Lupe for ease of remembrance) issues with understanding Vera's cleaning instructions. Bertha ends the conversations, and writes Arles a note saying that when he arrives, he can find her at Didi's Used Weapon's Shop. Stanley arrives at Pearl's, and he voices his issues with his mother and Arles having sex at such an old age. Pearl reassures him, saying that she didn't even start enjoying her sex life until she hit 65. Disgusted, Stanley has to leave. At Didi's Used Weapons shop (motto "if we can't kill it, it's immortal!"), Joe Bob has arrived demanding to purchase a suicide weapon. She tells him she simply can't, as she has lost too much money over the years agreeing to that, and he leaves. Pearl also arrives, and they discuss briefly how they can prevent Vera from winning, but Didi's senile mother begins to have a fit offstage, and Pearl leaves as Didi goes to attend to her. Bertha arrives looking for Didi, but cannot find her. Arles arrives, and they begin to argue over details of the wedding and their honeymoon. The argument climaxes in Arles saying that the wedding is off, and storming out. Bertha begins to cry as Didi re-enters, and she comforts her, saying that she's sure she can find Bertha a good maiming weapon. Bertha leaves in sadness, and Didi receives a call from Pearl, who has figured out an evil plan on how to get back at Vera. Didi leaves her shop to go see her, which she is suddenly face to face with her husband R.R. Snavely (Sears), a UFOlogist, who hasn't been seen for many years. She is upset with him, because in one more day he would have been pronounced legally dead. She begins to scold him and he shows that he has been abducted by aliens when he snaps his fingers, and she is unable to speak. She silently yells at him as they walk offstage. ;Act II That afternoon, Pearl discovers that her car is unable to start. Virgil Carp has also stolen his mother's car, so Vera has no way to get to her coronation ceremony. They see each other, say their respective silent insults, and politely ask each other for a ride. Vera suggests that they could borrow Lupe's old stick-shift, if Pearl knows how to drive it. Pearl reveals she can not only drive it, she can hot-wire it and bypass the lack of keys. After they begin their trip, Pearl suddenly wrecks the car to avoid a head-on collision. As they begin to fight, Vera realizes it's time for the coronation. They turn on the radio, and Thurston reveals that the winner, by a landslide, is Joe Bob Lipsey. Vera is aghast, stating that "this isn't the type of queen we had in mind." Pearl can only laugh, revealing that she and Didi were Joe Bob's campaign managers. The radio is suddenly overtaken by Arles, who has evicted Thurston and locked himself in the broadcast room, stating he isn't going to leave until Bertha takes him back. He begins to loop the Roy Orbison song Only The Lonely, in an attempt to get her back. Vera storms off. At the reunion plaza, ditzy Helen Bedd (Williams) and Inita Goodwin (Sears) have set up their food booth (Helen & Inita's Hot-to-Trot Catering) and are ecstatic over the boys who are returning for the reunion. Helen goes off to see one, and Inita remembers that she left her foot-powder for the square-dancing competition in the car. She sets out Pearl's prize-winning potato salad, and tells one of her many dumb boyfriends, Garland (Williams) to watch the booth. The stereotypical red-neck is almost incapable of running the food booth, and is constantly distracted by Virgil Carp's firecrackers near the building. Mayor Leonard Childers (Sears) runs up to the food booth, out of breath. He is frantic over his wife, Helen, having taken members of Free White Texas hostage (a subplot started in Scene II), Joe Bob's winning the reunion queen crown, and Virgil's fireworks. Garland calms him with a plate of Pearl's potato salad, which upsets Leonard's stomach. Garland says he doesn't know the issue with it, as it's "tangy, but that's the way [he] likes it." It is revealed that the potato salad has been sitting in the heat for over two hours, having spoiled it. Garland exits to find Inita. Vera appears, wielding her megaphone. She discovers that the potato salad has gone bad, and almost disposes of it, before deciding that since the town listened to Pearl, they can all just eat her potato salad and "God can sort out the rest." She is surprised when Reverend Spikes (Sears) appears, asking how long he's been out of jail. He begins to answer, and then runs off when he hears a siren, not realizing it's the sound of an ambulance, and not a police car. Joe Bob walks over, singing his formerly banned song. Vera begins to darkly insult him, before realizing she can easily dispose of him. She politely offers him a bowl of the rancid potato salad, free of charge. He eats it, and Vera quickly leaves. He realizes what has happened, and runs to find a restroom. Helen re-enters, and gets a phone call from the maid whose car Vera stole. She says that she found Vera's lipstick in the back seat, and Helen encourages her to call the police. R.R. walks over to the food booth, saying he wants to taste one of Helen's barbecue sandwiches before he heads back out to space. Helen calls one of her girlfriends up to tell the outrageous story, and runs off to spread the rumor more. Star appears, looking for food, and is appalled at the extreme amount of cooked meat at the booth. Amber finds her, saying that she just accidentally ate a spoonful of guacamole with bacon in it, and she found it delicious. Star says she wants to see one more person, then they can go to New Mexico and get Amber cleansed. Amber leaves, and Star watches the "microcosmically militaristic" fireworks Virgil is still firing off. Stanley walks beside her, and he realizes that they used to go to school with him. They agree to head back to New Mexico together, but Stanley says he wants to see his Aunt Pearl one more time before he goes back. They leave, optimistic. Helen and Inita quickly hear of the poisoned potato salad that has been eaten by almost every member of Tuna, Texas since they left the booth, and they decide they must leave. They pack their bags and take the potato salad away for good. Meanwhile, at Didi's, her and R.R. begin to fight again, and she enters her shop to find a weapon to kill him with. Petey arrives, with several animals that don't belong in the deserts of Texas. He explains to them that R.R. is going to take them to space, and they can come back after global warming, because the only things that will survive that are "coyotes and cockroaches. Madonna'll probably make it too." R.R. takes them, and the lights fade to the sound of a UFO taking off into space. A radio announcement by Thurston says that the door Arles locked has been opened, and he has disappeared. Thurston says that Vera Carp has been arrested for grand theft auto and a warrant is out for Helen and Inita, but aside from that a good day was had by all. The lights return on Pearl's bedroom, where Stanley finds her proclaiming that she is on her deathbed for the potato salad affair and for wrecking Lupe's car. Stanley tries and fails to bring her to optimism, eventually saying that when she dies, her husband Henry at least won't take long to find a new wife. This puts her ornery fire back, and she shoos Stanley away so that she can find her nightgown with dogs on the front, because "it drives [Stanley's] Uncle Henry wild." Arles and Bertha have driven to the Starlight Motel and have been eloped. They make awkward small talk, before Arles reveals a book his preacher cousin Slim gave him, which is all about healthy sexual relations. As Bertha reads it, she becomes uncomfortable, jumping at Arles' mere touch. He calms her, saying they have to put the past behind them, and move on to better things. Bertha eventually gains courage and begins to start foreplay with Arles, which leads to Arles removing his pants and chasing Bertha around the stage. They run off, and return wearing only their nightgown and wifebeater, respectively. The curtain closes on the small town life of Tuna, Texas. ===== The band started life off- screen, where Simon Wicks (Nick Berry) and Eddie Hunter (Simon Henderson) were bandmates. Before Simon came to Walford, he had borrowed money from loan sharks for their band's musical equipment and was left owing them huge amounts of money that he couldn't pay back. Eddie was happy to leave Simon with the debt and disappeared to work at Suttons Holiday Camp in Clacton so the band dissolved. With the debts finally repaid, and needing an ally to support him in the new band, Simon contacts Eddie and asks him to join. The reformed group consist of Simon, Eddie, Kelvin Carpenter (Paul J. Medford), Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean), Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) and band manager Harry Reynolds. They initially call themselves Dog Market, after dismissing Sharon's "So So Reverso" and Simon's "Bottled Up", "Left Of Arthur" (a reference to Arthur Scargill), "Conjugal Rights" and Lofty's (Tom Watt) "The Harry Reynolds Quartet". Eddie is the lead guitarist. Kelvin's girlfriend, Tessa Parker (Josephine Melville), also wants to join, but she has no musical talent and is refused membership. They are due to have their debut in The Queen Victoria public house in August 1986, but after their enormous amplifier fuses the electricity in the pub during a performance of "Venus", publican Den Watts (Leslie Grantham) throws them out, shouting after them "You're banned!", after which the group change their name to The Banned. Simon and Harry constantly disagree with the direction the band is taking. Harry loses his argument to make the band a vehicle for communist propaganda and blames Wicksy for the band taking a more practical attitude. They all decide to enter a competition for young musicians, and both Harry and Simon vow to outdo each other by writing the best song to perform. The rest of the band all prefer Simon's song, "Something Outa Nothing", which infuriates Harry and he starts bad- mouthing him to the rest of the band, saying he is superfluous and a closet BBC Radio 2 listener. Simon then declares that the band has to choose between him and Harry, but as Harry owns all the instruments and equipment, they side with him and Simon quits. Simon writes his own solo song called "Every Loser Wins". He doesn't get very far however, and by the end of the year he gives up his dream of becoming a musician. Simon allows the band to continue using his song, "Something Outa Nothing", for the competition. The day of the competition comes and for some reason Harry, who is a political activist, decides to sabotage their performance by switching the cartridge in the synthesizer, wrecking any hopes the group have of getting anywhere. They are humiliated, and the rest of the band are furious when Harry confesses that he sabotaged their performance to show them up. ===== The Day of Revolution revolves around Kei Yoshikawa, a boy in high school who one day is informed that he is genetically female. This shocking realization causes his family to grow closer together and Kei decides that he is going to restart his life as a girl named Megumi. Megumi takes a six-month leave from school and returns as a first-year student with Makoto Yutaka, the niece of the doctor who aided in Kei's transition; Makoto also helps Megumi adjust to living life as a girl. Megumi is quickly found out by her old male friends who all start hitting on her once they discover the truth that she was Kei. Shocked at their new behavior, Megumi is appalled at the thought of ever dating any one of them or even getting a boyfriend. After a traumatic experience with a former enemy, she tells her friends that she has chosen Makoto instead of any of them, though they do not back down in their pursuits. Megumi, in an attempt to avoid her persistent male friends, starts spending more time at Makoto's house where she meets her younger brother Mikoto, who is home during the summer from an all-boys boarding school. Megumi starts to become more fond of Mikoto, though still only thinks of him as a younger brother, while at the same time Mikoto harbors feelings for Megumi. Megumi and Mikoto go on a date together but are interrupted by Megumi's male friends and Makoto. Megumi attempts to protect Mikoto from her friends' teasing of him, and in the process causes Mikoto to confess his love to her. Megumi and Mikoto begin dating though are still constantly interrupted and are thus unable to progress their relationship very far even two years later. However, they resolve to make progress together. ===== On a foggy night in 1850, Mary Rutledge (Hopkins) and retired Colonel Marcus Aurelius Cobb (Frank Craven) arrive in San Francisco Bay aboard the clipper Flying Cloud. She had come to wed a wealthy owner of a gold mine, but it is revealed that he had lost his mine when the roulette wheel landed on red 13 times at the Bella Donna. The men at the wharf reluctantly inform her that her fiancé is dead, murdered most likely by Louis Chamalis (Robinson), the powerful owner of the Bella Donna restaurant and gambling house. Mary is upset, but quickly pulls herself together and asks the way to the Bella Donna. Mary meets Chamalis and agrees to be his companion, not only for business reasons (as an attraction, she helps draw in customers), but for personal pleasure as well. Chamalis gives her the name 'Swan', and she becomes his female escort. She accompanies him on promenades in town, and he showers her with extravagant gifts. Their relationship sours quickly because Swan is angered by Chamalis's destructive power-mongering. She does not, however, mind running a crooked roulette wheel and cheating the miners out of their gold. Colonel Cobb purchases a printing press, with the intention of starting a respectable newspaper for the people of San Francisco. His first issue includes an article criticizing an unpunished murder by Chamalis and his entourage. When Chamalis finds out, he threatens to destroy Cobb's printing press and burn down the building, but is halted by Swan. Chamalis demands that Cobb never print anything attacking him. The colonel unwillingly complies. Swan becomes disillusioned with her life in San Francisco. Her distant behavior irks Chamalis. One morning, she sets out on horseback. When it begins to rain heavily, she seeks refuge in a seemingly abandoned cabin, where she meets poet and gold miner Jim Carmichael (McCrea). Swan is taken with him, but lies about her current situation after hearing his criticisms of the city. He gives her his book of poems as a memento. Carmichael decides to return to New York. Because of fog the ship will not leave for a few days. He meets Chamalis' helper, Old Atrocity (Walter Brennan), who, seeing his bags of gold is happy to show him to the Bella Donna. Carmichael is surprised to find Mary working there. He is served drugged liquor and plays roulette at her table. He loses his composure, insults 'Swan' and eventually loses his money. Carmichael wakes the following morning in the Bella Donna's kitchen. His eloquent speech impresses Chamalis, who hires him on the spot as a waiter. Carmichael's presence perturbs Mary, who offers him money to depart. Carmichael refuses, wishing to earn the fare on his own. Cobb puts up a poster telling about a murder Chamalis ordered and how the Bella Donna cheats customers. Seeing it, Chamlis' henchman "Knuckles" Jacoby (Brian Donlevy) shoots both the man who put it up and the publisher when he tries to defend him. Dying, Cobb orders his assistant to print the truth. A vigilante group is formed and hangs Knuckles. Devastated by Cobb's death, Mary acknowledges her love for Carmichael, and works the roulette table so that he wins back the gold he previously lost. Chamalis finds out and sets out to kill Carmichael, who has snuck into Mary's bedroom. The lovers decide to leave together. They find a rowboat and attempt to board the ship in the harbor. They have trouble seeing in the fog, but can hear Chamalis pursuing them. He shoots and injures Carmichael, and corners them beneath a pier. Mary begs him, as proof of his love for her, not to kill Carmichael. Chamalis agrees, but tells her he does not want her anymore. The sheriff arrives with a mob, and Chamalis allows himself to be taken away. Mary returns to Carmichael's side aboard the ship as it prepares to set sail. ===== The story centers around Akira Sakamoto, who is a part of a very unusual family. Everyone in his family is incredibly beautiful, except him. Compared to the rest of his family, Akira is often overshadowed and feels left out of the rest of the family when they go out in public. Despite this, his family has never tried to distance themselves from him and they treat each other the same way. Akira and his entire family also appear in the series Princess Princess by the same author of Family Complex. ===== The beheading of international criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu is witnessed in China by his nemesis Nayland Smith. Back in England, however, it is increasingly apparent to Smith that Dr. Fu Manchu is still operating. Despite the skepticism by his close friend Dr. Petrie, Smith is quick to detect that the execution he witnessed was that of a double, an actor hypnotized into taking Dr. Fu Manchu's place. The villain is back in London, and has kidnapped the esteemed Professor Muller, whose research holds the key to a potentially deadly solution from the seeds of a rare Tibetan flower: the Blackhill poppy. The seed of this poppy is sometimes referred to as "The Seed of Life", and Tibetans spoke legends of it being the secret to eternal life. Although the poppy seed's poison loses its toxicity when exposed to heat, Fu Manchu has heard Tibetan legends that the poison was once weaponized. A pint of this poison is powerful enough to kill every person and animal in London. Nayland Smith correctly deduces that Professor Muller had received his supply of Blackhill poppy seeds from illegal drug trade. After Fu Manchu cut off the drug trade, the poppy seeds were mainly acquired from Hanuman - a warehouse owner who is secretly in cahoots with Fu Manchu. Nayland Smith meets Hanuman in his warehouse to question him on the whereabouts of Professor Muller. In Hanuman's office, Hanuman pulls a gun on Smith, who is able to knock him out before he can fire. Nayland Smith quickly leaves the building and deliberately avoids giving his attention to Hanuman's secretary, whom he recognizes as Lin Tang - Fu Manchu's daughter and partner-in-crime. Lin Tang recognized Nayland Smith when he entered the building, and she phoned Hanuman to kill Nayland Smith before their meeting in the office. Hanuman regains consciousness, then he and Lin Tang go underground to a secret base under the River Thames. There, Lin Tang informs her father that his nemesis Nayland Smith has gotten involved in their plans. Lin Tang informs Fu Manchu that their prisoner Professor Muller has refused to divulge how to extract the poisonous essence from the Blackhill poppy seeds. To coerce Professor Muller, Fu Manchu has his henchmen kidnap the professor's daughter Maria. After both prisoners are forced to watch one of Fu Manchu's henchwoman drown (as the henchwoman's punishment for trying to free Professor Muller), Professor Muller then reveals that documents detailing the properties of the Blackhill poppy were given to Professor Gaskel by the Grand Lama. The documents were given during the Younghusband expedition that Professor Muller resents not being a part of. The documents are currently locked in a vault that only Professor Gaskel has access to. The vault is in a guarded room of the Museum of Oriental Studies. Fu Manchu's daughter Lin Tang dons a disguise and infiltrates the museum. She drops a listening device. Meanwhile, Fu Manchu's henchmen break into the museum's guarded room by entering through the sewer tunnels. However, Nayland Smith and his allies kill the henchmen only to discover that the vault had been emptied by Professor Gaskel earlier ago. This information is heard through the listening device of Lin Tang, whom Nayland Smith and company recognize. Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie engage in a car chase after Lin Tang and Fu Manchu, but the duo escapes. Professor Gaskel is in his study when Lin Tang and Fu Manchu emerge. Fu Manchu hypnotizes Professor Gaskel to be under his control. They go to Fu Manchu's underground lair, where Professor Gaskel works on distilling the poisonous essense of the Blackhill poppy with Professor Muller. As they work, Fu Manchu is informed that the Essex village of Fleetwick is currently under freezing temperatures, so the poppy seed's poisonous properties will persist if used there. He makes an announcement on the radio to let the entire country know of his return, and to obey him. As a show of his power, he announces that he will target Fleetwick [sic]. Nayland Smith has British soldiers sent to protect Fleetwick. Fu Manchu has a plane fly over Fleetwick. From the plane, the Blackhill poppy poison is sprayed onto the almost 3000 civilians and soldiers below, killing them within seconds. By this point, Professor Gaskel has also been hypnotized into committing suicide. Nayland Smith and his associates use some maps and detective work to deduce the entrances and location of Fu Manchu's hideout. With the intent of flooding the hideout, they break in through the hidden entrance in Hanuman's warehouse. They confront Fu Manchu and his minions, and a brawl ensues. After the lights go out, Fu Manchu and his minions escape to a Tibetan monastery with Professor Muller while the River Thames hideout is flooded. Nayland Smith and his team leave the underground hideout via an exit that leads to a graveyard. Deducing that Blackhill poppy seeds only grow in Tibet, Nayland Smith and company go to there and find Fu Manchu. He is at a Tibetan monastery receiving Blackhill poppy seeds from the Grand Lama. Nayland Smith and company find Professor Muller, who informs them that Fu Manchu already has all the knowledge and poppy seeds he needs to bring the world to its knees. Nayland Smith reassures Nayland Smith by revealing that he has a detonator hidden underneath the poppy seeds in one of Fu Manchu's boxes, and it is rigged to explode. Nayland Smith, Professor Muller, and their allies leave the monastery, much to Fu Manchu's frustration. Fu Manchu ponders why Nayland Smith did not take the poppy seeds. A few seconds later, Smith's detonator blows up and the monastery grounds burst in an enormous ball of flame. Nayland Smith is riding horseback with his allies and sees the explosion from afar. The film ends with a medium closeup of Fu Manchu fading in over the explosion, and his voice uttering, "The world shall hear from me again... the world shall hear from me again". ===== When CIA agent, Sydney Bristow, is called in to work on her day off, she knows there must be something serious going down. The order came from the CIA's best mind: her father, Jack Bristow. A fellow operative, Agent Jacobs, has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. His last communiqué to the CIA contained highly sensitive intelligence regarding Sydney's nemesis, Anna Espinosa, formerly a top agent for K-Directorate, now gone rogue. While Sydney's been having free time, Anna has been busy - hard at work taking over the "Followers of Rambaldi" cult, a cabal of zealots hell bent on bringing the visions of 15th century philosopher, physicist and prophet, Milo Rambaldi, to life. Now, Anna has been teaming up with Julian Sark, a slippery and cunning gun-for-hire, along with Sydney's ex-boss, Arvin Sloane, a highly intelligent but utterly corrupt crime lord, and a man Sydney thoroughly despises. Sydney is tasked with finding out what this trio of 'most wanted' fugitives is working on and discover exactly what "The Machine" is. She is ably assisted by her back-up team; Marcus Dixon, her field partner and loyal friend; Michael Vaughn, her CIA handler; and Marshall Flinkman, a socially inept technological whiz with a gadget for every occasion. Starting in Agent Jacobs' last known location, a casino in Monte Carlo, Sydney locates a data disc in a dead drop. Hacking into a computer in the executive suite, she discovers that the casino's luxurious exterior hides a huge arms manufacturing facility in the basement. Now, Sydney has to acquire a laser prototype being tested there, sneak back into the casino to spy on a meeting between Anna and Sark, and finally escape from the casino grounds with armed enemies in hot pursuit. Jacobs' data leads the team to a museum in Saudi Arabia proudly displaying new artifacts...a mysterious set of bones found in the desert with links to Rambaldi. When Sydney covertly enters the museum to acquire the bones, she finds that Anna has the same idea at the same time, except that Anna has brought her task force. Racing against Anna's forces, Sydney must collect all of the bones before getting a trace on a feeling Anna that takes them to ruins in the desert. Here, Sydney's best efforts are thwarted by Anna's underhanded tactics which force Sydney to put friendship before professional loyalty, and incidentally, disarm a rather large nuclear warhead. While Sydney's been in the desert, Vaughn has tracked both missing agent Jacobs and a mathematician, Dr. Caplan, to an insane asylum in Romania, where prisoners are being held against their will. Breaking into the asylum, Sydney discovers that the prisoners are being used as human guinea pigs for Anna and Sark's experiments with their laser. After freeing Caplan and Jacobs, who in turn free the prisoners, Sydney initiates a daring plan to take Sark into custody and put an end to the experiments by starting a chemical reaction with the laser's components, which destroys the asylum when the reaction goes critical. The horrific truth about the experiments comes out as Caplan is debriefed back at the CIA. Trading his intelligence for immunity, Sark tips the team off that Arvin Sloane is cutting a specific diamond to Anna's very precise specifications in a laboratory beneath an embassy in Hong Kong. Gaining admittance to the embassy by attending a glamorous party in the ballroom, Sydney gets into the cutting room and manages to acquire the diamond. She is forced to trade it for the lives of the innocent partygoers when Sloane appears on the scene and informs Sydney of the C-4 explosives he has placed around the embassy as insurance. Ignoring Sydney's warnings about Anna, he triggers a countdown on the bomb giving Sydney and Dixon just a few minutes to evacuate the embassy and get themselves to safety. Tracing Anna to Rio de Janeiro, Sydney tails her to a nightclub where she is scheduled to meet with Sloan. Bugging a meeting between the two, Sydney finally manages to discover the true, awful potential about "The Machine," and its location in an underground bunker in Russia. As Anna marches off a double-crossed Sloane, the CIA operatives receive a surprise visit by the Followers of Rambaldi SWAT team. Realizing there is a mole within the agency, Vaughn attempts to stop the raid only to find that the leaks have come from the most unlikely of sources. The CIA team must regroup to draw up their final make-or-break plans to stop Anna's nefarious plan. Following a HALO parachute jump insertion, Sydney must use all of the skills she has learned to infiltrate the bunker. By stealth, combat and quick-thinking, Sydney gets past Anna's forces and finds a captive Sloane. Reluctantly agreeing to an uneasy truce with him, Sydney must defeat Anna and figure out how to destroy the mighty Machine to stop ecological disaster being launched on the whole planet. As Anna's grand scheme and the bunker begin to collapse around her, Sydney has to push herself to the limit to escape with her life. ===== The story of the limited series deals with the suicide of Charles Blackwater, whose soul is morphed into Omen, and the visions of Dr. Katherine Reynolds, now a patient in a mental institution, who keeps saying "Fin Fang Foom". Reynolds, who had previously worked with Daimon Hellstrom, was abducted by a group known only as The Agency and given drugs that enhanced her latent psionic powers.Legion of Night #1 Jennifer Kale, now in college and living with an overweight boyfriend, Bernard Drabble, has not used her magic in years (she was last seen midwifing the "birth" of Quagmire through Man-Thing in Marvel Comics Presents vol. 1 #29), but suddenly feels compelled to, and receives encouragement from Man-Thing when she dreams that he is sitting next to her on an airplane.Legion of Night #2 In China, Dr. Chan is trying to explain to officials that there is a new part of the prophecy of Fin Fang Foom that he has only recently uncovered. In New York, Martin Gold is now working for a paranormal magazine, having previously done hard journalism. He has rethought his life after his relationship with Angel O'Hara and her possession by Lilith.Legion of Night #1 Omen summons the team to the apartment of Charles Atwater, whom Omen had recently resurrected in order to take control of his body.Legion of Night #1-2 Blackwater was forced to commit suicide by a former client, The Beyond Reason Spiritual Fellowship, which was resurrecting their hedonistic god, Aan Tanu, through the body of Fin Fang Foom. The Fellowship was based on a rare religious tome that its male leader, Reeve Calder, believed was a hoax. Its female leader, Hildreth, mates with Aan Tanu to create a demonic child. Ariann, however, rips the child out of her womb and kills it.Legion of Night #2 ===== The story starts with floods at Ranga Saipet in Warangal District. Houses, trains, and people inundate in floodwater. A young man named Siddharth (Mahesh Babu) and his friends save the people up to their maximum effort. Eight of his friends assist him in the rescue. On the other hand, the Chief Minister (Kota Srinivasa Rao) recommends the candidature of Parakala Pappu Yadav (Irrfan Khan) for Assembly Elections. Pappu Yadav is a goonda who wishes to earn big through politics and power. To get the attention of people, he announces a sum of Rs. 5 crore for flood victims. The food that needs to reach the victims of the flood is taken elsewhere to be sold, an illegal way of earning money and backing up the flood relief fund into the pockets of the politicians. Siddharth learns of this through one of his friends and saves the stock in time. He then takes it to the flood victims for distribution. This annoys Pappu Yadav, for which Mondi Nani (Prakash Raj), his right-hand, threatens Siddharth. A strife develops between Mondi Nani and Siddharth, and the latter declares that his friend Ajay Kumar (Ajay) will be contesting the next Assembly Election opposite Pappu Yadav. Siddharth and his team get accolades from the people for this decision and start campaigning. To cut the good name of the group in the people and to win sympathy, Pappu Yadav conspires for a bomb blast allegation on Siddharth and his team. Mondi Nani works for him and the mission is accomplished. Pappu Yadav declares Siddharth and his team as terrorists. He wins the election, becomes the Home Minister, and his marriage is settled with Varalakshmi (Trisha). Siddharth, with the help of many college students, kidnaps Varalakshmi from the marriage hall, demanding that Pappu Yadav state his crimes before a court of law. Varalakshmi is handcuffed and gagged with tape. The rest of the film shows Pappu Yadav chasing Siddharth to get Varalakshmi back while Siddharth and Varalakshmi fall in love while she is held captive. Finally, Siddharth puts an end to the game of crooked politicians. ===== ===== Decades prior to the start of the film, the Zenith team are five young superheroes who fought to protect the world from evil, led by Jack Shepard ("Captain Zoom") and his older brother Connor Shepard ("Concussion"). The American military sought to enhance the team's powers using an experimental form of radiation called "Gamma-13". This made Zoom faster and stronger, but the gamma turned Concussion to the dark side. Thinking Zoom and the team betrayed him, Concussion killed his teammates Marksman, Ace, and Daravia. Concussion was believed to have been destroyed by Zoom at the cost of his powers, but was sent into another dimension instead. Thirty years later, Dr. Ed Grant, the scientist behind the original Zenith Project, discovers that Concussion is making his way back into their dimension. General Larraby, the military officer in charge of the Project, decides to form a new Zenith Team to fight him. Jack finds himself dragged back into the Project, this time as an instructor. Larraby gives Jack the choice of a lengthy prison sentence should he refuse or a payment of $500,000 for training the team. Jack reluctantly agrees to help. In their secret base Area 52 (a reference to Area 51), he meets Marsha Holloway, who is a beautiful but clumsy psychologist, a big fan of Zoom's, and knows of him only through the comic book adaptations of the team's adventures. The project holds an audition of would-be members, and four are selected: Dylan West, a seventeen-year-old boy possessing invisibility, Summer Jones, a sixteen-year-old girl with telekinetic powers and empathic senses, Tucker Williams, a twelve-year-old boy who can enlarge and inflate himself at will and Cindy Collins, a six-year-old girl with super strength. At first, things do not go well with Jack being bitter about the past and his sarcastic attitude disappoints Marsha. Dylan keeps trying to escape, Tucker has self-esteem problems and trouble controlling his powers, and the kids are annoyed by Jack's attitude. The team eventually forces Jack to face the fact that he's not really putting his heart into their training. Slowly things begin to come together as the new team's abilities improve, they adopt superhero identities (Jack first thought of calling Tucker "The Incredible Bulk," Summer "Mental Chick," Dylan "Invisi-Teen" and Cindy "Strong Girl," but the kids chose better names. Cindy calls herself "Princess," Tucker is called "Mega Boy," Dylan is now "Houdini" and Summer is "Wonder," which she thanked Dylan for calling her that). Eventually, just as Concussion is about to arrive on Earth, it is discovered that Dylan also possesses a kind of clairsentience, also known as mindsight, a rare power that allows him to discover Concussion's location and the project's true purpose. The team is meant merely as a distraction from the military's plans to capture Concussion in a special net that will cause his concussive blasts to reflect on himself, neutralizing him. Marsha also reveals that she secretly possesses a form of rainbow-colored super breath, which she uses to aid the team in their escape when the military is about to transfer them to the Gamma-13 chamber. Using the malfunctioning flying saucer stored in the base, which they repair on the way, Jack escapes with the team, including Marsha. He is dropped off at a point in a desert where Concussion will arrive, planning to try to talk to him. Jack tells the team to avoid the confrontation, but they refuse. When Concussion arrives, Larraby orders the net to be fired, but Concussion blasts it away and it almost lands on Cindy. This causes Jack to regain his powers and he saves her. Working together, the team and Marsha guide Concussion into a vortex that Zoom creates by running around in a circle at super-speed in the opposite direction as before. Dr. Grant yells to Zoom that if he closes the vortex, they can save Concussion. The vortex ultimately removes the Gamma-13 from Connor and restores his powers to normal, thus turning him good again. Zoom and Concussion are reunited. Three months later, Cindy is in a school play of Rapunzel, using her strength to pull the "prince" up the tower. Tucker is the goalie on the soccer team. Dylan is dating Summer who is on the cheerleading team, using her telekinetic power to help build an upside-down pyramid. In addition, they still work together with Zoom as the new Zenith Team. ===== Workaholic Daniel Miller (David Paymer) is forced to drive his family carpool when his wife (Stellina Rusich) becomes ill. Daniel is in the middle of a huge advertising campaign for Hammerman's, a large chain of delis, and initially refuses the carpool until his wife guilts him into it. It includes his two sons, Andrew (Mikey Kovar) and Bucky (Micah Gardener), two local ladies; Chelsea (Colleen Rennison) and her older sister, Kayla (Rachael Leigh Cook), and local weirdo Travis (Jordan Warkol). Meanwhile, Franklin Laszlo (Tom Arnold) is the owner of a failing carnival. Franklin has the bright idea to rob a bank in order to get the money to keep his business going. As he leaves to attempt his bank robbery, Franklin enters a local Hammerman's where Daniel is also at. Inside, two gunmen hold it up and eventually a standoff ensues between them, an older woman, Franklin, and a local detective, Lt. Erdman (Kim Coates). Through a series of misunderstandings, Franklin takes Daniel hostage and has Hammerman's money that the gunmen had stolen from the deli. Heading to the van, Franklin kidnaps Daniel and the children. The group bonds through a series of misadventures; stopping at a hair salon to use the bathroom, evading the police using a disguise, and eventually being chased by an obsessed meter maid, Martha (Rhea Perlman). Franklin reveals to the group the reason behind his robbery and kidnapping: keeping the carnival open so he can see his son. Eventually, Franklin takes the group to his carnival, where the children enjoy the rides. The two gunmen have tracked Franklin through his wallet, which he had dropped in the deli, and want Hammerman's money. A fight ensues, with the controls to the Ferris Wheel being damaged. Daniel uses his advertising materials to jam the mechanism of ride and climbs up to rescue Andrew. Franklin ties up the gunmen, locks them into the Zipper and gets his wallet back, but Daniel presses the button, and the gunmen enjoy the rides. Daniel realizes it's too late to attend his pitch meeting, but Franklin convinces him otherwise. Daniel arrives late and unprepared but successfully pitches to Mr. Hammerman (Rod Steiger) that children don't like his chain and that a revamp to something more kid-friendly would help. Franklin likes the idea, and Daniel gains the backbone to tell him he quits. Eventually the police arrive, but Daniel does not wish to press charges, and Franklin is let off the hook. Sometime later, Franklin and Daniel are co-owners of the carnival, with Mr. Hammerman supplying them with food. Everything seems to be okay, until Franklin realizes he missed a lunch date with his mother, who is shown destroying a local Sizzler over the closing credits. ===== A dentist is derided (and eventually has his life ruined) by his colleagues for his natural talent of painlessly pulling out teeth. ===== A young couple in love — Watty Watts and Starlene — are planning a convenience store robbery. The next day, they are paid a visit by Creepy Cody and Dinosaur Bob, collectors for a local mobster whom Watty has borrowed money from to buy an engagement ring for Starlene. They inform Watty that he must get the money very soon. This is followed by a visit by Watts' drug-addicted former prison buddy, Billy Mack Black, who has a plan for a big score. Against the wishes of Starlene, Watty goes along with the plot and the robbery turns deadly when Billy shoots and kills the stoned clerk. Following the murder, Billy pulls his gun on Watty and forces him to go to a restaurant to eat breakfast, where Billy pulls his gun on Watty again. Fearing for his life, Watty attacks Billy with a fork and escapes. He then returns to his trailer and Starlene. He asks her to marry him and tells her they have to flee to Mexico. They are then paid a visit by two police officers, who try to kill them as revenge for the murder and robbery. Starlene manages to shoot one of the officers, who accidentally shoots the other one, and the couple escape. They then make their way toward Mexico pursued by Billy Mack, Bob and Creepy and the police. The two are romanticized in the crime-obsessed media and become celebrities. On the way they stop in to see Starlene's parents, Thaylene and Vergil, who are later found by Billy, Bob and Creepy, leading to a violent showdown in which all are killed except Billy. Billy catches up with Watty and Starlene and the three of them cross into Mexico together. There the three engage in a showdown in which Starlene eventually kills Billy by injecting him with an overdose of high-powered speed. The two lovers take some liquid LSD given to them by Starlene's father and drive off into the sunset to start a new life. ===== Martin and Mary Doul are two blind beggars who have been led by the lies of the townsfolk to believe that they are beautiful when in fact they are old and ugly. A saint cures them of their blindness with water from a holy well and at first sight they are disgusted by each other. Martin goes to work for Timmy the smith and tries to seduce Timmy's betrothed, Molly, but she viciously rejects him and Timmy sends him away. Martin and Mary both lose their sight again, and when the saint returns to wed Timmy and Molly, Martin refuses his offer to cure their blindness again. The saint takes offence and the townsfolk banish the couple, who head south in search of kinder neighbours. ===== Sarah Casey convinces the reluctant Michael Byrne to marry her by threatening to run off with another man. She accosts a local priest, and convinces him to wed them for ten shillings and a tin can. Michael's mother shows up drunk and harasses the priest, then steals the can to exchange it for more drink. The next morning Sarah and Michael go to the chapel to be wed, but when the priest finds that the can is missing he refuses to perform the ceremony. Sarah protests and a fight breaks out that ends with the priest tied up in a sack. The tinkers free him after he swears not to set the police after them and he curses them in God's name as they flee in mock terror. ===== Earth has been taken over by the Master Race, a galaxy-spanning empire of artificial intelligences, and the best of Earth’s survivors are recruited into the aliens' army. Athol Morrison has served for 20 years, and heads back to Earth for a brief vacation. There, he runs into old friends, and finds it easy to give into his old feelings with his childhood girlfriend, Alexandra (Alix) Moreno. However, Alix and the rest of Athol’s friends are involved in a rebellion against Earth’s Master. They ask Athol to help and to join them, and so he helps to train them. However, concerned that any rebellion will provoke a genocidal response from the Masters, he betrays the rebellion to the local government, making sure that Alix and Davy Intäke are spared. Conflicted about what he has done, but feeling as if there was no choice, Athol rejoins up with his new command. Soon afterward comes war with the Hu, the most advanced race yet encountered—they developed hyperspace travel either on their own or stole it from a Master facility. Despite the Hu winning a series of early victories, the Master Race grinds the Hu down in a near-genocidal campaign that leaves the Hu homeworld in ruins. After that war is over, Athol and one of his concubines visit his alien comrade Shrêhht on her home planet. There, he is invited into another rebellion, one composed of all of the slave races, that has been plotting against the Master Race for over 100,000 years. He returns to Earth a second time and learns that he and Alix have a daughter, Kaye Moreno, and takes her off-planet to be trained as a soldier herself. Later, the Master Race's empire is attacked by a new foe that the conspirators believe drove the Master Race out of the Andromeda Galaxy and has arrived to finish them off. Athol, now a general, and Kaye ponder whether now would be the right time for the conspirators to revolt against the Master Race and welcome the newcomers, although he worries that if the Masters fall, the subject races will be the "slaves of slaves" forever. ===== ===== Act I: Lavarcham's house on Slieve Fuadh. Conchubor, the aging High King of Ulster, has charged Lavarcham to raise the child Deirdre to be his queen when she comes of age. Lavarcham finds that the now-beautiful Deirdre is a willful young woman, without interest in marrying an old man. Conchubor comes to Slieve Fuadh to bring Deirdre to his palace, Emain Macha, ignoring her pleas to remain in the countryside for another year. After he leaves, Naoise, son of Usna, and his brothers come to the cottage seeking Deirdre, and she tells them of her summons. Deirdre is aware of a prophecy that she will be the doom of the sons of Usna; nonetheless she asks Naoise to take her away from Ulster. He agrees, and Ainnle weds them in an impromptu ceremony. Act II: Alban. Deirdre and the sons of Usna have lived happily on a remote island for seven years. Fergus arrives bearing an offer of peace from Conchubor, and asks Deirdre and Naoise to return with him to Emain Macha. Lavarcham warns Deirdre not to accept, and Owen, a spy in the service of Conchubor, intimidates Deirdre with suggestions that death awaits Naoise in Ulster. Naoise tells Fergus that he plans to live the rest of his life with Deirdre in Alban, but Deirdre convinces him to accept Conchubor's offer, reasoning that it is better to die young, at the peak of their love, than to grow old and live in the shadow of their past happiness. Act III: A tent near Emain. Lavarcham arrives at Conchubor's tent and tries to convince him to give up his pursuit of Deirdre, claiming that she has grown old and lost her beauty. His soldiers arrive and contradict her claims, and he leaves just before Deirdre and Naoise enter. They discuss the possibility of their impending deaths until Conchubor returns. Deirdre nearly convinces him to put aside past grievances and let them live in peace when the sound of a battle between Conchubor's men and Naoise's brothers reaches them. Conchubor and Naoise go to join the fray and Naoise is killed. Fergus and his men arrive, enraged by the king's treachery, and set Emain Macha ablaze. Lavarcham tries to convince Deirdre to flee Ulster, and Conchubor tries to take her to a different castle, but she stays and mourns her dead lover and his brothers. In the end, Deirdre takes Naoise's dagger, stabs herself, and falls into his open grave, leaving Conchubor with nothing. ===== In an unidentified, vaguely totalitarian future, Detective Stephen Grant (Bokeem Woodbine) investigates a series of strange murders; his partner is killed by a pale man in black who can survive bullet wounds, tosses Grant through a window, and climb up walls like a reptile. After Grant reports the incident, his superiors introduce him to another officer, Aaron Gray (Adrian Paul). Grant learns that vampires exist—Gray is one of them—and plan to gradually integrate themselves with the rest of humanity. One of these vampires is responsible for the murders and the other vampires want to help catch the perpetrator. Aiding the officers is a female vampire named Lucy Westenra (played by Bai Ling). Lucy Westenra and Detective Grant eventually become lovers and this complicates the lives of the police officer and the beautiful female vampire as later circumstances seem to implicate everyone's hidden agenda, betrayal, and deception. All the various human and vampire characters seem to be up to something sneaky and questionable as the movie progresses. In absolute secrecy, humans have created a virus that is capable of killing only vampires while leaving humanity unharmed. The virus is made as a failsafe device, in case the plan to coexist between vampires and humans fails. Hidden in a veil of deceit, the elder vampire makes a cynical plan to eradicate humanity if they won't take the cure made from vampire blood and become vampire themselves. The vampire leader believed that as long as humans and vampires remain separate races, there will always be conflict and warfare. He forces the creator of the vampire virus to alter the nature of the virus, making it deadly to humans and not to vampires. The virus creator, Dr. Fleming, doesn't seem to need all that much coercion to make a human biological weapon, as he wanted immortality and the Elder vampire was all too happy to manipulate him. Dr. Fleming pulls a gun and tries to eliminate the police officers when they discover his collaboration with the vampire leader. The vampire leader kills Fleming to silence him when the plot starts to unravel. A renegade vampire resistance leader mistrusts human- vampire cooperation and would use any excuse to start his human-vampire war to determine who would control the world. On the government side, Seward also mistrusts coexistence and would later order government troops to set up an ambush to attack the vampire migrants, and the vampire police force escorting them. Only due to the trust between the human police officers and their vampire allies is the deadly virus plot brought to an end. The subplot of the vampire renegade leader and the overly zealous government agent Seward were also resolved without a bloody war. The high-ranking government director ordered Seward to stand down his troops. It's also implied that the surviving vampire leadership reined in the wild vampire renegades with vampire police forces. Human Detective Grant and Vampire Officer Grey become permanent police partners at the end of the movie. Grant and Lucy Westenra seem to have become a romantic couple, and he even moves into her luxurious mansion. ===== Tom Turner, a con artist, is arrested for working cons, something he is doing to pay off his gambling debt to a loan shark. He is sentenced by the judge to find a full-time job by the end of the year and keep it, or be sent to jail. Tom finds work at the post office sorting mail in the dead letter office. Surrounded by quirky coworkers, Tom finds out what happens to letters addressed to the Easter Bunny, Elvis Presley, and God, and out of curiosity reads one of the letters sent to God. While reading the letter, sent by a needy single mother, Tom accidentally drops his paycheck; it is mailed back to the single mother. When Tom comes to retrieve his paycheck, he sees the good it has done and leaves, not knowing that a burnt-out workaholic lawyer coworker has seen him doing so. Believing Tom sent the money on purpose, the co-worker rallies the rest of the dead letter office workers to continue what Tom has started. Tom, becoming the unwilling leader of the group, starts answering more and more letters sent to the post office asking God for help. Hilarity ensues as the group answers more prayers, enriching people's lives, while Tom tries to find love with a coffee bar waitress and keep out of jail. ===== Joe MacGonaughgill (Eric Schaeffer) and Lucy Ackerman (Sarah Jessica Parker) are roommates and best friends living in a small Manhattan apartment. Lucy is turning thirty and her love life is embarrassingly dull. Joe on the other hand is infatuated with his attractive neighbor Jane (Elle Macpherson). Lucy then decides to form a death pact with Joe like they'd had back in college. If they do not both find true love by the time Lucy turns thirty, then they will both jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. Jane comes to an artwork show of Joe's where Joe finally gathers up the courage to ask her out, while Lucy begins dating Bwick Elias (Ben Stiller), a weirdo artist who paints with his own body parts. Joe soon realizes that Jane isn't who he thought she ought to be. Bwick also turns out to be "no Joe" for Lucy. It is at this point that Joe and Lucy realize that they are perfect for each other. ===== One morning, a dog named Zeus goes to the pier, spots a dolphin, and becomes fascinated by its movements. Afterwards, he returns home to his owner, Terry Barnett, an aspiring musician, and his son, Jordan, who appears to be taking care of him. Later that morning, Zeus chases a cat and subsequently destroys the outdoor garden of Mary Beth Dunhill, a marine biologist and the Barnetts' next-door neighbor. Terry calms Zeus down and apologizes to Mary Beth, although she is agitated by him. Mary Beth later goes to her workplace and is followed by Zeus, who notices her photo of the same dolphin from earlier. Upon arriving, she is met by her research partner, Becky, and her rival, Claude Carver. Mary Beth and Becky travel out to the ocean on a boat to follow the dolphin they are researching, whom they name Roxanne, and Zeus stows away with them. However, while in the middle of the ocean, he slips off. Roxanne saves him from a shark and gives him a ride back to the boat on her back, which surprises and fascinates Mary Beth and Becky, who find that Zeus and Roxanne can do "inter-species communication". While stopping over on the way home with Zeus, Mary Beth spots her two impossible daughters, Judith and Nora, skating against her wishes. Arriving home, she asks Jordan if she could borrow Zeus for her research on Roxanne, who she hopes to release back into the wild. Jordan agrees, and he and Terry accompany her on her research. During the following days, Terry begins to fall in love with Mary Beth as he manages to find inspiration for his music, while Jordan bonds with Judith and Nora. After Terry saves Judith and Nora while they are skating in a factory, Mary Beth asks him out on a date. After spending the night at a local beachside resort, they awkwardly kiss. Meanwhile, Claude, wanting research grant money to come to his research and not Mary Beth's, tries to steal hers, but winds up getting comically thwarted by Zeus. Then, he tries gaining the lead in her interspecies communication study, although his attempts to have one of his research dolphins bond with another animal fail one after another. Through the conniving of Jordan, Judith, and Nora, Terry decides to move into Mary Beth's house with Jordan and Zeus, but after seeing a photo of his late wife, he decides to pursue his original plan of traveling to another town to continue writing his music. This causes both Zeus and Roxanne distress. While staying at a hotel with his owners, Zeus runs away back to Mary Beth's research center. Noticing his disappearance and realizing where he was going, Terry and Jordan return to town, while Mary Beth uses a submersible to go down and investigate the seabed after Claude claims Roxanne was caught in an illegal fishing net and killed. Zeus returns to the research center, where he is captured by Claude, who intends to use him as bait to lure out Roxanne, who is in fact alive, and capture her. However, Zeus and Roxanne work together to trap him and his assistant in a net, where they are arrested by police. While exploring the seabed, Mary Beth's submersible's propeller is tangled in the fishing nets, and when she opens the main hatch thinking she'd escape through it, water begins flooding the interior. Roxanne leads Terry to Mary Beth, and he manages to free her from the trapped submersible. Afterwards, Jordan, Judith, and Nora convince him to marry her. During the wedding, she is given a grant for her research on Zeus and Roxanne. Immediately afterwards, a pod of dolphins appears, and Zeus convinces Roxanne to join them. Zeus watches happily with Terry, Mary Beth, Jordan, Judith, and Nora as Roxanne leaps into the air with the pod. ===== ===== On November 5, 1699, Lemuel Gulliver washes onto the beach of Lilliput after a storm at sea and ultimate shipwreck. Following the calm of the storm, the town crier Gabby stumbles across Gulliver in terror ("All's Well") and rushes back to Lilliput to warn King Little of a "giant on the beach". As this is happening, King Little of Lilliput and King Bombo of Blefescu are signing a wedding contract between their children, Princess Glory and Prince David of Blefuscu, respectively. All is fine until an argument starts over which national anthem is to be played at the wedding; the anthem of Lilliput ("Faithful") or the anthem of Blefuscu ("Forever)." In fury, King Bombo cancels the wedding and declares war against Liliput. He quickly regrets this decision and decides that he should apologize and call off the war, until Gabby finally makes his way to warn King Little and one of the Lilliputian guards accidentally grabs King Bombo. Gabby tells King Little of the "giant", and leads a mob to the beach to capture him. There, the Lilliputians tie Gulliver to a wagon on which they convey him to the town. The next morning, Gulliver awakens and breaks himself free. The Lilliputians are terrified until the Blefuscuian forces arrive in Lilliput, and they hesitate to attack due to his size. Realizing that they can use Gulliver as a weapon against the Lilliputians, they start to treat him with hospitality and they even make him a new set of clothes. (It's A Hap-Hap Happy Day) Back in Blefuscu, King Bombo is embarrassed by the defeat, and orders his three spies in Lilliput, Sneak, Snoop and Snitch, to get rid of that Giant "or else." Meanwhile, in celebration of the defeat, the Lilliputians treat Gulliver to dinner and a show (Bluebirds in the Moonlight). When the Lilliputians fall asleep after the show, Gulliver walks to the shore when he notices that his pistol has been taken. When he arrives at the shore, Gulliver feels homesick of his life as a sailor while singing "I Hear A Dream (Come Home)" After some horseplay with Gabby, the hideout where the three Blefuscuian spies are positioned catches on fire, and Gulliver rushes to put it out. Afterward, Gabby overhears Prince David singing a reprise of "Forever" to Princess Glory, and orders his guards to attack the "spy". Noticing this, Gulliver picks up David and Glory in his hand and they tell him of the war's cause. Gulliver suggests that they combine "Faithful" and "Forever" into one song. In Blefuscu, Bombo receives a message from his spies assuring that Gulliver will soon be a "dead duck", and announces by carrier pigeon he will attack at dawn. Gabby intercepts this message and warns the Lilliputians. Because of this, the spies aren't aware of the attack until they capture Gabby as the Lilliputians are marching to the beach (We're All Together Now) and they hastily prepare Gulliver's pistol. As the Blefuscuian fleet approaches Lilliput, Gulliver demands they lay down their arms and settle their matters peacefully. When they continue shooting, he ties the Blefuscuian together using their anchors and draws them disarmed to shore. The spies aim and fire at Gulliver from a cliff, but Prince David diverts the shot and, while doing so, falls to his apparent death. Using David's body to illustrate his point, Gulliver scolds both Lilliput and Blefuscu for their futile fighting when they solemnize a truce. Gulliver reveals that David is unharmed, whereupon David and Glory sing their combined song for everyone to hear. ("Faithful Forever") The spies release Gabby from the sack. Both sides thereafter build a new ship for Gulliver on which he departs, and he sails off into the sunset on the ocean. ===== Reese Holdin (Deschanel) is a depressed bartender/actress living in New York City. She regularly engages in casual sex, cocaine use and self-harm. When a publishing agent (Amy Madigan) approaches her, we learn that Reese is the daughter of a famous author named Don Holdin (Harris) and that her mother, Mary, recently died. Reese did not attend the funeral. The publisher offers Reese $100,000 for a series of letters written between her mother and father at the height of their careers. When Reese learns that the kitten she rescued from the streets is dying of feline leukemia, she drowns it and buys a bus ticket to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to retrieve the letters. Returning to her childhood home, she finds it occupied by Corbit (Ferrell), a down-and-out Christian musician, and Shelly (Warner), a 23-year-old former student of Don's. Reese's father now lives, writes and drinks in his garage. Reese initially clashes with the doting Shelly (whom she accuses of sleeping with her father) but eventually accepts her after learning of the death of her parents and of Don's support of her during a near-fatal illness endometriosis. She also bonds with the idiosyncratic Corbit, who spurns her sexual advances and has trouble playing guitar and singing at the same time. She feels out of place at home and fights with her father over childhood neglect, stating that her parents gave their typewriters more attention. She eventually finds the box of letters and, reading the emotional communiques, learns to empathize with her estranged parents. Shelly has also read the letters and asks Reese if she intends to publish them. Reese expresses ambiguity over the matter. Don is still grieving over his wife's death. He keeps the tie she hanged herself with in a dresser in the backyard along with the rest of their bedroom suite, including their bed. He sometimes sleeps in the bed despite the bitter cold of winter. Reese starts to connect with Corbit and Shelly and is honest with her father about her reasons for staying away from the funeral. Soon after, Don overdoses on sleeping pills and Reese finds him unconscious. He recovers in the hospital, where Reese sits by his bed and reads his latest manuscript, Golf, which he had Corbit bury in the yard. The experience helps the father and daughter find closure, and Reese buries the box of letters in place of the novel before returning to New York. ===== Christina Papadopoulos (Claudia Karvan) is a sweet and well-meaning 22-year-old school teacher, engaged to ambitious lawyer Dimitri (Steve Bastoni). Christina's entire future seems planned out for her—albeit planned by her fiancé, her father and her priest. Lively 17-year-old Nick Polides (Alex Dimitriades) is a student in Christina's Greek class. Nick finds himself attracted to Christina and makes numerous passes at her which she rebuffs off. But her resistance begins to crumble as both begin to rebel against the constricting Greek-Australian cultural restraints put upon them. When Christina becomes the manager of the school's newly formed soccer team, she and Nick begin to spend more time together outside of school hours. Though Christina is initially hesitant at Nick's continuous advances, she soon gives into impulses and engages in an illicit consensual relationship with Nick. She uses the house left by her friend for rendezvous with Nick outside school hours. Their amorous relationship progresses fast as they fall in love with each other. But as the news of their relationship leaks out, Christina faces severe shaming at her workplace. She is further berated by Nick's father for breaking the trust placed upon her as a teacher. Her fian‌‌‌‌ce comes to know of the relationship and gives her a choice that he's willing to let the matter slide if she promises to act as if her past with Nick never occurred. But Christina,by then very much in love with Nick and tired of her overbearing fiancé, breaks off the engagement and leaves to meet up with Nick. She tells Nick of her decision to leave Dimitri and mentions that she would be pursuing degree for a year until Nick graduates. An overjoyed Nick readily agrees and promises to meet up after a year. The film ends on a positive note with their kiss and soccer-play under the sun. ===== The corrupt Sheikh Sazabiss has abducted Princess Lurana, and he is utilizing every unscrupulous means of power he has at his disposal to achieve his ultimate ambition of conquering the world. The quartet of valiant and fearless warriors bravely come face-to-face with Sazabiss. As they battle to save Lurana, the foursome, freely using magic, their most prized possession, journey to the castle of Sazabiss to save the princess and the planet. ===== Fletch, a reporter in Los Angeles for the Los Angeles Times, is contacted by the executor of his late aunt's will, attorney Amanda Ray Ross. Ross informs Fletch he has inherited his aunt's 80-acre plantation, Belle Isle, in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Upon arriving, Fletch is disappointed to find the mansion terribly dilapidated, but he agrees to keep on its caretaker, Calculus Entropy. Fletch has dinner with Ross at her home, and she tells him of an anonymous $225,000 bid for Belle Isle. Fletch awakens the next morning to find Ross dead. Fletch is charged with Ross' murder and taken into custody, nearly being raped by his cellmate Ben Dover, spared only because Dover is released on bail. Dover's lawyer Hamilton "Ham" Johnson manages to get Fletch released. When Fletch declines a second, even larger offer of $250,000 for Belle Isle, this time presented by realtor Becky Culpepper, he starts getting harassed. First, a hired group of Ku Klux Klansmen harasses him. Then, an arsonist burns down the mansion. Finally, Ben Dover tries to kill Fletch during a raccoon hunt with some locals. Fletch discovers the land on Belle Isle is polluted by toxic waste. He determines to uncover the identity of the anonymous buyer, whom he suspects is attempting to intimidate him into selling. He learns the local megachurch, Farnsworth Ministries, is interested in obtaining the Belle Isle property. Fletch investigates televangelist Jimmy Lee Farnsworth, and discovers Farnsworth's daughter is Becky Culpepper. The toxic chemicals in the soil of Belle Isle are traced back to Bly Bio, a chemical waste facility in Mississippi. Fletch obtains an invoice from the plant's manager, which proves that Ham Johnson ordered the waste dumped on the Belle Isle land. Fletch confronts Ham with the evidence at a costume party fundraiser hosted by Ham at his home. Ham admits he polluted Belle Isle out of revenge for the way he feels Farnsworth took advantage of Ham's mother shortly before she died. Farnsworth persuaded her in her confused mental state to give away her valuable land, on which the church then built a profitable amusement park. Ham intended to devalue the land owned by Farnsworth Ministries. He killed Ross when she realized his plan. Becky is captured by Dover and brought to Ham's mansion, and Ham orders Dover to kill Fletch and her. Fletch creates a distraction by spilling out the urn containing Ham's mother's ashes, and Becky and he escape. They flee to the Farnsworth Ministries church nearby, interrupting a televised service in progress. Ham follows them, intending to kill Fletch, but Ham is shot by Calculus. Afterwards, Calculus reveals himself to be FBI Special Agent Goldstein working undercover as part of an investigation of Farnsworth Ministries' financial dealings. Returning to Los Angeles with Becky, Fletch is thrown a welcome home party by his co-workers and receives a $100,000 insurance claim check for the mansion fire. His ex-wife's alimony lawyer, Melvyn Gillette, appears, offering to forego all future alimony payments in exchange for the Belle Isle property. Fletch happily signs over the polluted land. ===== Joe is a newly divorced, single dad in his forties living in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Though he makes a decent living working as a casino pit boss, and loves the time he is getting to spend with his son, he still longs to start a new relationship. So Joe decides to explore the world of online dating, and while in a chatroom meets a Pittsburgh woman in her twenties who calls herself "sexykitten." After a few months of exchanging messages, they meet in person. When she arrives at the airport, Joe learns that her real name is Tanya Sullivan and Joe is instantly attracted to her. She also reveals that she is married and has a young daughter. However, both Joe and Tanya don't care. Through several months the relationship grows from hot, passionate sex, into what Joe believes is love. During those months, they continue meeting and Tanya sends Joe pornographic videos of herself. The relationship seems to be going great, until one day Tanya drops a bombshell. She's pregnant with what she believes is Joe's baby. After she tells Joe of her pregnancy, Joe tries to convince Tanya to leave her husband to come and live with him. But Tanya refuses the offer, saying her husband is very dangerous and would never let that happen. Meanwhile, Joe starts to receive threatening emails supposedly sent by Tanya's husband mocking him and saying he knows all about the affair. Joe asks Tanya to take pictures of the physical abuse that her husband allegedly causes. It's not long before another bombshell is dropped. Tanya tells him that because of her infidelity, her husband and his buddies have beaten her and raped her by the pool behind the house, in the process making her lose the baby, or so Joe thinks. At this point Joe can't take it anymore. With the blessing of Tanya, who provides directions, he plots and sets out to kill Tanya's husband at his auto repair shop where he succeeds in shooting him to death late one night. During the weeks following the murder, the relationship between Joe and Tanya disintegrates. She refuses to answer his emails and in fact deletes the file on her computer that contains his messages. So Joe decides to investigate. He travels to Pittsburgh again. There he figures out that everything that Tanya has been telling him is a lie. Tanya was never pregnant (Joe failed to notice an ultrasound tape given to him by Tanya during the supposed pregnancy was actually ten years old and had been recorded while Tanya was pregnant with her daughter). Her husband never abused her. There is no pool behind the house where she was allegedly raped. Meanwhile, she has refurnished the house with new furniture from her husband's life insurance policy. And worst of all, Tanya has a new boyfriend. Joe is devastated. He returns to Atlantic City where he falls into a deep depression. He starts to drink again, which results in Joe's son leaving to go live with his mom. Joe finally decides to take his own life. In his suicide note, Joe instructs his friend Paula to make sure a case under his bed gets to the police in Pittsburgh. Armed with the evidence Joe has left for them, the police arrest Tanya, and is eventually convicted of first-degree conspiracy to commit murder. ===== The novel follows the childhood of Laura Timmins in the small rural northern Oxfordshire hamlet of 'Lark Rise' and the surrounding countryside. It is a part-lyrical, part-documentary portrait of the actual hamlet, Juniper Hill, where the author was born. ===== At the beginning of the story, the protagonist (Iason Philippou) is exploring various parallel universes. Before the story began, he had visited our world's United States of which he had a very bad impression, considering it "a sick culture". He then come to the timeline where most of the plot is set. In that timeline, Christian Western Europe was overwhelmed in the tenth century by the combined onslaught of the Scandinavian Vikings from the north, the Magyars from the east and the Arabs from the south. Afterwards, the Arab Caliphate disintegrated in internal discord while the Vikings and Magyars, who kept their original religions, dominated Europe and eventually colonized North America. They developed a high technology, including nuclear energy, while keeping much of their Medieval culture and social structures. This North America, divided into numerous independent principalities, is much more sparsely populated than in our world, with large tracts of virtually untouched nature. While being social inferiors to the Scandinavians and Magyars, Native Americans in this timeline seem to have fared better than in our history. The story beings with Iason on the run, wanted in a Scandinavian realm where he had been a guest and where he had committed an unspecified offence serious enough to justify his being killed out of hand if caught. He makes his way to a Magyar realm where he asks for refuge. While Iason stays there, a Native American woman attempts to seduce him - but he refuses, stating that he is "under vow." In fact, he is in hurry to meet the local Magyar ruler and get his firm vow that he would not be extradited, before his Scandinavian pursuers had the chance to talk to the Magyar. This caution was well founded - after talking to his Scandinavian counterpart, the Magyar ruler is furious with Iason, saying "You have sucked my vow out of me, if I had known what you had done I would have killed you myself!". However, the vow is unbreakable, and Iason gets transport to where he could finally get to back to his home universe - the self-styled "Eutopia" which gives the story its name, an Earth where classical Greece came to dominate the planet. He checks in with a superior (Daimonax) and complains of the barbarism of the people he has encountered, but Daimonax contradicts him, stating that people have different views on what it means to be civilized, and that Eutopia's carefully planned society may have lost the simple pleasures of life. The story ends as it is revealed that Iason had seduced and slept with a young boy (the son of his Scandinavian earlier host) before the opening of the story. The Scandinavian and Magyar culture have a strong taboo against homosexuality while Iason's world has kept the Classical Greek attitudes. At the conclusion it turns out that the "Niki" to whom the protagonist's thoughts keep turning is the nickname of Nikias, a young boy in Eutopia who is Iason's lover. ===== An elderly woman becomes obsessed with her tenant, Mr. Morrison — who may be more than she had imagined. ===== The play takes place over a period of two years in the 1960s in the staffroom at a Cambridge school for teaching English to foreigners. It deals with the interrelationship between seven teachers at the school, in particular that between St John Quartermaine and the others. The dominant theme is loneliness, and during the course of the play all of the characters experience the trauma of being or feeling alone. Mark’s wife leaves him; Derek, from Hull, finds Cambridge initially unwelcoming; Eddie is ultimately bereaved by the loss of a partner; Anita’s husband is a philanderer; Henry is trapped in a dysfunctional nuclear family and Melanie is similarly trapped caring for a mother whom she despises. Quartermaine is a painfully lonely bachelor, seemingly with no friends other than his colleagues at the school. Whilst the play is at times highly comic, it has a very serious theme; and the struggles of each character with their own types of loneliness are moving and sad. Above all, Quartermaine himself is an increasingly pathetic figure lost in his own confused thoughts – and ultimately deserted. His future as the play closes is poignantly bleak. ===== An Earthman visits the planet Vexvelt, which is shunned by the rest of the colonized universe for unknown reasons. He finds it a utopian paradise, but then discovers to his shock and horror that incest is actively encouraged there. ===== The Death and Glories are bored because the salvage business is in decline on the Broads. They see a boat being loaded for delivery to the Lake in the North where the Swallows, Amazons and Ds have their adventures, and Joe (without consulting Bill or Pete) decides that they will go along for the ride to see the Lake. They get left behind at a stop near the Lake, make their way to the lake, and find that the lorry has already left for Norfolk and they have no way to get home. They meet the owner of the boat who takes them to find the Ds. They encounter the Swallows, Amazons and Ds sailing on the lake and make an attempt to rescue Nancy after her boat capsizes. At this point the story as published ends, though notes indicate that Ransome was struggling to develop a suitable plot line and a way of arranging for the Death and Glories to get home without their impoverished parents having to pay the fare. Various scenarios are mentioned, including the salvage of Captain Flint's houseboat when its anchor chain breaks in a squall. In gratitude Captain Flint pays for their return journey and gives them a reward. In 2011 the Arthur Ransome Society's journal Mixed Moss held a competition for the best outline of a plot to complete the book, but (writing in 2014) no author has yet been commissioned by Ransome's estate to do so. ===== The episode begins like no other: not with a death, but with a birth. Willa Fisher Chenowith is born prematurely, and Brenda is plagued by visions of Nate, who vicariously conveys Brenda's internal fears that the child will not survive and insists that he cannot accept it if she does make it and that she is "damaged." Ruth stays by Brenda's side during Willa's recovery and stops fighting to keep Maya with her. Brenda later has a vision of Nate and Nathaniel holding Willa, with Nate showing his love for both Brenda and their daughter, suggesting that Brenda is finally positive for Willa's health and welfare. Ruth sinks even deeper into her depression when Brenda takes Maya back. George tries to comfort her and promises he will help her get through it. Ruth is helped by a phone call to Maggie when she tells Ruth that Nate was happy the night he suffered his ultimately fatal stroke. Claire gets back into photography with Ted's help, and later receives a phone call from a stock photography company in New York saying they have a position for her as a photographer's assistant. She later finds out that Olivier recommended her for the position. After finding her mother crying, she says she will stay at home to help her, but Ruth insists that she move to New York so she will not regret it later. Ruth also unfreezes the trust fund set up by her father. Claire later finds out that the photo company consolidated its operations and her position is no longer available. As she considers calling off her trip, Nate tells her she needs to go to start a new life in New York anyway, as he did years earlier when he moved to Seattle with no guarantee of employment. As per Keith's suggestion, David agrees to temporarily leave home so he can recover from the loss of his brother, and returns to the funeral home. During a nightmare, he is confronted by Nathaniel about considering leaving the business and his sexuality. He is then confronted by the attacker in a red hooded sweater that has plagued his recent thoughts. This time, David fights back and finally sees his own face, allowing him to let go of his past. Rico, disillusioned by the direction Fisher and Diaz have been taking, encourages David to sell the funeral home as he has had the business valued and realizes that his 25% share is worth $500,000, which he and Vanessa want to use to buy their own funeral home. David initially agrees, but changes his mind after having a vision of his father Nathaniel telling him that the business is his birthright. Instead, David and Keith buy out Rico's 25% share using Keith's life savings, freeing the Diaz family to pursue their own venture. Brenda also agrees to give David and Keith as much time as they need to buy her share, which she inherited from Nate. Keith and David move into the funeral home with their sons Durell and Anthony and redecorate it. Ruth initially plans to move in with George but changes her mind and instead moves in with her sister while continuing her relationship with George in separate residences. Nate visits Claire one last time as she prepares to leave for New York. The extended Fisher family (with the exception of the Diaz family who have their own family dinner to celebrate the buyout) has a farewell dinner for Claire where they reminisce about Nate, telling stories and toasting Nate's memory. The next morning, Claire has a tearful goodbye with her family and drives off into her future. The episode ends with flash-forwards to milestone events in the main characters' subsequent lives and, ultimately, their deaths. The montage, set to Sia's "Breathe Me", is intercut with views of Claire driving out of Los Angeles. In the flash-forwards, Ruth is seen enjoying life in Topanga; David teaches Durrell about embalming; the extended Fisher family celebrates Willa's birthday; and David and Keith get married. Ruth dies in 2025 of old age in the hospital, with David, Claire, and George at her side. She sees her deceased husband Nathaniel and son Nate before she dies. Ted shows up unannounced at Ruth's funeral; Claire and Ted later get married. Keith is shot and killed in 2029 by robbers while exiting an armored truck owned by his self-named security firm. At a family function in 2044, David dies of a heart attack after seeing a vision of a young Keith smiling at him. While on a cruise with his wife in 2049, Rico has a heart attack and collapses. Brenda dies of old age in 2051 at her home while her brother Billy talks to her about Claire and Ted. Finally, in 2085, having outlived them all, Claire dies at the age of 102 in her own home, with photographs of the Fisher family adorning her walls. ===== Sylvia Mark is a thirteen-year-old girl who feels like an outcast from the other kids her age. She skipped two grades, is amazingly strong, and has Olympic-level gymnastic agility. Sylvia also feels incomplete, and occasionally has strange dreams. Night after night these dreams seem to be harbingers of something dark. What she does not know is that she is just one of one hundred girls created as part of a genetics experiment, each with their own superpowers. Eight girls were taken out of the facility, and grew up secretly across the country; Sylvia was one of them. ===== The story spans two parts titled "Afghanistan's Plains" and "Black Arrow" (after a monologue in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit) each consisting of three issues and centers around a Russian Spetsnaz colonel. In the first part the colonel leads a Russian team investigating a plane crash in Afghanistan. Violence soon erupts after first British and then American military forces become involved in the investigation. In the aftermath, the colonel helps a wounded British Special Air Service trooper who translates a document found on the plane. The document suggests that there is a high-level conspiracy in the United States; that the global war on terror was started in order to facilitate the west taking over the oil-rich Middle East. In the second part the colonel travels alone to the United States in order to carry out a self-assigned mission, where he first faces a sheriff troubled by the loss of his wife because of the deficiency of their insurance. The story also focuses on the problems of illegal Mexican immigrants apparently exploited at a slaughterhouse called "McHell". The Colonel eventually assassinates the President of the United States with the intention of stopping the Global War on Terror, using a Lee–Enfield rifle using only iron sights, firing from behind a closed window. ===== On the way to Chennai, Bala's (Srikanth) bag and certificates get stolen in the train. But he has a look about him that endears him to a petty shop owner Sundaram (Haneefa), who provides him accommodation along with a few bachelors (Vaiyapuri, Shyam Ganesh and Sukran) in the top portion of his house. Malar (Trisha) stays opposite this house and the bachelors are crazy about her. They are scared if the handsome and generous Bala will try to woo her and so they hatch a plot and frame him, so that Malar's two brothers beat him up black and blue. Three strangers, who claim to be his true friends from Hyderabad, save an unconscious Bala. Now the true identity of Bala is told in a flashback by these friends, that he is a rich son of an industrialist (Rajeev and Fathima Babu). Malar saves Bala from an accident and soon they are in love. But her brothers take her back to Chennai, as her sister had already eloped with someone. The brothers do not want her to commit the same mistake and make her promise that she will only marry someone of their choice. Also it is revealed that Malar is suffering from some brain disease and will die soon. Knowing this only, Bala has come to stay opposite her house with the hope of seeing and making her happy till the end. Malar's health condition worsens and gets admitted to hospital with minimal chances of survival. Bala leaves the hospital crying as he does not want to see Malar die in front of him. The movie ends there. ===== Buster (Buster Keaton), a sidewalk tintype portrait photographer in New York City, develops a crush on Sally (Marceline Day), a secretary who works for MGM Newsreels. To be near her, he purchases an old film camera, emptying his bank account, and attempts to get a job as one of MGM's filmers. Harold (Harold Goodwin), an MGM cameraman who has designs on Sally himself, mocks his ambition. Sally, however, encourages Buster and suggests he film anything and everything. Buster's first attempts show his total lack of experience. He double exposes or over exposes much of the footage, and the rest is simply no good. Despite this setback, Sally agrees to go out with Buster, after her Sunday date cancels. They go to the city plunge (pool), where Buster gets involved in numerous mishaps. Later, Harold offers Sally a ride home; Buster has to sit in the rumble seat, where he gets drenched in the rain. The next day, Sally gives him a hot tip she has just received that something big is going to happen in Chinatown. In his rush to get there, he accidentally runs into an organ grinder, who falls and apparently kills his monkey. A nearby cop makes Buster pay for the monkey and take its body with him. The monkey turns out only to be dazed and joins Buster on his venture. In Chinatown, Buster films the outbreak of a Tong War, narrowly escaping death on several occasions. At the end, he is rescued from Tong members by the timely arrival of the police, led by a cop (Harry Gribbon) who had been the unintentional victim of several of Buster's antics over the last few days. The cop tries to have him committed to the mental hospital, but Buster makes his escape with his camera intact. Returning to MGM, Buster and the newsreel company's boss are dismayed to find that he apparently forgot to load film into his camera. When Sally finds herself in trouble for giving Buster the tip, Buster offers to make amends by leaving MGM alone once and for all. Buster returns to his old job, but does not give up on filming, setting up to record a boat race. He then discovers that he has Tong footage after all; the mischievous monkey had switched the reels. Sally and Harold are speeding along in one of the boats. When Harold makes too sharp a turn, the two are thrown into the river. Harold saves himself, but Sally is trapped by the circling boat. Buster stops filming to jump in and rescues her. The monkey gets behind the camera to film the daring rescue. When Buster rushes to a drug store to get medical supplies to revive her, Harold returns and takes credit for the rescue. The two go off, leaving the broken-hearted Buster behind. Buster decides to send his Tong footage to MGM free of charge. The boss decides to screen it for Harold and Sally for laughs, but is thrilled by what he sees, calling it the best camerawork he has seen in years. They also see footage of Buster's boat footage and the monkey's shot of Buster's rescue of Sally. The boss sends Sally to get Buster. She tells him he is in for a great reception. Buster assumes a ticker-tape parade is in his honor, whereas it is really for Charles Lindbergh. ===== Santosh (Siddharth) is a rich city boy born to millionaire parents Janaki (Geetha) and Prakash (Prakash Raj) and brought up in London. On the other hand, Siri (Trisha) is a traditional, simple, rural girl from Andhra Pradesh who is brought up by her only brother Sivaramakrishna (Srihari). He is heartbroken when their father marries another woman and throws them out of the house, humiliating them on the way. Their mother dies, and her tomb is built on the small land which they, own until the Zamindar Narasimha (Narsing Yadav) tells them that it is his land, since their mother had taken a loan from the man. Sivaramakrishna volunteers to work day and night to pay off the loan, as long as they don't tear down his mother's tomb. Narasimha agrees, and the local station master (Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao) helps them. Slowly, Sivaramakrishna and Siri grow up. One day, Lalitha (Veda Sastry), Siri's best friend and Santosh's cousin, comes to their house to invite Siri to their house as she is getting married. Santosh also arrives on the same day with his parents. Slowly, Santosh and Siri fall in love, but Janaki does not bear it as Siri is not as rich as them, and is thus not to their standards. Santosh is also to be married to Janaki's elder brother Srinivasa Rao's (Tanikella Bharani) business partner's (Jaya Prakash Reddy) daughter Dolly (Nanditha). Janaki humiliates Siri as well as Sivaramakrishna, who arrives a minute before, and both are thrown of the house after Janaki accuses them of trying to entice and trap Santosh. When Santosh learns of this, he goes to Siri's house and pleads to her brother to accept him. Sivaramakrishna gives him a chance, just like he was given a chance by Narasimha when he was little. Santosh is tasked to take care of the cows, clean up after them, and grow more crops than Sivaramakrishna by the end of the season; if he does not, Santosh will be thrown out of the village and can never see Siri again. Narasimha and his son (Ajay) are not happy as Narasimha's son wanted to marry Siri. With them, Dolly, and her father trying to get Santosh to lose the competition, Santosh has to work hard for his love, eating red chillies and rice everyday, even though he can't bear it. Through many antics from Narasimha's and Dolly's side, Santosh eventually proves his love for Siri to Sivaramakrishna, and succeeds in growing more grains. However, Narasimha and his son kidnap Siri and then try to rape her. A fight takes place in which Santosh kills Narasimha's son while Sivaramakrishna violently defeats Santosh's uncle's business partner and Narasimha. After realizing that Santosh and Siri should be together, Sivaramakrishna takes the blame for this murder and spends five years in prison. The movie ends with Sivaramakrishna's release from prison, which is also when Siri and Santosh get married, in everyone's presence. Janaki then accepts Siri to be her daughter- in-law ends story ===== The novel is set in Bath, Somerset and centres on two main characters: Miss Abigail Wendover and Mr Miles Calverleigh. At the beginning of the novel, Abigail's niece Fanny claims to have formed a mutual "lasting attachment" with Stacey Calverleigh, to Abigail's dismay. Stacey is reputed to be a "gamester", a "loose fish", and a "gazetted fortune-hunter" -- that is, he has a gambling habit, is a libertine, and is on the look-out for a wealthy marriage. Abigail enlists the assistance of Stacey's cousin, Miles Calverleigh, to prevent a clandestine marriage between Stacey and Fanny. Miles is the black sheep of the Calverleigh family, but Abigail finds herself attracted to his wit and unconventionality. ===== The story tells the life histories about Saint Peter and Paul of Tarsus after the crucifixion of Jesus, and their individual fates in old Rome in the time of the persecution of Christians. Events in the New Testament Book of Acts by Luke and in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius are dramatized and interwoven with the contrasting histories of political intrigues in the public and private lives of the Caesars from Tiberius through Nero related in The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, together with the fictional drama of the lives of two Jews and two Romans: Caleb the Zealot and his sister Sarah, and Julius Valerius the Imperial Guard and Corinna the patrician woman who has chosen to be a gladiator. After Caleb is condemned to be crucified, his mother is murdered when Roman soldiers carry out Pilate's orders to have Caleb's sisters Sarah and Ruth sent to Sejanus in Rome as "gifts". Caleb is rescued on the way to execution, and goes to Rome to find them. He enlists as a gladiator, takes the name "Metellus", meets and falls in love with Corinna, and is trained as a retiarius. Meanwhile, Ruth, grieving, provokes a Roman soldier to kill her during the voyage to Rome, and Sarah is made a slave in Sejanus' household, until he is executed for treason, and she then becomes part of Caligula's household. Tiberius, after ordering the execution of Sejanus, was himself secretly assassinated by Caligula, who has now become Caesar. Julius Valerius, having met Sarah on Sejanus' estate, has fallen in love with her, and when she is put on the slave block to be sold as part of an imperial fund-raising effort he, with the financial help of his parents and additional funds provided by Aquilla and Priscilla, Jewish tent-makers, buys her for himself and frees her to become his wife. Caleb is informed that Sarah is alive, but he is scandalized that she has married a Roman soldier. He meets Valerius and is soon confronted with the fact that he himself loves a Roman woman, now disinherited and disowned by her father. Valerius and Caleb participate in the plot to assassinate Caligula, and the stammering Claudius (found hiding) is hailed as the new Caesar. He expels the Jews from Rome, but Sarah is exempt as the wife of a Roman. Caleb/Metellus and Corinna also remain. Aquilla and Priscilla return to Jerusalem. Soon afterward Claudius is poisoned by Agrippina after having designated her son Nero as successor over his own son Britannicus, and she herself is then killed by order of Nero. Caleb later marries Corinna near her parents' estate under the open sky with "only God as the witnessing Rabbi". The missionary Paul is arrested and Julius Valerius is tasked with escorting the prisoner to Rome; then 2 years later he is set free. Valerius and Sarah convert to Christ and soon become parents of a daughter they name Ruth. The burning of Rome is used by Nero at the urging of Tigellinus as a pretext to deflect the blame from himself to the Christians. The dramatization of the persecution that follows includes the inverted crucifixion of Peter, the beheading of Paul, and the preparation of Christian children for the arena being dressed in fresh lambskins and led out to be torn to pieces by Roman war dogs. Caleb and Corinna armed with sword, shield, net and trident rush into the arena to fight the dogs to save the children, several of them being killed before the dogs are slain. The crowd is thrilled with the dramatic rescue. During public announcements of more entertainment to come, Valerius enters and grieves over the death of his daughter, only to find afterward that she is still alive and was never in the arena. In grief and rage over Rome's corruption and cruelty, he renounces his military career and his Roman citizenship, and he and Sarah leave Rome. Linus, long-time family friend of Corinna's, having succeeded Peter, and knowing that Corinna cannot have a child of her own, entrusts a child orphaned by Nero's persecution to her and Caleb, charging them to raise the boy in the faith of his parents. They thank him and depart by ship for Jerusalem. They name him "Joshua". ===== Abhes Balaiya (Suriya), the guide conman thief, is footloose and fancy-free. He and his acolyte Sathyaraj (Sathyan) have no hangups in life. He is also a huge fan of actor Ajith Kumar. Balaiya’s problems start when he and Sathyaraj land up in a huge villa on the beachfront. It is actually actress Jyothika’s (Jyothika) house. When they realize it, they want to replace what they have taken. As it happens, the actress catches them and creates a huge issue out of it. For their efforts, they are put behind bars. Jyothika does not like Balaiya at all. Balaiya goes out to take revenge on her and kidnap her. Just about when the whole industry and her family tries to trace Jyothika, she understands the real Balaiya. In the end, Balaiya comes to see her and gives her a gift, which is the photographs they took together. ===== Following the death of Manu (Resetarits) in a car accident, the film relates the interwoven stories of several people who become indirectly connected by the events and aftermath of the crash. ===== ===== In the 21st century, a blast of cosmic radiation bombarded Terra-12, a deep-space outpost of Earth, hideously mutating all transplanted life. A fleet of savage beings followed the radiation wave and invaded the planet and began the systematic destruction of all remaining sentient life. Years of battling the alien 'governors' have gone by, and now only one hope survives to avenge the desperate terran colonists. ===== During a walk with his girlfriend, the player is ambushed by agents of a mysterious crime syndicate who take his girlfriend away and shoot him to death. Now, as a wandering spirit with the ability to possess most others, he is summoned by his girlfriend's father (who researches ghost energy) and is given a mission to save her from the mysterious crime syndicate that holds her hostage, enabling the player to rest in peace. Screenshot of Avenging Spirit As it turns out, the crime syndicate is also researching ghost energy, and they kidnapped the girl in an effort to force her father to cooperate with them. The player must fight through 6 stages to infiltrate the evil syndicate's base, collecting three keys on stages 2, 5, and 6. If the player has all three keys upon reaching the final leg of Stage 6, he can open the girl's cell and possess her to help her fight her way out. If not, he must abandon her and face the syndicate's leader alone. After the syndicate's leader is defeated, the base blows up, and the player ends up on a grassy field as his spirit's power fades. If the player failed to save the girl she [probably] dies in the explosion and he expects to see her in afterlife as he fades away. If the player did save her, she comes to on said grassy field, and the player expresses a wish for her future happiness as he vanishes. ===== There are two parts to the novel, Iron, and Inconstant Star. In “Iron”, Saxtorph and the Rover, hired by the wealthy Crashlander Laurinda Brozik, set out to explore a newly discovered red dwarf star. When they arrive, they are challenged by a Kzinti warship. Separating the crew onto the shuttles, the Rover is captured and landed on one of the moons. The first shuttle sets on Prima, the first planet, and is held fast by a planet-sized organism that begins dissolving the shuttle. They broadcast for rescue, and are refused help by the Kzin. Meanwhile, helpless to rescue their friends, Robert, Dorcas, and Laurinda make a plan to steal a tug and escape back to friendly space with the news of the Kzin base. Dorcas pilots the tug, and takes out the ship guarding the Rover. Robert and Laurinda land, fight off a Kzinti shuttle, and recover the Rover. They are able to rescue Juan and Carita, and destroy the base with a guided asteroid. In “Inconstant Star”, Saxtorph and crew are hired by Tyra Nordbo to redeem her father's honor, as he was accused of collaboration with the Kzin during their occupation of Wunderland. To do so, they must use notes he had left behind and follow a ship that had left 30 years prior to investigate a concentration of gamma rays. They travel to the coordinates, and find a massive artifact made of an unknown metal. A hole in the spherical artifact is pouring out lethal radiation. As they study it, they learn it is a weapon of the Tnuctip. It is a shell around a “captured” black hole, one that had been holed by a meteorite and is thus releasing the Hawking radiation. They then deduce the route of the original Kzin ship, and head off to the Father Sun, the star of the Kzin homeworld. En route, they locate the Sherrek, where Tyra's father Peter had worked free of his Kzin captors. They rescue him and head back to the artifact. Another Kzin ship, Swordbeak, also finds the old ship. They, too, head to the artifact, and catch the Rover by surprise. Just when all looks lost, Robert and Dorcas conceive a plan to use the artifact's radiation against the Kzin warship. In a last act of defiance, a dying Weoch-Captain activates the artifact's hyperdrive and heads out into unknown space. ===== In the small Canadian Maritimes island town of Wilby, Dan Jarvis (James Allodi), the town's video store owner, is preparing to kill himself by jumping off a bridge; however, the presence of the town's lovable handyman, Walter "Duck" MacDonald (Callum Keith Rennie), stops him from doing so. Dan's next three suicide attempts all kept on getting interrupted. His next attempt is to drown himself by stuffing rocks in his pocket at the shore of Wilby Watch, a large undeveloped area on the island, but is forced to leave when local reporters were there, interviewing local police Stan Lastman (Daniel MacIvor) about a police raid at the Wilby Watch. The local newspaper is planning to publish the names of the men caught during the raid. Dan then tries to give himself carbon monoxide poisoning by stuffing his head into a turned-on oven, but this was also interrupted, this time by Carol French (Sandra Oh), the realtor trying to sell the house. Finally, Dan prepares to hang himself but is forced to stop when he is caught by Jennie (Devon Chisolm), the maid of the motel he was staying. Elsewhere, Buddy (Paul Gross), Carol's husband and Stan's police partner, struggles with discussing his marriage to Carol, and his ongoing affair with Sandra Anderson (Rebecca Jenkins), who is infamous in the town for her reputation as a promiscuous woman. Sandra's teenage daughter, Emily (Ellen Page), quietly observes her mother's behavior, while hoping for a serious romance for herself, different from her mother's history, although she is dating Taylor (Caleb Langille), a boy whose intentions are a bit more basic than the romance Emily hopes for. Emily's no-nonsense and frank best friend, Mackenzie Fisher (Marcella Grimaux) is the daughter of the town's mayor, Brent (Maury Chaykin), who is considering buying Buddy's mother's house (that Carol is selling). While at lunch with Carol's assistant Deena (Kathryn MacLellan), Sandra encounters a woman whose son she went out with in high school (at the same time that he was dating someone else). Duck has been trying to get hold of Dan's location all day, by visiting places he might be around, although it's not clear the nature of his intentions are. Dan himself finds that his estranged wife, Belle, has thrown out all of his possessions out of their once-shared home. Carol realizes the city's big banner on the bridge is written as "Wilby Wonderful" instead of the other way around, and after talking to Deena, confronts Duck about the mistake (several characters later hypothesize that Duck is dyslexic), but then Carol rambles on about her failing marriage. Buddy and Stan are investigating Wilby Watch when Stan finds five syringes; Buddy is skeptical about Stan's claim that the syringes must have been left there by drug addicts. Sandra brings Dan coffee he tried to purchase from her diner (which he left after a homophobic encounter) but she failed to crack through his walls. Sandra then goes to see Buddy and calls him affectionately, unaware that Duck is nearby, and ultimately, both decides to end the affair. Sandra, drunk, tries to force Emily to bring a condom with her on her date with Taylor that night, but Emily refuses, calling Sandra out for her promiscuous ways and vows to have a different romance life on her own. Buddy and Carol host Mayor Brent's family who visit their house, and Mackenzie revealed to Buddy that her father has been trying to play up the scandal and turn the Wilby Watch into a golf course. Sandra leaves the pack early to prepare Buddy's mother's house for the mayor's visit, and Buddy leaves soon after, returning to inspect the Wilby Watch. Duck, who waited well into the night in front of the motel Dan is staying, is finally able to meet up and talk to him. Duck sets the tone of their conversation to be more and more intimate as it goes, and Dan, who is distant at first, opens up to him, eventually telling Duck his favorite genre of movie. Duck goes to kiss him, but Dan backs out. As Duck leaves, he notices that Emily and Taylor, who are on the same motel in a nearby room, are having a fight over him persistently trying to have sex with her. Duck shoos Taylor away, and calms a breaking down Emily. The two of them talk in Duck's truck, and then witness Dan leaving the area. Emily asks Duck if he wants to say hi to Dan, but Duck says he already tried that. Dan, trying his luck on killing himself one more time, sneaks into Buddy's mother's house and prepares to hang himself from the ceiling. However, he visibly has a change of heart halfway through, and smiles at the thought of Duck almost kissing him. However, as Dan tries to undone the rope around his neck, the chair he's standing on gives away, hanging him. Carol arrives at the house to prepare for the Mayor's family arrival at that moment, and after cutting the rope off, instead hides Dan's body under the stairs cupboard, hoping to hide him long enough until the Mayor and his family leaves. Mackenzie ends up finding Dan's body, and ambulance is called. At the Wilby Watch, Buddy finds that Stan is planting used insulin syringes as evidence. The next day, Sandra and Emily forgive each other for their previous drunken encounter. Buddy forces Mayor Brent to abandon his plans to turn the Wilby Watch into a golf course, and then takes steps towards mending his relationship with Carol. Duck brings flowers for Dan, who survived his suicide, at the hospital, and the movie ends with both men tenderly caressing each other. ===== In 2003, Grant Taylor (Alex Kendrick) is the head football coach at Shiloh Christian Academy, and has yet to post a winning record in his six-year tenure. After his seventh season begins with a three-game losing streak, the players' fathers begin to agitate for his firing. This is not the only problem Grant is facing; his home has a leaking roof, his appliances are breaking down, and his car is an unreliable embarrassment. Then, crushingly, he learns that he is the reason that his wife Brooke cannot become pregnant. Suffering intense emotional turmoil, Grant stays up all night praying and studying scripture. Finally he is inspired by his old football coach to create a new coaching philosophy and decides to praise God regardless of on-field results. At the same time he influences his players to give far greater effort and tells them that they can win under God's guidance. The improved attitudes of his players influence the rest of the school. From that point on, the Eagles win all their remaining regular season games and qualify for the state playoffs. A team father, grateful to Grant for his son's improved attitude and their healed relationship, anonymously gifts a pickup truck to Grant. Then in a shocking turnaround the school gives Grant a substantial raise in salary instead of firing him. The Eagles lose their playoff opener, but are declared the winner because the opponent used ineligible players. The Eagles then advance all the way to the state championship game against the three-time defending champion Richland Giants. The Giants start off strong, quickly putting 14 points on the board, but afterward, the Eagles tighten down their defenses, placing pressure on the Giants, and manage to score off of an interception as the first half ends. Realizing they cannot overpower and outrun their opponent, Grant decided to add a few trick plays to their arsenal. As the 2nd half starts, their first trick play works and they manage to tie the game, but the Giants deliberately injure their kicker, forcing backup kicker David Childers to take the spot. The Giants tack on another touchdown and a field goal before the Eagles manage to score another touchdown, and David's kick just makes it over the bar, bringing the Eagles to within 2. As the clock winds down, the Giants come to within one yard of sealing the game with a touchdown. Defensive lineman Brock Kelley is exhausted and begs for someone else to lead, but is encouraged by Grant to give him 4 more downs. Brock agrees, and the Eagles manage to get a sack, a stop, and a pass block, taking it to 4th down. Richland head coach Bobby Lee Duke, insisting on a touchdown to put the game away, calls for the Giants to go for it. However, Brock causes a fumble, and the Eagles are able to take it to the 34-yard line with 2 seconds to go. Grant, realizing again that they cannot outrun or overpower the Giants, decides to take a huge gamble, and asks for a 51-yard field goal from David, who insists that he can't kick that far. He goes out there anyway, and despite his assistant coach's warning that the kick won't go far, Duke decides to call his timeout to ice the kicker. After a rousing speech from Grant, and seeing his father Larry Childers, who is wheelchair bound, stand beyond the fence and holding his arms up, David begs for God to help him with the kick. Seemingly in response, the wind suddenly turns favorable, and Grant tells them to kick it. David makes the kick, which manages to make it just far enough for the field goal to be good, allowing the Eagles to stun the Giants and win the game. After the game, Grant tells his players that they are not inferior or lacking in ability, and that nothing is impossible with God. Later that night, Brooke reveals that she's finally pregnant, causing Grant to break down in tears of joy. Two years later, it is revealed that they have a young baby, that another one is on the way, and that the Eagles have won a second state title. ===== Tim Heidecker is the host of the web series On Cinema at the Cinema, where he and a cast of guests review films. After transitioning to being an electronic musician and hosting a music festival, he faces murder charges when 20 people overdose and die at the event and an additional 156 are hospitalized. He ends up beating the charge with a hung jury mistrial and sets out to become district attorney of San Bernardino County, despite not being an attorney or a resident of San Bernardino and to take revenge on Vincent Rosetti, the prosecutor of his case. The film begins with a small crew following Heidecker going door to door to drum up enough signatures for him to be on the ballot as a third party candidate. He works with his campaign manager Toni Newman, who was also the sole juror to not find Heidecker guilty at his murder trial. The duo have an ad campaign made up of social media posts and yard signs mocking Rosetti as a rat and Heidecker briefly confronts him on camera before the D.A. drives away with no comment. Heidecker starts to crack under the pressure, excessively drinking and using the TCH vape system that previously addicted him and was responsible for killing the youth at his music festival. Newman attempts to get press coverage that falls through at the last minute, fails to buy an ad in the local paper on time, and attempts to stage a debate where neither of Heidecker's opponents attend. Among the six crowd members is Heidecker's frequent guest host from On Cinema at the Cinema, Gregg Turkington. Turkington reaches out to the film crew to convince them to abandon the project and see Heidecker as a criminal and failure who has no passion for film. Heidecker has a meltdown and storms out of the event. Even though he and Newman forge several signatures, his name does not appear on the ballot and Rosetti is re-elected. In a drug-induced haze, Heidecker calls Rosetti from the hotel room that doubles as his campaign headquarters and starts out gracefully conceding and offering congratulations before devolving into insults and threats. He passes out and the next day, he takes the crew to the condemned site of the music festival, where he creates a makeshift memorial to the youth who died. ===== Sitting at a desk with a surly co-worker, processing endless forms while fat cats in the office line their own nests, is no way to end a career as a space pilot. So when one ex- spacer finds that an order for a biological irradiator, needed to help wipe out an insect plague on a colony planet, has been sidelined to make way for a shipment of gin for one of his superiors, he takes action. He invents a fictional new colony called "Nemo", and puts in a high priority order for the irradiator, meaning to re-route it to the real colony when it arrives. He forges several signatures, including his co-worker's and his own. He reasons that if anything at all gets done in the organization it's probably because people are forging signatures they'd have to wait forever to get. His deskmate just says "You can't beat the system." The middle of the story tells the tale of how the new order progresses through the system, with officials inspecting the factory making the irradiator to see that it is indeed a real and properly patriotic business, and other officials creating official documents stating that the irradiator will indeed have the desired effect on the insects and so on and so forth. In record time, that is to say mere years, the irradiator arrives, and immediately the bureaucrats smell a rat. The ex-pilot is called to explain to his boss, to the "I told you so's" of his deskmate. He seems oddly confident, however. He explains to his boss that, yes, Nemo is not a colony. It's a code word for a "tentative priority", that is one which will apply if nothing else intervenes. When asked why he did this, he responds that certain shipments had been getting more priority than they deserve. Bit by bit he admits that the problem was the gin shipment, knowing that his boss is a mortal enemy of the gin drinker. That gets him off the hook, but then he plays his trump card. He has an idea to stop abuses by creating a tracking process which will monitor a form as it proceeds through the system. His boss is only mildly interested until told of the extra subordinates he will have to hire to implement the process. Like most bureaucrats, his status, pay, perks, and pension increase with the number of people working for him. He decides to adopt the idea for the good of the organization, and gratefully offers the ex- pilot the job of supervisor in the new department. Returning to his desk, our hero informs his surly deskmate that "You can beat any system. All you do is turn the handle the way it goes, only more so." The response is "Shut up. And don't talk until you can talk sense." ===== George is the foster son of Sybil, an elderly somewhat ineffectual sorceress. She brought him up after his "royal parents died of the plague" in his infancy. He has fallen in love at first sight with Princess Helene. Helene is kidnapped by the wizard Lodac, who brazenly informs her father that he intends to feed her to his pet dragon in seven days, revenge for the death of his sister at the same age as Helene is now: 18. George wants to go on a quest to liberate his lady love, but Sybil believes he is too young (he is 20). She tries to distract the youth by showing him a magic sword, a steed, an invulnerable suit of armour, and six magically frozen knights he will command when he turns 21. The impatient George, however, tricks Sybil and locks her in a cellar, then leaves with the magical implements and revived company of knights. Sir George and his party appear before the king and insist on journeying to Lodac's castle to rescue Helene, against the opposition of Sir Branton, a knight who had previously volunteered for the perilous quest. The king promises the rescuer his daughter's hand in marriage and half his kingdom. Seven curses bar the path to Lodac's castle. First, they encounter an ogre, who slays Sir Ulrich of Germany and Sir Pedro of Spain before George kills him. When George tries to save Sir Anthony of Italy from being pulled under in a swamp, Branton treacherously comes up from behind and kicks him in as well. Anthony is killed, but George survives with the help of his magic sword. Later, Branton meets secretly with Lodac. It turns out that Branton has Lodac's ring, which the magician lost and wants back desperately, as his powers are crippled without it. The kidnapping was solely intended to make Branton look good in exchange for the return of the ring. When Sir Dennis of France happens by, Lodac prepares a trap. Mignonette, a beautiful Frenchwoman, distracts her compatriot, then suddenly turns into an ugly hag who attacks him. Fortunately, George saves him with his magic shield. Lodac finally becomes aware that George is being aided by magic. He contacts Sybil and mocks her abilities. Stung, she tries to cast a spell to help George, but ends up inadvertently stripping away all his magical powers. Sir Dennis and Sir James of Scotland perish when they reconnoiter ahead. Branton then leads George and Sir Patrick of Ireland into a trap, revealing his partnership with Lodac before sealing them in a cave with deadly green apparitions. Patrick, through the power of his faith, enables George to escape at the cost of his own life. George sneaks into Lodac's castle and rescues Helene, only to be captured. The magician gives Helene (actually the hag in disguise) to Branton, but once he has the ring, he uses magic to put Branton's head on a plaque on the wall. George is tied up, but escapes with the help of escaped shrunken prisoners. Sybil arrives and finally remembers the spell that restores George's powers, enabling him to slay the two-headed dragon and save Helene. Sybil steals the ring while Lodac is distracted. When the magician threatens the young couple with the seventh curse - himself - Sybil transforms herself into a large panther and kills him. Helene and George get married. When the six knights are restored to life, George's happiness is complete. ===== ===== ""There is no mysterious mystery but "deception" there -- ."" The beauty girl who lives a life bedridden in a hospital challenges mysterious incidents which spread over the world by the cool pupil and sharp insight with a partner. ===== Dr. Richard Mortimer asks Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to investigate the death of his friend Sir Charles Baskerville, in Dartmoor, found dead by heart failure, lying in the moor surrounding his estate, Baskerville Hall. Mortimer believes that his good friend had been scared to death by the vision of a ghost hound, the same that centuries before killed his ancestor, the devilish Sir Hugo. Mortimer also fears for the life of Sir Henry, who's just come from South Africa to take possession of his inheritance and of Baskerville Hall. Although skeptical, Holmes and Watson accept to meet Sir Henry, who is apparently young and bold. A series of peculiar incidents soon convince Holmes that Sir Henry's life is indeed in danger, and, busy with a prior commitment, he chooses to dispatch his trustworthy friend Watson to Dartmoor with Mortimer and Sir Henry. Before parting, Holmes reminds Watson not to let Sir Henry go out onto the nearby moor after dark. On their way to Baskerville Hall, the trio is warned by the coach driver Perkins that a convict named Selden (Michael Mulcaster) has escaped from nearby Dartmoor Prison and is hiding on the moor; Selden was convicted of murdering prostitutes and sentenced to life-imprisonment after being declared insane. At Baskerville Hall, Sir Henry gets acquainted with his new house, helped by the butler, Mr. Barrymore, and his wife. On the walls stand the portraits of the previous masters of the house, including infamous Sir Hugo. However, a second portrait of Sir Hugo is missing, and the Barrymores are unable to offer any explanation. The next day, Sir Henry and Watson meet the friendly local pastor, Bishop Frankland, who is also a keen entomologist. While crossing the moor after visiting the post office in the nearby village, Watson gets lost in a wetland called Grimpen Mire and gets trapped in a patch of quicksand. Two people come to help, a farmer named Stapleton and his daughter Cecile, a beautiful and wild girl who immediately bewitches Sir Henry. One night, Watson sees a light in the moor. He and Sir Henry go out to investigate, but a strange man rushes by in the shadows, then a distant hound howls, upsetting Sir Henry so much that he faints. Watson spots a figure silhouetted on a hill in the distance, while he helps Sir Henry back to Baskerville Hall. Soon, Watson discovers that the silhouetted figure was Holmes, who has concealed his own arrival to investigate more freely. Together, Holmes and Watson find the corpse of the convict Selden, slaughtered on the moor by an unknown beast, while wearing clothes belonging to Sir Henry. This clue exposes the Barrymores, who confess to have helped the escapee, who was their relative, by supplying food and other provisions each time he signaled with a light from his hideout. However, Holmes has evidence that neither the Barrymores nor Selden are connected to the death of Sir Charles, so he keeps on searching for clues to confirm the existence of the mysterious hound and the identity of its masters. Facing personal danger in an abandoned copper mine, and thanks to the stolen portrait of Sir Hugo, Holmes is able to guess who unleashed the hound in pursue of Sir Charles and why they did it. The detective and his assistant decide to set a trap for the murderers in the same place where, according to the legend, the ghost hound had killed Sir Hugo. Unfortunately, to make the trap work they will need to put Sir Henry's life at great risk... ===== The story covers the last few days of term before Christmas for the students of the Johann-Sigismund Gymnasium. The main characters are Martin, the first student of the class, Jonathan, an orphan who was adopted by a captain, Matz, Uli and Sebastian, students from the Tertia (Year 8). There is a bitter struggle between the students at the Gymnasium and another school, the Realschule (which is, with some probability, not the Realschule as known today, but an Oberrealschule, as the science -oriented, rather than humanist and focussing on classical philology, variety of the Gymnasium was then called). The so-called "Realists" steal their schoolbooks containing their dictations, which the teacher's son (another classmate) was to carry home to his father. The son was also captured by the 'Realschüler'. This results in a brawl between two champions of each side - Matz and one Wawerka - and a hard- fought snow-ball fight, both of which the six friends win, although they end up being reported by a student from the Prima (Year 13) for being late back to school. As a "punishment" they are docked one afternoon's leave, which they are invited to spend with their amiable house teacher Mr Johann ("Justus") Bökh at his office (coffee and cake included) where he tells them a story about his own youth and his struggle with unreasonable prefects from the Prima. Other parts of the plot include: the friends playing a drama called the Flying Classroom written by Johnny, their friendship with the "Nonsmoker" (a former doctor who lives in an scrapped non-smoker railway compartment and works as a pub piano player) and the Nonsmoker's own friendship with Mr Bökh, with whom the boys help to re-unite him. Uli, the smallest boy, decides at this time to attempt something which will remove his reputation as a coward. His best friend, Matz, has in the past encouraged him to try to shed it, but he is horrified when he sees Uli about to jump off a tall climbing frame using an umbrella as a parachute. Uli crashes to the ground and falls unconscious. As the boys know that the Nonsmoker used to be a doctor, they fetch him, and he allays their fears that Uli is dead. However, he has a broken leg (in the Canadian version, Uli breaks an arm instead). Upon this, the Nonsmoker re- enters the medical profession as he becomes the new school doctor. ===== Don Alvaro, a young but wise man, invokes Satan. Upon seeing the young Alvaro, Satan falls in love with him and assumes the appearance of a young woman, Biondetta. He follows Alvaro as his page. In the journey that unfolds, Satan, disguised as a woman, tries to seduce Alvaro who rejects his advances lest he lose his precious virginity. He is unwilling to compromise his honor by sleeping with a woman before they are married and he will first need his mother’s approval of the union. ===== ===== In the heart of the Canadian wilderness, sultry and sexually assertive Vixen Palmer, quickly becomes bored when her husband Tom, wilderness guide/pilot leaves for the mountains. The hypersexual Vixen vents her frustration by attempting to seduce anyone within reach including a couple her husband brings home as clients (separately), a Mountie, and eventually her own brother, Jedd. The film finally veers into political satire as Vixen's racism and the creeping threat of Communism are discussed at length among the characters as the film draws to its end. At the end of the film, her husband brings another couple home and Vixen smiles, apparently planning to seduce them. ===== On the eve of the Battle of El Alamein, Captain Tim Cotton leads a patrol on a raid to destroy a German fuel dump located deep behind enemy lines. Captain Williams of the Royal Engineers is posted to Cotton's patrol to deal with a minefield surrounding a German petrol dump. As a regular soldier, Williams takes time to adjust to the non- regulation way the LRDG operates. He finds a girl's torn up picture in Cotton's billet, who dismisses her as "old news". Later on Williams shows Cotton a picture of his son; Cotton says he has everything to live for. The mission, which begins with five Chevrolet 30 cwt trucks, starts with a perilous journey through Axis-occupied Libya where the LRDG encounter Luftwaffe spotter planes and Africa Korps patrols. Six of their men are killed and two of their Chevrolets are destroyed by a German armoured car. On reaching the German supply depot, Williams does his job and creates a path through the minefield with the help of Corporal Mathieson. The rest of the group destroys the stocks of petrol but Sergeant Hardy is killed in the escape. However hidden within the dump is a large number of German panzers. Unfortunately Cotton cannot report this to base because the radio is smashed in a German ambush, during which 'Blanco' White is wounded in the leg. Knowing the importance of the information, the group knows they must return and report it to base while there is time for it to be acted upon. During their return journey they are relentlessly pursued by a German officer determined to stop them. When two half-tracks attack them Cotton is wounded in the arm and Sergeant Nesbitt is killed. Eventually - with just 40 miles to go to the Allied base - the last truck runs out of fuel. Blanco volunteers to stay behind and man a Vickers machine gun, Brody offers to stay with his friend but Cotton says "Everyone who can goes on". While the others head towards base, Blanco sacrifices himself slowing up the last pursuing German halftrack. The group, with their water exhausted, sight another LRDG patrol on a truck. But before they can signal them, the chasing Germans are spotted. Williams grabs a Sten gun and leads the Germans away from his group. His actions allow the LRDG patrol to outflank and destroy the half-track; however, he is killed. Cotton laments that he had everything to live for. The film concludes with Cotton reporting the tanks to his CO back at base. They also speak of Williams and the sacrifice he made for the group. The opening barrage of El Alamein starts. ===== The story is about Hikari Kamijou, a fifteen- year-oldHikari's age and name changes in the different versions of the anime: In the Italian version her name is Hilary and she is fourteen. In the German version her name is Hikari and she is thirteen. In the French version her name she is Cynthia and she is fifteen. In the Spanish version her name is Valentina and she is twelve. girl who develops a passion for the sport of rhythmic gymnastics when she sees her idol, Diliana Georgieva, perform and win a contest of rhythmic gymnastics. Diliana proposes to train Hikari in Bulgaria, and Hikari accepts. She begins her training and joins her school's rhythmic gymnastics team. At first Hikari lacks natural skill, but then she meets Takaaki Ooishi, a fellow gymnast and popular schoolmate who helps her to improve. With his support, Hikari's talent blossoms, landing her on the map of popularity along with the best rhythmic gymnast at her school, Hazuki Shiina. As Hikari and Hazuki begin training for the World Cup competition together, a healthy rivalry develops. Hikari longs to embody Hazuki's graceful elegance, and seeks out Mao Natsukawa to help. Mao is a childhood friend and the lead singer of a rock band, and he dreams of becoming a world-renowned rock'n'roll idol. Mao helps Hikari by creating music for her performances, and together they win the respect and admiration of the viewers who watch them perform. Over the years, Mao has come to love Hikari deeply, but Hikari has fallen in love with Takaaki Ooishi. While this causes a rift in Hikari and Mao's relationship, he remains a loyal friend. When Hikari discovers that Hazuki also has feelings for Takaaki, they become rivals in sport and love. Hikari does not know how Takaaki feels about her, and worries Takaaki might fall for Hazuki because of her gymnastic talent. Hikari begins to perfect her skills, and is soon competing at the national and international level. In the TV series, Hikari wins Ooishi's heart and we are shown a little flash forward: Hikari is an Olympic champion, Ooishi is recovering from a lesion but with Olympic expectations, Mao is working on his career as a musician and Hazuki has retired and is working with as a trainer for young children who want to be gymnasts. ===== Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Dr John H. Watson (Nigel Bruce) receive a visit from Dr. James Mortimer (Lionel Atwill), who wishes to consult them before the arrival of Sir Henry Baskerville (Richard Greene), the last of the Baskervilles, heir to the Baskerville estate in Devonshire. Dr Mortimer is anxious about letting Sir Henry go to Baskerville Hall, owing to a supposed family curse. He tells Holmes and Watson the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles, a demonic dog that first killed Sir Hugo Baskerville (Ralph Forbes) several hundred years ago (seen in flashback) and is believed to kill all Baskervilles in the region of Devonshire. Holmes dismisses it as a fairy tale, but Mortimer narrates the events of the recent death of his best friend, Sir Charles Baskerville, Sir Henry's uncle. Although he was found dead in his garden without any trace of physical damage, Sir Charles's face was distorted as if he died in utter terror, from heart failure. He alone had noticed footprints at some distance from the body when it was found; they were the paw marks of a gigantic hound. Holmes decides to send Watson to Baskerville Hall along with Sir Henry, claiming that he is too busy to accompany them himself. Sir Henry quickly develops a romantic interest in Beryl Stapleton (Wendy Barrie), the step-sister of his neighbour Jack Stapleton (Morton Lowry), a local naturalist. Meanwhile, a homicidal maniac (Nigel De Brulier), escaped from Dartmoor Prison, lurks on the moor. Holmes eventually makes an appearance, having been hiding in the vicinity for some time making his own investigation. An effective scene, not in the original book, occurs when Watson and Sir Henry attend a seance held by Mrs. Mortimer (Beryl Mercer). In a trance, she asks, "What happened that night on the moor, Sir Charles?" The only reply is a lone howl, possibly from a hound. After some clever deception by Holmes, he surmises that the true criminal is Stapleton, a long-lost cousin of the Baskervilles, who hopes to claim their vast fortune himself after removing all other members of the bloodline. Stapleton kept a huge, half- starved, vicious dog (played by a Great Dane) trained to attack individual members of the Baskervilles after prolonged exposure to their scent. However, when the hound is finally sent to kill Sir Henry Baskerville, Holmes and Watson arrive to save him just in time. They kill the hound. Stapleton then traps Holmes down in the hound's underground kennel, and sends Watson into the moor to meet Holmes. Holmes cuts his way out of the kennel and returns to the house and destroys the poison that Stapleton had just given to the wounded Baskerville. Stapleton pulls a gun and flees. Holmes says ominously, "He won't get very far. I've posted constables along the roads and the only other way is across the Grimpen Mire." Holmes is praised for his work on the case, and he turns in. ===== Annie and Matthew, a young married couple, find their infant daughter screaming with a high temperature and an earache. Matthew calls the doctor, who promises to phone in a prescription to the pharmacist the following day. During the night, the neighborhood wakes up due to a massive power outage. When Matthew visits the pharmacist the next day, he is unable to get the required medicine due to the blackout. Matthew steals the medicine when the pharmacist is not looking. Social unrest ensues due to the persistent blackout, leading Matthew and his wife's best friend, Joe, to buy a shotgun. When an intruder breaks into the couple's house the following night, Matthew and Joe chase him outside, where a neighbor shoots the intruder. The neighbors conspire to cover up the fact that the deceased intruder was not armed. As the blackout continues for days over a large area, more chaos occurs. As a result, the group decides to flee to Annie's parents' house, 530 miles away. They do not have enough fuel to travel the whole way, so they stop by an abandoned car hoping to siphon some. A man, Gary, is lying in the backseat. After Joe notices that Gary has a handgun, he heads back to their vehicle to get his own shotgun. Joe aims the shotgun at Gary to scare him off, but he shoots Joe and steals their vehicle. Matthew walks an hour to a farmhouse to try to get help for his family. The occupant, Raymond, refuses to help him initially, as he does not trust him. Matthew collects the shotgun and returns to the house, hoping to steal the car. He breaks in to get the car keys, and a standoff ensues between Raymond and him. When Raymond's young daughter enters the room, Matthew returns to civility, lowering his weapon. Raymond agrees to help Matthew, and soon afterwards Joe is loaded into an ambulance. Society returns to normal once the power returns, though Annie, Matthew and their neighbors are somewhat different from their experience. ===== The Dominator is an extremely powerful wizard who has the ability to turn his most bitter enemies into his loyal servants, even those nearly his equal in magic. The most potent of his victims are called the Ten Who Were Taken, or just Taken for short. With his wife, the Lady, whose magical skill is second only to that of the Dominator, he founded an empire unrivaled for evil. It was overthrown by a rebellion led by the White Rose, but neither she nor the rebel wizards were strong enough to kill the Dominator, the Lady or the Taken. The best they could do was to render them unconscious and imprison them. Their prison was a place called the Barrowland. After four centuries, the wizard Bomanz awakened the Lady during a spirit walk into the Barrowlands, in an attempt to learn from her. She manipulated him, won her freedom, and subsequently trapped Bomanz in a quasi-undead spirit state between dimensions. She then unleashed the Taken, but betrayed the Dominator, leaving him where he was, and proceeded to resurrect the empire. As with the old, so it was with the new – a rebellion broke out, spearheaded this time by the Circle of Eighteen. The Circle is made up of magicians not individually as strong as the Taken, but usually united in their goals. The Taken, on the other hand, battle each other as much as they do the rebels. ===== In the earlier book the setting begins with the company employed by a Syndic, but the Captain slays him because he thinks he's fighting for a lost cause, for little pay, and he doesn't want to sentence the company to its doom. Soulcatcher, the Taken that recruited them, becomes their mentor. They do many missions for the Lady. They end up being pushed, along with the rest of the Lady's forces, back to her HQ, the tower at Charm. They have an immense battle where many of the Company are lost. The Taken backstab each other during the battle except for Soulcatcher, who flees only to be hunted down and destroyed by Croaker and the Lady who use a set of magical arrows to kill her. The old legend, that tells the tale of The Lady and The Dominator, her worse than evil husband, and The White Rose who imprisons them is centuries in the past. The Dominator and his wife, the Lady, (both supremely skilled in the art of magic), had founded an empire legendary for evil. They were overthrown by a rebellion led by the White Rose, but even in defeat, they remained too powerful to be killed; the best the rebels could do was to imprison them in the Barrowland. The Lady escaped to rebuild the empire, but betrayed her husband, leaving him there. The Black Company recounted how she crushed several deadly challenges to her power. But those were not the only threats to her reign... ===== Centuries in the past, the Dominator and his wife, the Lady, (both supremely skilled in the art of magic), had founded an empire legendary for evil. They were overthrown by a rebellion led by the White Rose, but even in defeat, they remained too powerful to be killed; the best the rebels could do was to imprison them and their most powerful minions in the Barrowland. A wizard named Bomanz awakened the Lady in an attempt to learn from her, but she used him to gain her freedom and rebuilt the empire. However, she betrayed her husband by leaving him where he was. A rebellion broke out against the Lady's new empire; the Black Company played a key role in putting it down (as detailed in The Black Company). Later, the Company also assisted the Lady in preventing her husband from escaping his prison (as recounted in Shadows Linger), but it was forced to flee her wrath when she discovered that it had unknowingly sheltered the reborn White Rose. ===== The Dominator was a wizard of immense power who could not be killed by his enemies. He was, however, defeated and his evil essence imprisoned in a silver spike. The power inherent in the spike is so greatly feared and desired that some try to steal it, while others try to keep it from falling into anyone's hands. ===== Frank Towns (James Stewart) is the pilot of a twin-engine Fairchild C-82 Packet cargo plane flying from Jaghbub to Benghazi in Libya; Lew Moran (Richard Attenborough) is the navigator. Passengers include Capt. Harris (Peter Finch) and Sgt. Watson (Ronald Fraser) of the British Army; Dr. Renaud (Christian Marquand), a physician; Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Krüger), a German aeronautical engineer; and an oil company accountant named Standish (Dan Duryea). There are also several oil workers, including Trucker Cobb (Ernest Borgnine), a foreman suffering from mental fatigue; Ratbags Crow (Ian Bannen), a cocky Scot; Carlos (Alex Montoya) and his pet monkey; and Gabriel (Gabriele Tinti). A sudden sandstorm disables the engines, forcing Towns to crash-land in the desert. As the aircraft careens to a stop, two workers are killed and Gabriel's leg is severely injured. The radio is unusable, and the survivors are too far off course to be found by searchers. Aboard the plane is a large quantity of pitted dates but only enough water for ten to fifteen days if rationed. Captain Harris sets out to try and find an oasis. When Sgt. Watson feigns an injury to stay behind, Carlos volunteers, leaving his pet monkey with Crow. Harris and Towns refuse to allow the mentally unstable Cobb go along, but Cobb defiantly follows anyway and later dies of exposure in the desert. Days later, Harris returns to the crash site alone and barely alive. Sgt. Watson discovers and then ignores him, though others later find him. Meanwhile, Dorfmann proposes a radical idea: building a new aircraft from the wreckage. The C-82 has twin booms extending rearwards from each engine and connected by the horizontal stabilizer. Dorfmann wants to attach the outer sections of both wings to the left engine and left boom, discarding the center fuselage and both inner wing sections of the aircraft. The men will ride atop the wings. Harris and Moran believe he is either joking or delusional. The argument is complicated by a personality clash between Towns, a proud traditionalist aviator, and Dorfmann, a young arrogant engineer. Moran struggles to maintain the peace. Towns initially resists Dorfman's plan, though Renaud sways his opinion, saying activity and hope will help sustain the men's morale. Dorfmann supervises the reconstruction, while Towns remains skeptical. During the work, the fatally injured Gabriele commits suicide, depressing the men to where they consider abandoning the new plane's construction. Dorfmann, caught exceeding his water ration, justifies it, saying he has been the only one working continuously. He promises to not do it again but demands everyone work equally hard from here on. Standish christens the nearly-completed aircraft, "Phoenix", after the mythical bird that is reborn from its own ashes. When a band of Arabs camp nearby, Harris and Renaud leave to make contact while the others (and the aircraft) remain hidden. The two men are found murdered the next day. Additionally, Towns and Moran are stunned to learn that Dorfmann designs model airplanes rather than full-sized aircraft. Dorfmann defends himself, claiming the aerodynamic principles are the same, and many model planes require more exacting designs than full-size aircraft. With no other choice, Towne and Moran forge ahead with the plan without telling the others about Dorfmann. The Phoenix is completed but untested. Only seven starter cartridges are available to ignite the engine. The first four startup attempts are unsuccessful. Over Dorfman's vehement objections, Towns fires the fifth cartridge with the ignition off to clear the engine's cylinders. The next startup is successful. The men pull the Phoenix to a nearby hilltop, then climb onto the wings. When Towns guns the engine, the Phoenix slides down the hill and over a lake bed before taking off. After a successful landing at an oasis with a manned oil rig, the men celebrate and Towns and Dorfmann are reconciled. ===== Marching back after the defeat of the Dominator, the Black Company is down to just seven men. They go south, where the now powerless Lady briefly takes control of her Empire and where Croaker, the Annalist and Captain of the Company, is reunited with the Annals which hold the Company's history. Continuing their travels south in search of Khatovar, where Croaker is oathbound to return the annals, they are conscripted into service yet again by the crown prince of Taglios. Their commission is to defeat the advance of the conquering Shadowmasters from the south. ===== The book follows the story line of both Lady and Croaker, who have been separated from the Black Company after the company's defeat at the end of Shadow Games. Lady was separated as she was overwhelmed by dying soldiers and her story begins with her digging herself out of the pile. She quickly hooks up with two strange men, Narayan Singh and his partner Ram. Lady, with those two, begins to re-assemble the army of Taglios. Lady is much different from Croaker's style of managing the people of Taglios, eliminating those that try to stand against her. Narayan Singh is a leader in a shadow religious group who are known as The Deceivers, and worship the goddess of Kina. Kina is a Goddess of Death, and the Deceivers are trying to bring her back to this world. Lady believes that she is using the Deceivers to further her agenda, while avoiding the seduction that Kina appears to be trying against her. While Lady builds up the Taglios army, Croaker is in the company of Soulcatcher - Lady's sister. Soulcatcher wants Croaker for two reasons. To heal her of the wounds that she received in the Books of the North, as well as to take revenge out on her sister. Soulcatcher's agenda is to spread chaos. She dresses as Lady and attacks the Shadowmaster's army to sow confusion of where anyone is. Her plan backfires as Longshadow, along with his new ally Howler, kidnap her instead of Lady. Longshadow wishes to use the knowledge that Lady has to further his own agenda. With Soulcatcher taken away, Croaker uses that freedom to escape and rejoin the army of Taglios. Lady and Croaker miss each other and end up on opposite sides of the river, when river rises and makes fording impossible. Lady discovers that she is pregnant with Croaker's child. At the end of the book, it is revealed that the Deceivers came for her baby and escaped. Kina was not after Lady, but Lady's child. ===== The film is told in an extended flashback. Lorenz Lubota (Alfred Abel), is a clerk in a minor government office, an aspiring poet, and a member of a family headed by a worrisome mother who has a tense relationship with a daughter, Melanie, whom the mother believes works as a prostitute. One day, while Lorenz is walking to work, a woman (Lya De Putti) driving two white horses hits him in the road, knocking him to the ground. Physically, he is unharmed, but from that point forward, the woman in the carriage (named Veronika) consumes his every thought. His obsession with Veronika costs him his job when he fails to show up for work and threatens his boss for accusing him of stalking her. Believing that his poems are to be published, Lorenz asks his Aunt Schwabe (Grete Berger)—a cutthroat pawnbroker—for money, which he then uses to buy a new suit. Schwabe's assistant, Wigottschinski (Anton Edthofer), encourages Lorenz to celebrate and they reunite with Lorenz's sister, who becomes Wigottschinski's girlfriend. Unable to contact Veronika, who is wealthy and engaged to someone of her own class, Lorenz instead begins courting a golddigger who looks like Veronika (also played by Lya De Putti), lavishing her with expensive things, all the while reliving the day he was run over in his mind again and again. In the meantime Lorenz's mother's health begins to deteriorate due to her worries over her son's and her daughter's actions, and Lorenz's friend Marie (Lil Dagover) and her father learn that Lorenz's poems will not be published after all. Wigottschinski swindles more money out of Schwabe and gives Lorenz a sizable amount. However, Aunt Schwabe becomes suspicious and discovers that Lorenz will not be a published poet, and she angrily demands that he pay back the money after three days or else she will notify the police. Desperate, Lorenz agrees to Wigottschinski's plan to break into her house after she has gone to sleep and to steal enough money to pay back the loan. She wakes up and discovers them, running to the window to call for the police. A struggle ensues, and Wigottschinski kills her, while Melanie runs off and eventually briefly reunites with her mother before disappearing. Lorenz is arrested and sent to prison. After his release, the film returns to the present, where Lorenz is finishing writing his life story down, in an attempt to purge his mind from the phantom woman who continually hits him in her carriage. Lorenz also now has a new life with Marie. ===== Taking place in part during the events of Dreams of Steel, which was told from the point of view of Lady, this story examines the events surrounding Murgen, who is trapped within the siege of Dejagore where atrocities are being committed by both sides. The book also examines events later in Taglios under rule of the Liberator and the increasing tensions between the Black Company and the Radisha, as well as the ever-present threats from the Stranglers and of some new deception by Soulcatcher and the Howler. Bleak Seasons is unique among the Black Company series for the unusual narrative device of Murgen being totally unfixed in time and uncertain of when he will experience another seizure and move between distant past, recent past and a vaguely comprehended present. This narrative device is followed through three-quarters of the novel until we come to understand the traumas that have led Murgen to this point, while the enchantment that has made it possible remains unclear. The tone is introspective, haunted and mysterious. This novel introduces several key elements and characters to the series, including visions of the frozen caverns, Sahra, Uncle Doj, Mother Gota, One-Eye's black spear, and the manipulation of the comatose wizard Smoke. ===== In an unnamed Latin American republic under military rule, a democratization process results in an opposition candidate gaining a lead in pre-election polling. In a mountainous region of the country, a pickup truck is stopped at a police checkpoint overseen by the upwardly mobile Sgt. Agustin Rejas, a Quechua speaker and former corporate lawyer. Rejas grows suspicious of the truck’s occupants and interrogates their leader, who claims to be a laborer. While Rejas is momentarily distracted, a corrupt subordinate solicits a bribe and allows the party to escape. Months later, the opposition candidate has won the presidency. Rejas has been promoted to lieutenant and resides in the capital with his wife and daughter. Struggling to make ends meet on a police salary, Rejas visits his daughter’s ballet teacher, Yolanda, to pay a long-overdue bill. Rejas strikes up a friendship with Yolanda. Increasingly bored of his wife’s social ambitions and self-centeredness, Rejas develops romantic feelings for Yolanda, and the two begin a passionate but ultimately non-sexual affair. While working a security detail at a diplomatic reception, Rejas is recognized by lawyer Tristan Calderon, a shadowy figure with ties to narcotics traffickers and the new presidential administration. Meanwhile, Rejas and his subordinate Sucre discover a series of dead dogs hanging from lampposts, all affixed with placards referencing Maoist ideology and a “President Ezequiel.” Shortly thereafter, the name Ezequiel is invoked during a suicide bombing in the capital. Fearing that political instability will invite democratic backsliding, the chief of police promotes Rejas to captain and tasks him with investigating Ezequiel within the bounds of judicial process. Rejas and his team determine that Ezequiel is the nom de guerre of a Maoist terrorist leader responsible for a series of atrocities committed in the country's mountains, which were overlooked due to a breakdown in central authority toward the end of military rule. Rejas quickly identifies a prime suspect: Edgardo Rivas, a former academic who considers himself the “fourth flame of Communism.” Rejas recognizes Rivas as the purported laborer he interrogated at the police checkpoint in the mountains. Ezequiel wages a terror campaign in the capital, and after two senior officials are assassinated, Calderon, now the president’s chief adviser, imposes martial law. The Ezequiel investigation is transferred to a military death squad. When Rejas protests, Calderon allows his investigation to continue, but with military oversight. Rejas and his investigators locate a videotape that confirms Ezequiel’s identity as Rivas and suggests that his hideout is located on one of two residential streets in the capital. Rejas conceals this discovery from Calderon, allowing the police to bring the investigation to a close without military interference. After an exhaustive investigation, his team locates Rivas’ hideout in an upper level of the building housing Yolanda’s ballet studio. Rejas succeeds in apprehending Rivas and his associates without bloodshed, but learns, to his astonishment, that Yolanda is one of Rivas’ operatives. Rejas ensures that the Ezequiel suspects receive due process, becoming a hero to the political opposition and a plausible contender for the presidency. Meanwhile, Rivas, Yolanda, and their associates are sentenced to life imprisonment under harsh conditions. Rejas meets with Calderon and offers to refrain from a presidential candidacy in exchange for the commutation of Yolanda’s sentence. Calderon agrees to the deal and informs Rejas that, to save face, the president will soon appoint him to a judgeship. Before departing, he marvels at Rejas’ willingness to turn down the presidency, revealing a letter from Yolanda in which she permanently rejects Rejas. The film concludes as a nevertheless-contented Rejas arrives at his daughter’s ballet recital. ===== The play covers the trial, condemnation, and execution of Joan, but has a highly unusual ending. Joan remembers important events in her life as she is being questioned, and is subsequently condemned to death. However, Cauchon realizes, just as Joan is burning at the stake, that in her judges' hurry to condemn her, they have not allowed her to re-live the coronation of Charles VII of France. The fire is therefore extinguished, and Joan is given a reprieve. The actual end of the story is left in question, but Cauchon proclaims it a victory for Joan. ===== ===== A mysterious old woman named Malla (Estelle Hemsley) who claims to have been brought to America 140 years ago as a slave approaches endocrinologist Dr. Paul Talbot (Terry) and promises to reveal to him the secret of eternal youth if he will fund her final trip back to Africa, so that she can be beautiful and young for one last night before she dies. Paul is unhappily married to the alcoholic June (Gray), who is 10 years his elder. Paul prefers younger women. "Old women," he says, "give me the creeps." They follow Malla to Africa and witness a secret ceremony of the Nando tribe that utilizes orchid pollen and a sacrificial male's pineal gland secretions. The secretions, extracted from the back of the neck via a special ring and mixed with the pollen, temporarily transform Malla into a young, beautiful woman (Kim Hamilton). After discovering that her conniving husband only brought her along as "a guinea pig who could talk," June takes revenge, choosing him to be sacrificed so that she can use his pineal gland extract to become young again herself, though Malla warns her that the transformation will not last long. She steals the ring and pollen, kills her jungle guide (John van Dreelen) and returns to the United States. Masquerading as her own niece, Terry Hart, she keeps herself young by picking up men and killing them for their pineal extract. But each time the potion wears off, she is older than she was before. As Terry, June quickly becomes enamored of her lawyer Neil Foster (Williams), a man half her actual age. She kills his jealous fiancée Sally Howards (Talbott), draining her pineal gland and eliminating Sally as competition. When the police come to investigate the murders that June has committed, she uses Sally's pineal gland extract but finds that it does not work because it is from a woman. Before the police can arrest her, she throws herself out her bedroom window, crashes to the ground and dies. When they see her body, it is much older and much more shriveled than ever. ===== Cook brings the latest cycle of the Black Company saga to a major climax, as disaster survivors regroup in Taglios and set out to free their fellow warriors held in stasis beneath the glittering plain. They arrive just in time for a magical conflagration that will reveal the bones of the world and the history of the Company. Water Sleeps is set with most of the leadership of the Company in Stasis, while the remaining company fights a guerilla war. The company is both pitted against the last remaining Shadowmaster, Soulcatcher, a Sorceress of epic power, and the subtle machinations of the sleeping Goddess of Death and her Deceivers. ===== Croaker, no longer dictator of Taglios or Captain of the Company, resumes his old role as Annalist. Sleepy is now Captain, and no Black Company member has died in battle for four years. But when the Company's old adversaries try to bring about the apocalyptic Year of the Skulls, the Company is brought to the edge of destruction. ===== Corporal John Bramble is the sole survivor of a British tank crew after Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps capture Tobruk in June 1942 and pursue the British into Egypt. He stumbles across the North African desert into the town of Sidi Halfaya, where he finds the Empress of Britain, a small, isolated hotel owned by Farid. The only other eployee is the French chambermaid Mouche, as the cook fled with the British and the waiter Davos was killed the night before by German bombing. Farid hides the unconscious Bramble when the swiftly advancing Germans take over the hotel to use as headquarters for Field Marshal Rommel and his staff. Bramble assumes the identity of Davos to save himself. When Rommel summons him to a private chat, Bramble is stunned to discover that Davos was a valued German spy, but manages to play along. He learns that he is to be sent to Cairo next. Later, he steals a pistol from genial, music-loving Italian General Sebastiano, planning to serve the field marshal a bullet rather than coffee the next morning. Not wanting trouble, Mouche steals the pistol and waits on Rommel herself. When some captured British officers are brought to the hotel for a luncheon with Rommel, one of them (a past guest) realizes that Davos has been replaced. Bramble privately explains who he is and what he plans to do. The officer orders him to use his position of trust to instead gather military intelligence. At the luncheon, Rommel teases his guests, allowing them to ask him twenty questions about his future plans. Bramble listens with interest. From the conversation and later remarks by Rommel, he eventually deduces that the field marshal, disguised as an archeologist before the war, had secretly prepared five hidden supply dumps, the "Five Graves to Cairo", for the conquest of Egypt. The final piece of the puzzle (their locations) falls into place when Bramble realizes that Rommel's cryptic references to points Y, P, and T refer to the precise locations of the letters of the word "Egypt" printed on his map. Meanwhile, Bramble and Mouche clash. She despises the British, believing they abandoned the French, including her two brothers, at Dunkirk. He in turn becomes disgusted at how she plays up to the Germans. As it turns out, Mouche's motives are not mercenary; she pleads with Rommel to release her wounded soldier brother from a concentration camp. He is unmoved, but his aide, Lieutenant Schwegler, is more appreciative of her charms. He pretends to help her, showing her fake telegrams to and from Germany. That night however, when everyone takes shelter in the cellar during an Allied air raid, Schwegler discovers the body of the real Davos (easily identifiable by his clubfoot), uncovered by the bombing. In the noise and confusion of the raid, Schwegler chases Bramble through the darkened hotel, before Bramble kills the German and hides the body in Mouche's part of the servants' room. When Mouche finds out, she threatens to unmask him. However, she has a change of heart. Schwegler's body is soon found, and Rommel accuses her of killing his aide when she discovered he was lying about being able to release her brother. To protect Bramble, Mouche confirms this. Bramble leaves for Cairo, but arranges for Farid to present evidence the next day at Mouche's trial that "Davos" committed the crime. Bramble's information allows the British to blow up the dumps and thus thwart Rommel's plans, culminating in the Second Battle of El Alamein. When Bramble returns to Sidi Halfaya in triumph with his unit, he is devastated to learn the Germans executed Mouche, even after she was exonerated of Schwegler's murder, because she would not stop saying that the British would be back. Bramble takes the parasol he bought her in Cairo, something she always wanted, and uses it to provide shade for her grave. ===== Jim (Casey Affleck) is a perennially gloomy 27-year-old aspiring writer from Goshen, Indiana who had moved to New York City in hopes of finding success with his writing. After two years of barely making a living as a dog walker, he decides to move back home to his parents' house in Goshen. Jim's 32-year-old brother Tim (Kevin Corrigan) is a recently divorced father of two young girls whose business recently failed. Tim has moved back into his parents' home and works in the ladder factory that's owned and operated by their father Don (Seymour Cassel) and cheerful mother Sally (Mary Kay Place). Jim has no interest in the family business and he resists pressure from Don to start working there. Jim meets Anika (Liv Tyler), a nurse, in a bar and they end up having sex in a hospital bed, though Jim finishes almost immediately. After a conversation between the two brothers on whose life is more pathetic, Tim, having previously made repeated unsuccessful attempts to commit suicide, drives his car into a tree. He is gravely injured, in a coma, and hospitalized. Jim finally gives in to Don and works in the factory by taking over Tim's duties. He also takes over Tim's job as the coach of a girls basketball team. The team, which has not scored a single point in the last 14 games, includes both of Tim's daughters. While visiting Tim is in the hospital, Jim runs into Anika, who works in pediatrics. They arrange a date, but on arriving to pick her up, he discovers she is a single mother. Their relationship progresses, however. Anika is sympathetic to Jim's problems, and she decides to stand by him even when he tries to convince her that it's in her best interest to not be around him. At the ladder factory, Jim encounters his uncle Stacy or "Stace" (Mark Boone Junior), who prefers to be called "Evil." Over a joint, Evil offers advice about premature ejaculation, and they become better acquainted. Evil offers Jim some recreational drugs and asks Jim to open a checking account for him so he can pay for things by mail. Evil gives Jim $4,000, saying it is saved-up birthday and Christmas and graduation presents. Jim's mother, Sally, is arrested by DEA officers for allegedly shipping illegal drugs through the store's FedEx account. Evil is the drug dealer, but Jim cannot get him to confess. Evil points out that Jim will be implicated if he tries to report Evil, as he has opened an account with Evil's cash and will test positive for drug use. Eternal optimist that she is, Sally makes friends with her fellow prisoners and accepts a novel from Jim when he visits. Eventually she is released on bail. Despite working at the factory and feeling responsible for his mother's imprisonment, Jim allows his depression to be softened by Anika and finds himself believing that life is worth living. Jim invites Anika and her son to move to New Orleans with him, but after Jim gets cold feet and makes a questionable decision, the move seems to be off the table. Jim finally decides to leave town for New Orleans by himself, leaving a note for his parents promising not to take their love for granted again and revealing Evil as the drug dealer. Anika shows up at the bus station to say goodbye. Jim departs on the bus, but as Anika drives home with her son, Jim is seen running after them, luggage in hand. He asks "for a ride" and the movie ends with Jim, out-of-breath, finally getting a bottle of water from Ben in the back seat. ===== 18-year-old April Lancaster, the child of Janice and Hugh Lancaster, enters the hospital for testing as she has been suffering from headaches, blackouts, and eventually passed out in English class. During this time, April becomes acquainted with Mark Gianni, who suffers from cystic fibrosis, and has been in and out of the hospital since he was born. Mark is very interested in April, and even tells her that he intends to marry her, but she declines his offer to go out, as she already has a boyfriend, Chris. April is told by her doctor that she has an inoperable brain tumor, a recurrence of the case she had as a five-year-old, and needs to start radiation treatments. Soon after breaking the news to Chris, he ends their relationship, and April begins to date Mark. Over time, the two fall in love, and Mark proposes to April. She accepts, although her parents aren't thrilled about the match. Eventually, they do reconcile to the idea. Shortly afterward, the car that Mark is driving in during a race (he is an avid racing fan) flips over and ignites. Mark survives the crash, but he develops pneumonia and dies. The book ends with April and her parents in St. Croix for a vacation. April releases a red balloon for Mark, as he had once done for her. The sequel, For Better, For Worse, Forever begins with April in St. Croix. ===== At a bus stop in a rough part of town, a carrot-eating drifter named Smith sees a pregnant woman on the verge of giving birth while fleeing a hitman. Following them into a warehouse, Smith kills the hitman by stabbing him in the face with a carrot and retrieves the woman's pistol. As more thugs arrive the woman goes into labor, and Smith delivers her baby boy during a shootout. Pursued by head assassin Hertz, the woman is shot dead; Smith narrowly escapes with the newborn. Leaving the baby in a park, Smith hopes someone will adopt the child but a passing woman is killed with a shot from Hertz's sniper rifle. Realizing that Hertz is trying to kill the baby, Smith saves him and tries unsuccessfully to leave him with a prostitute named Donna Quintano. Hertz soon arrives at the brothel and tortures Donna for information; Smith returns and kills Hertz's henchmen. After a brief confrontation, Smith shoots Hertz and leaves with Donna and the baby. Having secretly worn a bulletproof vest, however, Hertz is alive albeit wounded. Taking Donna to his hideout, Smith realizes that the baby (whom he names Oliver) stops crying when he hears heavy-metal music; he concludes that Oliver's mother lived near a heavy-metal club. Pursued by Hertz, Smith shoots his way out of the hideout and he and Donna head to a nearby club. Above the club they discover an apartment with medical equipment and two dead, pregnant women; Smith concludes that the women were all impregnated with one man's sperm in order to give birth to matching bone marrow donors. While they are having sex in a motel room, Smith and Donna are attacked by masked men; Smith notices that his assailants' weapons are Hammerson models, unavailable to the public. He brings Donna and Oliver to a war museum and hides them in a M24 Chaffee tank for safekeeping. Smith infiltrates the Hammerson factory, and hears Hertz and Hammerson saying that they do not want the next president to repeal the right to bear arms. He also notices that Hammerson owns a German Shepherd dog named Duchess. Smith booby-traps the facility with an array of firearms, allowing him to kill the thugs and escape. Smith sees an article about Senator Rutledge, a Democratic presidential candidate who favors stricter gun laws. He deduces that Rutledge has cancer and requires a bone- marrow transplant, which is why he had surrogates impregnated with his sperm (and why Hertz and Hammerson want Oliver dead). If the infants die, the senator would not receive a transplant and would be unable to run for president. Smith tells Donna to leave town and contacts one of Rutledge's henchmen to request an appointment. Meeting on an airplane, the senator confirms Smith's suspicions and Smith notices dog hair on Rutledge's trousers. Deducing that the hair belongs to Duchess and that the senator made a deal with Hammerson, Smith takes Rutledge hostage. Hertz appears and reveals that he agreed to help Rutledge find a bone-marrow donor, on the condition that Rutledge protects Hertz's constitutional right to bear arms when elected president. Smith kills the senator, whose assassination he explains "will cause public outrage and trigger immense support" for his gun control proposals. Smith parachutes from the airplane and kills several pursuing henchmen, but is himself shot and collapses after he lands. He awakens in Hammerson's mansion; Hertz tortures him, breaking his fingers in an attempt to learn where Smith sent Donna and Oliver. As Hertz prepares to cut Smith's eyes, Smith breaks free and kills Hammerson and several thugs. Cornered and struggling to use his gun, Smith places live bullets between his broken fingers and detonates them with a fireplace, critically wounding Hertz. As they grab pistols and struggle, Smith fires first and kills Hertz. Smith boards a bus with Duchess, and stops at an ice-cream parlor where Donna works as a waitress while watching Oliver. Surprised to see each other alive, he and Donna kiss passionately. A group of amateur armed robbers suddenly enters the parlor; his hands in bandages, Smith shoots them by using a carrot to pull the trigger. ===== The premise of the show was set up in the opening scene of the series pilot. In an attempt to connect with the hostage-taker, Matt Flannery (Ron Livingston), a negotiator for the FBI, reveals to him and his colleagues who are listening to his conversation, that he has been sleeping with his partner, Emily Lehman (Rosemarie DeWitt). Their supervisor Cheryl Carrera (Gina Torres) is concerned about how their relationship will affect their jobs. Each episode revolves around the main plot of a hostage situation and the subplot of Matt and Emily's relationship. In the hostage situation, the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit is typically called upon to deal with the hostage-taker. ===== Among us live the Others. They are humans who can enter the Twilight, a shadowy world that exists alongside our real world, and gain unnatural powers from it. As long as they are in the Twilight, Others are drained of their life essence and may be consumed if they remain in it for too long. Others are made up of two distinct groups - the Light Others and Dark Others. A long time ago, the Light and Dark others fought a fierce battle in which neither side could win. In the end, both sides signed a Great Treaty - a set of laws which would govern them and the use of powers. Light Others created Night Watch, to ensure that the Dark Others wouldn't break the Treaty while Dark Others created Day Watch, to watch the Light Others as well. Both sides answer to the Inquisition--an organization which ensures that neither of the two sides become too powerful. The book is separated into three novellas: ===== An opening prologue explains that The Screaming Skull is so frightening that it may kill its viewers. Over a scene of an opening coffin, a narrator explains that the film's climax is so terrifying that it may kill the viewer, while reassuring the audience that should they die of fright they will receive a free burial service. Inside the coffin is a card that reads "Reserved for You". Newlyweds Jenni (Peggy Webber) and Eric (John Hudson) move into Eric's palatial country home. Jenni is Eric's second wife; his first wife Marion died when she accidentally slipped and hit her head on the edge of a decorative pond on the estate. At the home they meet Eric's friends, the Reverend Snow (Russ Conway) and his wife (Tony Johnson), as well as Mickey (Alex Nicol), the developmentally disabled gardener. Eric privately mentions to the Snows that Jenni spent time in an asylum following the sudden death of both her parents, and Mrs. Snow reveals that Jenni is very wealthy. Jenni is disturbed both by Mickey's belief that Marion's ghost wanders the estate and by Marion's self- portrait inside the house, which Jenni believes resembles her mother. When she begins to hear unexplained screaming noises and see skulls around her house, she believes that Marion is haunting her. Though Eric speculates to Jenni that Mickey, who was a childhood friend of Marion and thus dislikes Jenni, may be behind the trickery, Jenni worries that she is going insane. Eric suggests to remove Marion's self-portrait from the home. Eric and Jenni take the painting outside and burn it, later uncovering a skull from the ashes. Jenni panics at the sight of the skull, but Eric denies that the skull is there. Jenni faints and Eric withdraws the skull and hides it, revealing that he has been gaslighting her all along. Believing she has finally lost her sanity, Jenni resolves to be committed. She tells Eric that the entire property will be meticulously searched for the skull as a last resort. Mickey secretly steals the skull and brings it to Snow before Eric can retrieve it. That night, Eric prepares to murder Jenni and stage it as a suicide. Jenni sees Marion's ghost in Mickey's greenhouse and flees back to the house, where Eric begins throttling her. The ghost appears and chases Eric outside, corners and attacks him, drowning him in the decorative pond. After Jenni regains consciousness, the Snows arrive. Mrs. Snow comforts a hysterical Jenni and the Reverend discovers Eric's body in the pond. Some undisclosed time later, Jenni and the Snows depart from the house. Reverend Snow declares whether or not Marion's death was an accident will remain a mystery. The film ends with the gardener drinking from the pond and saying, "They've left. Rest in peace." a vision of a woman's face appears in the pond. ===== Aravindan, Chandru and Krishnamoorthy value friendship over everything else, even family. For this reason, Chandru resists the advances of Aravindan's sister Amutha. When the trio takes up a painter's job at a mansion under contractor Nesamani, Krishnamoorthy's paternal uncle, Aravindan falls in love with Padmini, who lives there. Padmini's jealous cousin Abhirami makes him believe that his overtures are reciprocated. When the truth is revealed and Padmini rejects him outright, Chandru stands up for his friend and speaks ill of her. This makes her swear to separate the friends. After the marriage, Aravindan realises the hand of Abhirami behind all the mishaps, and Padmini too realizes that Chandru is innocent. Then, Chandru and Amutha's marriage is arranged. Gautham is Aravindan's cousin who is in love with Amutha and wants to separate the pair. He makes Chandru believe that Padmini is trying to kill Amutha. Padmini is now angry with Chandru. At last, Aravindan tells the truth that in their young ages, he unknowingly killed Chandru's deaf and mute brother. Gautham tells this truth to Chandru. Chandru and Aravindan then fight and go by their ways. Aravindan tries to convince Chandru but falls from the top of a mountain to his assumed death. Five years later, Chandru is a major in the Indian Army. He learns through a letter from Krishnamurthy telling that Aravindan is not dead but has ended up in a coma. Unfortunately, Gautham is now torturing his family a lot. When he comes to know that Chandru has come back to Meenakshipuram, he starts to beat him up. After hearing Chandru's cry of pain, Aravindan wakes up from his coma. Finally, Aravindan beats up Gautham, and everyone rejoins and lives happily. ===== The story concerns an abandoned truck owned by Otto Schenck and George McCutcheon, wealthy Castle Rock businessmen in the post-depression era. After Otto deliberately crushes George beneath his derelict vehicle, the murderer becomes fixated on the truck. Otto insists that the truck is not only moving on its own accord, but planning to kill him. At the same time, he becomes a social recluse, living in a house he built across from the truck itself, and generally begins to lose his sanity. His nephew, who tells the story, finally finds him dead–the corpse has been drowned with oil and there is a spark plug rammed down his throat. The nephew goes on to describe how, on the day he found his uncle dead, he began to see strange happenings with the truck himself. Also, he couldn't accept his uncle's death as a suicide because there was no jug near the body with which Otto could have fed himself the oil. The nephew would dismiss what he saw as a hallucination, were it not for the derelict sparkplug he took away from the corpse and kept as a reminder. ===== During a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, a girl becomes the latest victim of the deadly virus "XB". Dr. Clinton Earnshaw (Sam Groom) has been following the outbreak but only is able to diagnose it. The federal government assigns him Jeff Adams (Tom Hallick), who has no medical or scientific training. Though Earnshaw is initially bemused by the assignment, Adams' value emerges when he remembers the 19th century discovery of a virus with similar characteristics. Known at the time as "Wood's Fever", it was discovered by Dr. Joshua P. Henderson (Richard Basehart). Both men know that Henderson's notes were destroyed in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, his only remaining artifact a gold pocket watch. Adams introduces Earnshaw to a former NASA physicist and Nobel laureate, Dr. Amos Cummings (Booth Colman), and his colleague Dr. Helen Sanders (Francine York). The physicists have been experimenting with time travel and reveal their plan to send Earnshaw and Adams back in time to find Henderson's cure for Wood's Fever. After being outfitted with period gear, clothing, a small microscope and portable centrifuge, Earnshaw and Adams are briefed on the dangers of time travel. They step through a vault-like door into a room with a view of endless cloud-filled sky, and the process begins. On arrival, they discover that the machine has placed them a day and a half later than expected in the center of Chicago, instead of near Henderson's home outside the city with three days to achieve their goal. Posing as doctors sent from Washington, DC, they find Henderson at his hospital and ask him about his success with the virus. Henderson confesses that he does not know why his patients are surviving. His treatment involves palliative drugs washed down with homemade elderberry wine. Adams and Earnshaw perform their own tests on Henderson's patients, but are equally baffled by their recovery. While trying to obtain a blood sample from one of the survivors, Adams initially thinks he's killed the man but discovers that he had not been cured and would have died anyway. Their mission is further complicated when Earnshaw and Henderson's niece, Jane (Trish Stewart), fall in love. Earnshaw contracts the virus while working with Henderson's patients. When the Great Fire breaks out, the travelers are no closer to the cure. Adams decides to take all of Henderson's paperwork and return to the future, but he is interrupted when a suspicious assistant enters the room. The assistant holds a telegram from Washington, responding to Henderson's cable of thanks with the information that Adams and Earnshaw were not sent by the government. Earnshaw realizes a substance in Henderson's homemade wine is the cure; the only patients who succumbed were those who refused to take alcohol. The race is on to recover the last bottle of wine. They show Henderson the futuristic microscope and centrifuge and recite the inscription inside his pocket watch, convincing him that they are from the future. Despite knowing their fate, the Hendersons remain at the hospital with a trapped patient and perish in an explosion. The travelers return to the departure point with the wine just in time. In 1976, Henderson's wine saves Earnshaw and also the girl stricken during Mardi Gras. After the success of their mission, Adams and Earnshaw visit the graves of Henderson and his niece in Chicago. They place a letter of thanks from the President on Henderson's grave. Earnshaw admits that in loving Jane he "fell in love with history". ===== In a world where countries are divided into 3 subgroups (green, the capitalist countries, red, the communist countries and sweet, the remaining countries), Lopez (known affectionately as "Lopitos") is a bureaucrat from the sweet Latin American "Republica de Los Cocos" (a play on the term "banana republic") who is stationed in the embassy of the Communist bloc country "Pepeslavia" (a play on words of Joseph Stalin, the nickname for Joseph in Spanish (José) is "Pepe", and the inflection "-slavia" of Slavic peoples under the rule of the USSR). Lopitos, who is horribly inefficient but quick-witted, is invited (because of the current ambassador's superstition about 13 sitting down to a meal) to a banquet attended by the ambassadors of both superpowers. After the news of a series of coups d'état in Los Cocos arrives throughout the meal, Lopitos quickly rises to the position of ambassador. At a summit of world leaders, the representatives of the two world superpowers, "Dolaronia" (a play on words of the dollar, the currency of United States) and "Pepeslavia", court the allegiances of third-world diplomats to tilt the balance of global power in their favor. The last diplomat to remain unaligned, Lopitos instead harangues the superpowers for infringing on the rights of developing countries to self determination, talking to them with his point of view as a citizen not as ambassador because he arranged his demise as ambassador one day before his speech. ===== Claudine is a British art scholar who has a terminal case of throat cancer. She is in Venice to give a lecture on the Bosch triptych from which the film gets its name. Claudine is accompanied in Venice by her lover, Chris, a nautical engineer. Together they explore the canals of Venice. Chris has brought his video camera, and the audience watches Claudine and Chris hang out, make love, swim, converse, rent an apartment, and recreate vignettes from the triptych. ===== ===== An elderly woman named Lydia Macmillan (Merle Oberon), who is running a children's home, gets an unexpected visit from a long lost acquaintance, Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick (Joseph Cotten). They haven't seen each other for forty years, when they were young and in love. The story of their lives unfold as they remember the past with great fondness. Lydia remembers her three lovers as a young woman. First there was Bob Willard (George Reeves), a football quarterback. Then there was Frank Audry (Hans Jaray), who was a musician. The third, Richard Mason (Alan Marshal), was an adventurous traveler. Lydia and Michael decide to have tea together, but when she arrives at his home, she finds both Bob and Frank there waiting for her. It turns out all of the men have proposed to Lydia at one time in their life, and she has turned them all down. The topic of their conversation now at their reunion is her reason for rejecting them. Lydia tells them that she has only truly loved one man in her life, which is adventurer Richard Mason. Lydia starts telling her story to the men, beginning when she met Michael in Boston in 1897. At the time Lydia was living with her rich grandmother Sarah (Edna May Oliver). Before an upcoming ball, Lydia and her grandmother argue about the dress but are interrupted when the family butler presents his son Michael, who has just graduated from medical school. The grandmother instantly takes a liking to the boy, and he is put on staff as the family physician. Lydia persuades the young man to accompany her to the ball, but he soon discovers that Lydia is in love with a footballer by the name of Bob Willard. However, not long after the ball, grandmother meets Bob and wants Lydia to break up with him, mainly because of his ill and drunken manners. Lydia plans to elope with Bob and tries to involve Michael in her scheme. Instead of helping he sees to it that she cannot go through with marrying Bob in a nearby town. The disappointed couple have to return to Boston, and split up after a quarrel at the hotel where they have their "wedding" dinner. Elderly Bob interrupts Lydia's story by saying how much he has regretted his actions that night for the last forty years. Lydia goes on to describe how she met Richard Mason. She was accompanying Michael at the docks to say goodbye as he was shipping out to fight in the Spanish–American War. She had met Richard once before, on the night of her "wedding day", but now she met him again at the docks, and recognized the handsome man whom she didn't know the name of. But it was a poor blind boy named Johnny Billy Roy who changed the course of her life that day. He made her focus her efforts to helping the less fortunate and start a school for unfortunate blind children. The school's success attracted the attention of a pianist named Frank Audry, who was in fact blind himself. Frank suggested to Lydia that he could teach music at the school and was hired immediately. Soon, he fell in love with her but she still insisted on not marrying to not become dependent on a man, and continue her work. It was not until she met Richard once again at a ball that she changed her mind about sharing her life with a man. Lydia told her grandmother that she had business in Boston, and went to see Richard in secret. They went to her hometown by the coast and spent two wonderful weeks together. When it was over, Richard departed without notice. He left Lydia a note, explaining that he had to settle the matter of another woman that already had a claim to him. He had enclosed a wedding ring in the note and promised to send her another ring in each letter until they could be together again. Lydia waits for Richard's return and has gives up hope when she receives a ring, sent by mail, and a note where he asks her to meet him at the altar in a Boston church on New Year's Eve. Expectantly, Lydia goes to the church and waits until she realizes he is not coming. She returns to her home and spends months in disappointment. She never tells anyone about what happened. In the meantime, Frank quits his teaching job at the school and leaves. Michael asks Lydia to marry him, despite knowing that she most certainly doesn't love him. Lydia accepts, in need of stability in her life. Unfortunately their union is tainted by the fact that the grandmother dies while toasting for their well-being, and Lydia breaks off the engagement. She travels to her own hometown to get over her love for him but doesn't succeed. She decides to devote her life to helping the blind children and gives up hope of love and marriage. Just as the elderly Lydia finishes her story, a butler calls out that Captain Richard Mason has arrived to the building. To Lydia's disappointment, he doesn't recognize nor remember her at all. Bitterly, Lydia utters that none of the men in her life ever knew her properly. Michael asks her who the real Lydia was, and she replies that there was never only one true Lydia; she was a different person to everyone who met her.http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/82210/Lydia/ ===== Through the course of the film, several flashbacks are shown involving the Skuggs brothers, including (in the beginning of the film) the drug-overdose death of their mother Ella (Khandi Alexander), the non-fatal shooting of their drug-addicted musician father, Arthur Romello "A.R." Skuggs (Clarence Williams III) (ultimately at the hands of the man they would later work for—Gus Molino (Abe Vigoda), and a scene where Roemello is offered a full scholarship to Georgetown. Roemello as a teenager (Dulé Hill) avenges his father's shooting by shooting and killing Sal Marconi (Raymond Serra), Gus's cousin. After contemplating for a while, Roemello decides to quit dealing and start a new life with his girlfriend, Melissa (Theresa Randle), to the disdain of Raynathan, who is scared and hesitant to leave the drug game. However, Roemello learns that getting out is nowhere near as easy as getting in. A series of events lead up to Roemello's eventual departure from the drug game, such as the death of his best friend, Ricky Goggles (Steve Harris) at the hands of an up-and-coming Brooklyn drug dealer and former boxing champion, Lolly Jonas (Ernie Hudson). The Skuggs brothers and their associates find Ricky's burned body hanging from the side of a neighborhood apartment building. They later go after and then kill Tony Adamo, one of the other men responsible for Ricky Goggles’ death. Because of this, an eventual street war starts off between The Skuggs crew and Lolly's organization. Melissa becomes more hesitant of being involved with Roemello, because of his lifestyle. After learning of the death of an aspiring teenage “stick-up kid”, Kymie (Donald Faison) in Roemello's neighborhood (Kymie, in fact, saves Roemello's life in a drive-in shooting by Lolly's people), she decides to break off with Roemello and would have one date with basketball star, Mark Doby (Vondie Curtis Hall). The date starts off fine as Mark takes Melissa back to his house but he becomes drunk, physically and verbally abuses Melissa and nearly rapes her by forcing her to perform oral sex. She barely escapes by punching Mark in the groin and running out the door. As she returns home, she is shamed by her mother for being a “tramp”. She finally returns to Roemello and they begin to make plans to leave New York City. Before Roemello and Melissa depart for North Carolina, they stop by to visit A.R. However, upon arriving at A.R.’s apartment, they find him dead of a drug overdose. Raynathan gave A.R. the heroin that would eventually kill him, with Raynathan’s reasoning being that he wanted “put him out of his misery”. Raynathan is found across the street, coming out of Gus’ restaurant, where he gunned down Gus, Lolly, and Harry, Gus's son. Roemello tells Raynathan what happened to A.R., but Raynathan accepts responsibility of their father's death. After seeing Melissa waiting for Roemello, Raynathan fires his gun at her, and the brothers proceed to fight each other and Raynathan accidentally shoots Roemello. Realizing this, Raynathan panics and shoots himself in the stomach, taking his own life. Roemello and Melissa, sometime later, do move to North Carolina, where they have a young son, but Roemello is found in a wheelchair, likely paralyzed from the waist down (though the extent of the paralysis is not fully explained), however he is enjoying family life. ===== The Cattlemen's Association has called in the Mesquiteers to find cattle rustlers. They get Tex Riley to pose as Stony so Stony can arrive posing as a wanted outlaw. This gets Stony into the gang of rustlers and he alerts Tucson and Lullaby as to the next raid. But Hartley is on hand and unknown to anyone is the rustler's boss and he joins the posse with a plan that will do away with the Mesquiteers. ===== In the early 18th century, the bandit Fra Diavolo returns to his camp in Northern Italy to tell his gang members about his encounter with Lord Rocburg and Lady Pamela. Disguised as the Marquis de San Marco, he rides with them in their carriage and charms Lady Pamela into telling him where she hides her jewels. He orders his thieves to ride to Rocburg's castle and steal his belongings and Pamela's jewels. Meanwhile, Stanlio and Ollio have also been robbed, whereupon Stanlio suggests to Ollio that they should become robbers themselves. After an unsuccessful attempt to rob a woodchopper, the duo encounters Fra Diavolo, who orders Stanlio to hang Ollio for impersonating him. Diavolo is then informed that his men have stolen Lady Pamela's jewels but have not brought the 500,000 francs hidden by Rocburg. Diavolo, again disguised as the marquis, takes Stanlio and Ollio with him as his servants to an inn, where he plans to steal Rocburg's 500,000 francs, and where, as Marquis de San Marco, he again romances Lady Pamela. Stanlio and Ollio mistakenly capture Lord Rocburg, who has disguised himself as the marquis in an attempt to win back his wife. Diavolo's attempt to find the francs is, however, foiled after Stanlio drinks a sleeping potion meant for Rocburg. Diavolo's theft of Pamela's medallion is blamed on young Captain Lorenzo, the sweetheart of Zerlina, whose father, Matteo the innkeeper, has decreed that she is to marry a merchant named Francesco the next day. Lorenzo swears he will prove his innocence before Zerlina is forced to marry Francesco. Meanwhile, Diavolo romances Pamela once again and finds out that Rocburg's fortune is hidden in her petticoat. Just as Diavolo steals the petticoat, Lorenzo finds out his true identity from Stanlio, who is "spiffed" after a visit to Matteo's wine cellar. Lorenzo's soldiers surround the inn and he then duels with Diavolo, whom he bests with a little inadvertent help from Stanlio. The good-natured Diavolo returns the jewels, and when Rocburg will not pay the reward for them to Lorenzo, Diavolo gives Lorenzo the money that he stole from Pamela's petticoat. While the jealous husband rushes upstairs to confront his wife, Lorenzo gives the money to Matteo, thereby saving him from having to sell the inn. Diavolo, Stanlio, and Ollio are then taken away to be shot by a firing squad. When Stanlio takes out his red handkerchief in order to blow his nose, a bull becomes enraged and charges the group, allowing Diavolo to escape on his horse and Stanlio and Ollio to escape on the bull. ===== Liberty Wallace (Linda Fiorentino) is the Vice President of Marketing for McCloud Industries, one of the largest gun manufacturers in the United States. She's the daughter of the company's founder, and married to the company's ruthless CEO, Victor Wallace (Oliver Platt). While Victor trafficks in international armaments, Liberty takes a break to have a romantic affair with Russell Williams (Martin Cummins), an actor. The balance of their marriage of convenience shifts when a sniper, Joe (Wesley Snipes), targets Liberty in a busy Los Angeles park on the way to her affair. Joe calls Liberty on her cell phone, ordering her to shackle herself to a nearby vendor’s hot dog cart. Liberty has no intention of acquiescing to Joe's wishes, until he begins shooting. Convinced, she locks herself to the stand, only to learn that it is loaded with explosives. If she calls for help, hangs up the phone, mutes the phone, or fails to co-operate, the bomb will go off. Joe has also armed a bomb against Russell, backstage in his dressing room at the nearby theater. Liberty realizes she can not buy her way out of the situation, and she is forced to consider Joe's demand for an anti-gun forum. It is revealed that Joe's daughter was fatally shot at school by a classmate, who used a gun manufactured by McCloud Industries. Joe has decided to show Liberty what it is like to be on the other end of the weapon, and the horrors of what she has had a blind hand in for years. Victor and Liberty have even bartered illegal deals that have resulted in easier access to weapons for street dealers, including the ones who sold the weapon that killed Joe's daughter. Joe wants Liberty to use her political connections and this incident to spark a public debate on the Second Amendment. Despite his past, Joe no longer supports the unequivocal right to bear arms. Joe tells Liberty that she is going to die, but that she can die as a hero if she exposes her company's shady business dealings and political connections before she's killed. As Joe monitors and records her every move, Liberty reveals secrets about her past, and business dealings. When Victor, who is also having an affair, finds out that Liberty has been taken hostage, he is torn between protecting himself and allowing Liberty to be killed, or going to help her. At first, it seems that Joe, who is actually a former CIA agent, is using Liberty as bait to attract media attention, but then Joe guns down news reporter Bill Tollman (Jonathan Scarfe), who is also the son of a hawkish U.S. Senator. Joe expresses his belief that this act will cause the Senator to change his pro-gun stance. Joe calls Victor on his cell phone as Victor is finally acting on his choice to get out of town. While Joe is shaming Victor for leaving his wife to die, Victor suddenly recognizes the voice on the phone as someone he knows personally. Following the phone conversation, Victor orders his car to bring him to where his wife is. When Victor finally arrives on the scene, Joe calls him on his cell phone again, and Victor addresses Joe by the name Alex. They discuss the time they met in Colombia and how Alex had saved Victor’s life there. Victor also apologizes for having won a military medal under false pretenses for whatever transpired while they were in Colombia. Joe/Alex then shoots and kills Victor in front of Liberty. Alex then tells Liberty that it is all up to her now before informing her that a key to her shackles is hidden in a box, underneath the hot dog cart. Liberty retrieves the key and releases herself, and then she runs to Russell's dressing room. Together, they helplessly watch the timer on his bomb count down to zero. When the bomb does not explode, they realize that it was a fake. Meanwhile, a police SWAT team has figured out which building Joe is hiding in. Before they can get to Joe/Alex he shoots himself under the chin, and dies; but he has already forwarded Liberty's recorded confessions to several newspapers. ===== A former CIA agent and ex-Special Forces member Dean Cage (Wesley Snipes), is in a rehab program, haunted by a botched mission in Bosnia which resulted in the execution of his best friend Scott (Cristian Solimeno). While in a restaurant waiting for his girlfriend, Baltimore Police Detective Amy Knight (Jacqueline Obradors), who happens to be Scott's sister, he is mistakenly believed to be a CIA agent involved with a stolen military experimental truth serum. He is abducted by the real thieves and injected with the drug, which makes him relive the moments from the failed Bosnian mission and not able to discern who are his allies and who are his enemies. Amy has six hours to find the antidote and save Dean's life. ===== When the U.S. is tricked into targeting an 'armed' nuclear reactor captured by Chechen rebels, a Chechen leader is killed and rebel leaders capture the nuclear power plant. Enter Painter (Wesley Snipes), a US Special Forces operative, known as 'The Marksman'. Painter and his Spec-Ops team only have a limited amount of time to resolve the conflict before U.S. military forces wade in. However, when things don't go according to plan, Painter suspects that foul play may be afoot. ===== After professional thief Jack Tulliver and his crew pull off a meticulously planned armored car heist, they are ambushed in Bucharest by a group of Romanian racketeers. This rogue group, tipped off to the heist by an unknown turncoat, kills Tulliver's associate Bull and most of his crew. Tulliver escapes with a mysterious sealed case that was the most valuable part of the stolen loot. After car-jacking Sgt. Kelly Anders' car, he makes a getaway through Bucharest, but leaves Anders under the suspicion of her fellow officers. Meanwhile, Tulliver tries to save a team member who has been captured by Alexie Kutchinov, a sadistic Russian millionaire gangster in charge of the Romanian racketeers that ambushed Tulliver. Jack and Sgt. Anders are saved by Bull's brother Mikail Mercea, a Romanian mobster who shoots Alexie to avenge his brother's death. Ultimately, the content of the case is revealed, and we come to know why it is in such high demand. ===== Tony Stark, who has inherited the defense contractor Stark Industries from his father Howard Stark, is in war-torn Afghanistan with his friend and military liaison, Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, to demonstrate the new "Jericho" missile. After the demonstration, the convoy is ambushed and Stark is critically wounded by a missile used by the attackers: one of his company's own. He is captured and imprisoned in a cave by a terrorist group called the Ten Rings. Yinsen, a fellow captive doctor, implants an electromagnet into Stark's chest to keep the shrapnel shards that wounded him from reaching his heart and killing him. Ten Rings leader Raza offers Stark freedom in exchange for building a Jericho missile for the group, but he and Yinsen know that Raza will not keep his word. Stark and Yinsen secretly build a small, powerful electric generator called an arc reactor to power Stark's electromagnet and a prototype suit of powered armor to aid in their escape. Although they keep the suit hidden almost to completion, the Ten Rings discover their hostages' intentions and attack the workshop. Yinsen sacrifices himself to divert them while the suit fully charges. The armored Stark battles his way out of the cave to find the dying Yinsen, then burns the Ten Rings' weapons in anger and flies away, crashing in the desert and destroying the suit. After being rescued by Rhodes, Stark returns home and announces that his company will cease manufacturing weapons. Obadiah Stane, his father's old partner and the company's manager, advises Stark that this may ruin Stark Industries and his father's legacy. In his home workshop, Stark builds a sleeker, more powerful version of his improvised armor suit as well as a more powerful arc reactor for it and his chest. Personal assistant Pepper Potts places the original reactor inside a small glass showcase. Though Stane requests details, a suspicious Stark decides to keep his work to himself. At a charity event held by Stark Industries, reporter Christine Everhart informs Stark that his company's weapons were recently delivered to the Ten Rings and are being used to attack Yinsen's home village, Gulmira. Stark dons his new armor and flies to Afghanistan, where he saves the villagers. While flying home, Stark is attacked by two fighter jets. He reveals his secret identity to Rhodes over the phone in an attempt to end the attack. Meanwhile, the Ten Rings gather the pieces of Stark's prototype suit and meet with Stane, who has been trafficking arms to criminals worldwide and has staged a coup to replace Stark as Stark Industries' CEO by hiring the Ten Rings to kill him. He subdues Raza and has the rest of the group killed. Stane has a massive new suit reverse engineered from the wreckage. Seeking to track his company's illegal shipments, Stark sends Potts to hack into its database. She discovers that Stane hired the Ten Rings to kill Stark, but the group reneged when they realized they had a direct route to Stark's weapons. Potts meets with Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D., an intelligence agency, to inform him of Stane's activities. Stane's scientists cannot duplicate Stark's miniaturized arc reactor, so Stane ambushes Stark at his home and steals the one from his chest. Stark manages to get to his original reactor to replace it. Potts and several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents attempt to arrest Stane, but he dons his suit and attacks them. Stark fights Stane but is outmatched without his new reactor to run his suit at full capacity. The fight carries Stark and Stane to the top of the Stark Industries building, and Stark instructs Potts to overload the large arc reactor powering the building. This unleashes a massive electrical surge that causes Stane and his armor to fall into the exploding reactor, killing him. The next day, at a press conference, Stark defies suggestions from S.H.I.E.L.D. and publicly admits to being "Iron Man." In a post-credits scene, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury visits Stark at home, telling him that Iron Man is not "the only superhero in the world", and explaining that he wants to discuss the "Avenger Initiative". ===== Jimmy’s family is settled on the Moon. Since Jimmy was born on the Moon, he is greatly accustomed to life and dangers on the Moon. Robutt, a robot-dog, was Jimmy’s companion. One day his father decided to bring a real dog from the earth. He hoped that a real dog is better than Robutt. However, Jimmy was not happy to get a real dog because he had become greatly attached to Robutt ===== The novel is basically without plot, instead episodically depicting the psychological changes in three LAPD officers caused by their police work, and particularly the nature of police work in poor minority communities of Los Angeles. The three officers: Serge Duran, Gus Plebesly, and Roy Fehler, are classmates at the police academy in the summer of 1960, and the novel examines their lives each August of succeeding years, culminating in their on-the-job reunion during the Watts riots of August 1965. The New Centurions is likely the most autobiographical of Wambaugh's novels. He provides a straightforward narration of events with little use of flashback. Each chapter is written in the third-person from the point of view of one of the three protagonists. They have no contact with each other once they graduate from the academy, but their paths are similar and converging. Like Wambaugh, his protagonists move from a few years of uniformed patrol in minority districts to plainclothes assignments in juvenile and vice work, experiences which so affected Wambaugh that he returns to them repeatedly as plot elements in his fiction. Wambaugh also explores the officers' private lives, noting adultery, alcoholism, racism and suicide as rampant in the ranks of the LAPD. Police suicide, in particular, is a theme Wambaugh explores in nearly all of his books. A major theme explored throughout the book is what traits characterize a veteran officer, and how a rookie acquires them. Wambaugh consistently compares the attitudes of the new officers (one is not considered a veteran in the LAPD until one's fifth anniversary on the job) to those of the older entrenched men. ===== While traveling to Nome, Alaska, Roy Glenister (Gary Cooper) meets beautiful Helen Chester (Kay Johnson), who soon becomes his sweetheart. Glenister is one of several owners of a lucrative mine called The Midas. When he arrives in Nome, he discovers that his partners, Slapjack Simms (Slim Summerville) and Joe Dextry (James Kirkwood), are in the middle of a legal dispute with three corrupt officials: United States Marshal Voorhees (Jack Holmes), Judge Stillman (Lloyd Ingraham), and a politician named Alec McNamara (William "Stage" Boyd ). They have been engaged in a racket claiming titles to various mines, ejecting the miners, and then making McNamara owner of the disputed properties. The three corrupt officials lay claim to The Midas. McNamara also steals money from Glenister, Dextry, and Slapjack, preventing them from enlisting legal help from the United States. When Dextry and Glenister plan a vigilante action, McNamara calls in a detail of soldiers to protect "his property". As Glenister and McNamara prepare for a gunfight, they are dissuaded by Helen, who suggests that the courts handle the dispute. Later, after jealous saloon owner Cherry Malotte (Betty Compson) lies to Glennister telling him that Helen and McNamara are conspiring to cheat him again, Glennister and McNamara settle their differences with a spectacular fistfight, with McNamara getting the worst. Afterwards, Glenister wins the hand of Helen. ===== Nome, Alaska, 1900: Flapjack and Banty come to town to check on their gold mine claim. Saloon owner Cherry Malotte is aware of the corruption all around, including that Bennett and Clark are out to steal the men's claim. In on the crooked scheme is the new gold commissioner, Alexander McNamara, as well as the last word of law and order in the territory, Judge Stillman. So the bad guys usually get their way. Cherry's old beau, Roy Glennister, returns from a trip to Europe. He is attracted to Helen Chester, the judge's niece. Roy makes the mistake of siding with McNamara, damaging his relationship with his longtime partner, Al Dextry. Roy realizes he's been deceived as McNamara and Stillman prepare to steal at least $250,000 while the mine's case awaits appeal. Helen is now in love with Roy, who begs Dextry's forgiveness and persuades him to rob a bank to take back the wealth stolen from them. Both Glennister and Dextry don black faces to disguise themselves. The Bronco Kid kills the marshall but Roy gets the blame. He is arrested and a plot forms to kill him, but Cherry comes to his rescue, breaking Roy out of jail. A fierce fistfight with McNamara results in Roy getting back his mine and his girl. ===== In Flynn's previous novel, Memorial Day, CIA counter-terror operative and assassin Mitch Rapp uncovered an Al-Qaeda plot to use a nuclear weapon obtained from abandoned Russian nuclear storage bunkers. The ultimate goal was the destruction of Washington, D.C., and Rapp was forced to torture the only man who knew the details of the plan: Waheed Abdullah. Rapp then faked Waheed's death to prevent the Saudi Government from learning of it and rescuing him, while preserving a useful source for himself. To keep Waheed from being discovered, Rapp puts him in an Afghan prison. However, this plan backfires: Waheed's father, Saeed Ahmed Abdullah, a billionaire Saudi businessman and a jihadist himself, learns that Rapp has "killed" his son. Saeed beseeches Saudi Prince Muhammed bin Rashid for help. Rashid puts Saeed in contact with a former East German Stasi officer, Erich Abel, and Saeed puts a $20 million contract on Rapp's head. Abel, through his contacts, approaches two assassins, a husband and wife team, Louis Gould and Claudia Morrell. For $10 million, they agree to kill Rapp. Claudia, who is pregnant, specifically asks Louis not to kill Rapp's wife, Anna, as she is also pregnant. Louis agrees, and both leave for America. In Washington, Rapp is angered by the new Director of National Intelligence, Mark Ross, who authorized surveillance of Rapp's co-worker and friend, former Navy SEAL Scott Coleman. Ross sends the IRS to investigate Coleman, and requests Coleman's personnel file from the Navy. Ross has ambitions to the presidency and views his current position as a stepping stone to the White House. He has no respect for Rapp because of Rapp's reckless actions and, despite his contributions, wants to fire him. Rapp decides to visit Ross to stop his investigation of Coleman, but he loses his famous temper when he finds a satellite photo of Coleman and discovers his friend was an active topic of interest. He physically holds the National Security adviser by the collar and slaps him with a folder holding Coleman's files. Rapp warns Ross not to interfere with the War on Terror. His words fall on deaf ears, though, and Ross decides that he must fire Rapp. Since Rapp has the president's full support, Ross decides he has to do it carefully. Later, Rapp injures his left knee during a morning jog, and encounters the assassins Gould and Claudia, both dressed as bicyclists, examining his house. Rapp doesn't suspect anything and continues limping back towards his house. The next day, Rapp undergoes arthroscopic knee surgery. He and his wife Anna come home and as they settle down in their house, Louis detonates a bomb that kills Anna and throws a severely wounded Rapp into Chesapeake Bay where he is saved by a nearby boater. The CIA fakes Rapp's death and takes him to a safehouse to recuperate. In a secret meeting with Irene Kennedy, Director of the CIA, President Hayes tells Kennedy that Rapp has his consent to kill any and all people involved in the murder of his wife. Saudi Prince Rashid, who is visiting U.S., finds out from Director Ross that Rapp is in fact not dead. Ross carelessly informs Rashid of Rapp's safehouse location. Rashid orders his assistant, Saudi intelligence agent Nawaf Tayyib, to kill Rapp and Abel. Tayyib hires Latino gang leader Anibal Castillo to kill Rapp at the safehouse. Tayyib then goes hunting for the go-between Abel with two of his men, to sever the chain of contacts leading back to the prince. Castillo and thirteen of his men attack the safehouse. Rapp kills all of Castillo's men, then wounds Castillo and brings him in to be questioned. Through different leads Rapp discovers Saeed was the one who put a bounty on his head. Rapp goes to Afghanistan and gets Waheed out of prison, giving Waheed the impression that it is a hostage exchange. Rapp has Waheed unknowingly wear a vest full of explosives. As the released Waheed embraces his father in the street, Rapp pulls out a detonator and blows Saeed and Waheed and twelve of Saeed's bodyguards to pieces. The CIA in the meantime has found out about Erich Abel's role in hiring the assassins and sends Rapp to Abel's office. There Rapp finds Tayyib torturing Abel's secretary for information on Abel's whereabouts. Rapp kills Tayyib's men, and he and Coleman capture Tayyib. A conscience-stricken Claudia is revealed to be the one who gave the CIA information on Abel. Abel's secretary reveals to Rapp and Coleman that Abel is in Austria. Rapp flies there and captures Abel at his mountain retreat and tortures him for information. Abel reveals that Rashid was the mastermind behind the plot. He also gives information on the assassins. After hearing this, Rapp, who has become much more violent and vengeful after the killing of his wife, burns Abel alive inside the house. Rapp travels to Spain where Rashid is staying. Coleman bribes Rashid's guards, who are British SAS sympathetic to Rapp, to let them in. Rapp completely covers Tayyib's body with explosives and drops him off in front of the mosque where Rashid is staying. Once Rashid's personal guards have Tayyib in custody, Rapp detonates the explosives, killing Tayyib and all the guards. Rapp finds Rashid and beats him severely before he puts a thermal grenade in his mouth and pulls the pin, melting Rashid's head. In the epilogue, set nine months later, Rapp trails Louis and Claudia to Tahiti. Claudia has had her baby and Louis has retired. Rapp aims a gun at Louis's head, but once he hears that the baby was named after his deceased wife, he realizes she would not want her death avenged like this. He turns and leaves Louis, Claudia, and Anna unharmed. He then throws the gun into the ocean and continues walking down the boardwalk outside. ===== A wealthy playboy/private-investigator named Cody Abilene is hired by a government intelligence operative to investigate a lead into who is selling computer technology to the Russians. While investigating rich socialites, amorous naked vixens, an ex-con with a penchant for blackmail, and keeping it all from his sexy lady cop friend Beverly Mcafee, Cody puts himself in the crosshairs of the traitorous tech-spies who will gladly kill to stay in business. The scope of the conspiracy is revealed after Cody and Beverly make love at a suspect's beachhouse, only to find a pair of hitmen gunning for them as they get dressed. Gunplay, car chases, and races ensue. ===== Caith mac Sliabhin, condemned by the Sidhe in "The Brothers" for committing patricide, wanders along the river Guagach, accompanied and tormented by Dubhain, a mischievous pooka. Their journey takes them to Gleann Fiain where a beast from the river chases Caith up a hill to an isolated cottage. The occupants, twins Ceannann and Firinne, let Caith and Dubhain in and allow them to spend the night. Unbeknown to Caith, the birth of the twins 21 years ago set in motion a sequence of events that damned Gleann Fiain and cast a shadow over Faery. The twins were born to Fianna, queen of Gleann Fiain in Dun Glas. But unbeknown to her husband, Ceannann mac Ceannann, Fianna was unable to conceive and had sought help from a wise-women, Moragacht. Moragacht struck a bargain with her, promising her twins if she lay down with a selkie, in exchange for one of the twins when they were born. But when the twins arrived (a human and a selkie) and Moragacht came to claim one of them, Fianna denied any knowledge of her, and mac Ceannann turned Moragacht away. From that day onwards, grief and misery struck the family, and mac Ceannann and Fianna were forced to vacate Dun Glas and flee with the twins to an abandoned hilltop fortress. But the loch beast, under Moragacht's control, found them there and killed them all, except the twins, now aged 14, who escaped to the cottage. The witch then seized control of Dun Glas from where she damned all of Gleann Fiain. But the wards that had protected the cottage from Moragacht fall when Caith and Dubhain arrive. Riders from Dun Glas come and capture the twins. Caith and Dubhain (as a horse) give chase, but as they approach the riders, Dubhain is overcome by the witch's magic and falls into the loch, abandoning Caith. Caith and the twins are taken to Dun Glas where they are locked in cells bordering the loch. Caith lapses into a dream where he enters the loch to find Dubhain duelling with the loch beast. He draws Dubhain back to his cell, who in turn calls Nuallan from Faery, the bright Sidhe controlling their destinies. Nuallan gives Caith a silver key to unlock the iron cells and so lifts a spell enabling Nuallan to cast Caith, Dubhain and the twins out of Dun Glas. Moragacht allows her prisoners to escape because with her magic she now holds Nuallan, a bigger catch and her means to controlling Faery. The twins lead Caith and Dubhain to the ruins of the hilltop fortress, their former home. There they make a fire with the remains of a staircase, but a ghost appears out of the smoke that transports Caith back to the night of the fall of the fortress and into the body of Padraic, head of mac Ceannann's household. There he relives the last few hours of the family until he is killed by the beast. Firinne retrieves one of the burning timbers from the fire as a keepsake, and the twins set off for the sea to search for their selkie father, with Caith and Dubhain in pursuit. Caith finds the selkie first, a whale floundering on the beach. But when the selkie shapeshifts to a man, he is killed by one of Moragacht's pursuing riders. In the ensuing confusion, Caith accidentally kills Ceannann. Firinne is devastated by the loss of her twin brother and gives Caith her keepsake from the fortress. Then, revealing her selkie birth, she changes into a whale and heads out to sea. Caith rides Dubhain back to Dun Glas to free Nuallan. Once again Dubhain is weakened by the witch's spells and Caith has to enter the keep on his own. He sees Nuallan helpless in his cell, but Nuallan asks him to unlock it with the silver key Caith unknowingly still had all this time, the key that would have given Moragacht access to Faery. Nuallan takes the key and flees the keep, leaving Caith to fend for himself. Moragacht, furious at the loss of the Sidhe, prepares to deal with Caith, but he throws the charred piece of wood Firinne gave him into the fireplace which releases Padraic, the ghost from the hilltop fortress. In an act of revenge, it begins destroying Dun Glas and all in it. With the witch's spell now diminishing, Dubhain rescues Caith from the keep, while in the loch a whale from the sea turns on the beast. The shadow over Faery lifts and Caith and Dubhain resume their travels. ===== Judy and Peter Shepherd are two kids that found a board game called "Jumanji". Each turn, the two of them were given a "game clue" and then sucked into the jungle until they solved their clue. They meet Alan Parrish, who was trapped in Jumanji because he had never seen his clue. Judy and Peter would help Alan try to leave the game, providing the characters' motivation during the series. Also, Peter would sometimes be transformed into various animals whenever he cheated, sometimes using the abilities of whatever animal he becomes to an advantage. The kids also free another player trapped longer than Alan. Unlike Alan, he saw his clue but never solved it, but with the kids' help he solves it. He called himself the Master of Jumanji and tried to get other people to solve his clue for him, but once Alan points out that his clue (the Gateless Gate) is an illusion of Jumanji's and he accepts it, it solves his clue. It's also revealed that like Judy and Peter, Alan would never have been able to survive his first day in Jumanji without help, as he possessed poor survival skills at the time. Ironically, his help came in the form of Judy and Peter from the future (to him anyway) who help him survive and teach him a few of the survival tricks they'd learned from him. In return, the 10-year-old version of Alan helps Judy and Peter return to their time, but later hits his head and forgets meeting them. In the first episode, Alan reveals that there have been other players of the game throughout time, many of whom left their toys in the cave which is part of his home, but not all of them survived the game. In the final episode, using a crystal that shows the past, the kids and Alan find his clue by observing his role and what the game said, and figure out why he never saw it: right after he rolled his mom called him to dinner and as he was leaving, the clue displayed while he had his back turned and he got sucked in. Once he knew his clue, Alan solved it with Judy and Peter's help and escaped Jumanji. Outside, the kids decide to destroy the Jumanji game now that Alan's free. In the series, it is revealed that Jumanji is sentient to a degree and on occasion has sucked in Judy and Peter if they make it "angry". ===== Summer Pozzi (Lara Phillips), a Chicago-based flight attendant for an unnamed airline, is mentally preparing to quit her job and marry Jim, her soon-to-be airline pilot boyfriend. During a layover, she gets a phone call asking her to transfer to San Francisco. Then, Jim tells her he refused to take a final exam to be a pilot, unable to have the lives of many passengers on his shoulders. Shaken and disappointed, Summer decides to go ahead with the transfer, and promises herself not to fall for another man too quickly. Once in San Francisco, she moves into a small apartment with three other flight attendants, one of them who was supposed to be moving out. There's Portia (Rachel Luttrell), a posh but insecure British girl undergoing an eternal makeover, Kate (Claire Rankin), who is very bitchy ever since Summer reprimanded her on a previous flight and Lucas (Michael Gilio), with whom Summer immediately has a one-night stand. During a layover, she later meets Julian (Josh Randall), the captain of her dreams. She is immediately in love. He is based in Hong Kong, and meeting him every week in New York poses a challenge, which will come to an end very suddenly, as she realizes her actions cost one of her friends' job and maybe even someone else's life, and as she sees Julian as anything but the perfect man he once appeared to be. ===== A family is driving down a desert highway when they hit a deer. The dad gets out and comes back with half his face gone. The family is attacked by something. In a lavish apartment, Trip meets with a dealer, Radford, who provides him with pills for a rave in the desert. When Radford leaves the room, Trip steals all of the pills. He meets with his friends Cookie, Nelson, Jack (who is blind), and Gretchen. The group then stops at a diner where Trip, not believing Jack is really blind, jokingly tricks him into using the women's restroom. When he realizes his mistake, Trip admits to Nelson that he stole the drugs he currently has, and Nelson reminds him how insane this dealer is, explaining he's even killed someone before. Trip simply passes it off as a legend. The dealer then calls Trip on his cellphone and says he is aware he stole the drugs because he caught him on his computer webcam and says he wants the drugs back, and Trip agrees to meet with the dealer at Area 52, Kelton in 2 hours or they're all dead. The group then leaves the diner. The group notices an overturned car on the highway, which they dismiss as an abandoned accident. Gretchen discovers that Trip is carrying drugs and stops the vehicle to kick him out. While parking at the side of the road, the group notices a short, but strong tremor. Gretchen agrees to take Trip back to the diner, which has been abandoned. The car runs out of gas and breaks down, so they decide to stay at the Halfway Motel next to the diner. Learning from the radio that the highway has been closed, Trip decides to walk down the road for help. Jack and Gretchen pitch camp outside. After a close call with the drug dealer Radford at another stop, Trip escapes and meets a man named Henry driving an RV, who is looking for his missing wife. He goes with Trip to the motel and sets up camp there. Trip doesn't tell his friends about his run-in with Radford, but warns them to be careful. Looking for signal reception for his mobile phone, Trip releases from a rubbish skip the still-living head, torso, and arms of a truck driver, who then crawls away. Henry then meets Trip and discovers they both are seeing the dead people. While in his camper, Henry collapses, seemingly suffocating as a dark figure moves through the trailer. Still looking for reception, Trip is attacked on the roof by a hooded figure. Cookie is killed while sitting in an outhouse by being dragged into the hole. Nelson is almost dragged under his bed, but pulls himself back up and jumps on top of the bed. He takes his sneaker off and drops it on the ground, watching as it is shredded. He then tries to escape by jumping through the window, but fatally cuts his throat on a shard of glass. Gretchen and Jack discover Nelson's and Henry's bodies, prompting Gretchen to look for Trip and Cookie. Jack encounters the creature but escapes when Trip, who has lost an arm, shoots at the figure with his gun. Trip is overpowered by the creature and dies. In reality, an RV crashed into Gretchen's car after Trip stepped out to call for a ride, at the moment when they experienced the tremor. None of the group had noticed the RV, whose driver was Henry. His wife, Rose, explained to the officers on the scene that Henry suffered a heart attack and lost control. The car that the group saw leaving the diner was, in fact, their own. Each of the deaths at the hotel were reflected by their own deaths in the car: Cookie died from internal bleeding; Nelson cut his neck when he was thrown through the windshield; Trip's arm was severed gripping the cell phone, and he died from blunt force trauma. Gretchen survived the crash because she was wearing her seat belt and Jack, despite receiving a massive head injury and a broken arm, also remained alive in the car. Radford, who had been stalking Trip, witnessed the accident and attempted to assist; hence the visions of him at the motel and highway. In the final scene, Gretchen and Jack briefly discuss the fact that neither has any recollection of the accident, and no mention is made of the incidents at the motel. Jack comments that, for a moment in the crash, he thought he could see Gretchen, offhandedly mentioning the color of her eyes. ===== The story follows Jennifer Simpson, an orphan from the fictional Granite Orphanage in Romsdalen, Norway. She and other orphaned children named Laura, Anne, and Lotte are adopted in September 1995 by a wealthy recluse named Simon Barrows, who lives in a mansion known as the "Clock Tower", named after its predominant feature. After arriving at the mansion, Mary, the woman who brought the children to the mansion, leaves to find Mr. Barrows. When she takes an unusually long time, Jennifer offers to investigate. Upon leaving the room, she hears a scream coming from the main foyer. Jennifer returns to find the lights off and the girls missing. After finding either Laura or Anne killed, she finds herself being stalked by a murderous little boy with deformed features, wielding a huge pair of scissors, named Bobby Barrows, also known as the Scissorman in the game. While exploring the mansion, Jennifer searches for Mary's true intentions. Depending on choices made by the player, Jennifer will either discover Simon Barrows trapped in a jail cell inside the courtyard, or her father's corpse in a hidden room. If the former happens, Jennifer will need to give him a piece of ham as food. If the latter happens, Jennifer will find his death letter that tells of his account concerning Mary Barrows and her twins, Bobby and Dan. It says that he was trapped there for three days, until his death on November 10, 1986. Jennifer then visits a small, occult-looking church. If the player has collected all the necessary items and clues, then she gains access to the catacombs of the mansion - using either the Devil Idol or the Sceptor, but the former is canonical as it appears in the sequel. Jennifer sees a cloaked figure walking ahead of her; this is Mary. She follows it, wearing a disguise to fool the guard dog using Mary's perfume, and a black cloak found in the mansion. If Lotte did not need to rescue Jennifer from the jail cell, she can be found dying at an altar, and tells Jennifer about the switches in the clock tower. Otherwise, she rescues Jennifer from the jail cell, but is shot by a threatening Mary. Jennifer enters a room where she discovers Dan Barrows, a giant, gluttonous purple creature. Dan awakens from his slumber and chases Jennifer to a steep cliff. She successfully climbs over, knocking down a can of kerosene which splashes onto a nearby candle. This triggers an explosion that immolates Dan, while Jennifer rides an elevator out of the catacombs. She ends up defeating Bobby in the clock tower, and Mary as well in (or around, depending on prior actions) the clock tower. If Ann (or Laura) has not died yet, then this survivor reunites with Jennifer at the clock tower but later be thrown down the tower by Mary. These actions would lead to one of Endings A, B, or C - any of these could be canonical according to the events of the next game. Because of the game's open-ended nature, the player can also discover other endings. ===== Set during World War II, just after Pearl Harbor, Stan (Stan Laurel) and Ollie (Oliver Hardy) try their hand at various business ventures. Their store opens and closes in various guises but without success. They finally open it as a bicycle store, but it goes bankrupt and they close it down to enlist in the army. They fail in every attempt to succeed in the military and return to their home town Huxton only to find out that their store now is open, with a man named Eustace Middling (Donald Meek) in charge, selling radios instead of bicycles. But Middling offers them to share the space in a joint venture. Stan and Ollie don't realize that Middling in fact is a German spy, using the shop as a front to cover a base for espionage on the US Military. The pair decide to support the civil defense by becoming air raid wardens in Huxton. To complete their training, they have to take part in an advanced military drill, and Stan of course manages to get the wrong assignment—one that is far more complicated than they can handle. They set out on their mission, to rescue a very prominent banker, J.P. Norton (Howard Freeman), from a fire, but fail hugely, ending up burying the banker alive in a huge load of sand. Still, they are given one more chance to prove their aptitude as air raid wardens, involving the task of ensuring that all the town citizens turn off their lights at night. They get into a quarrel with one of the more troublesome inhabitants, Joe Bledsoe (Edgar Kennedy), resulting in a commotion and a rumor that spy activity is taking place in Joe's home. The boys are knocked out, and in the end they are finally dismissed from the corps altogether. Back at their shop, they happen to overhear the spies speaking German, and follow them to a hide-out outside of town, where they find out Middling's real name is Mittelhause, and overhear him talking about blowing the town's magnesium plant to pieces with another spy, Rittenhause (Henry O'Neill). They try to send a message to the civil defense, but instead they are captured by the German spies. The boys manage to flee and alert the civil defense, who arrive at the plant just in time to stop the sabotage. Stan and Ollie also expose Middling as a German spy. ===== A king had a wife, Silver-Tree, and a daughter, Gold-Tree. One day they walked by a pond, and Silver-Tree asked a trout if she were the most beautiful queen in the world, whereupon the trout said that Gold-Tree was more beautiful. Silver-Tree took to her bed and declared she would never be well unless she ate Gold-Tree's heart and liver. A king's son had asked to marry Gold-Tree, so her father agreed and sent them off; then he gave his wife the heart and liver of a he-goat, at which she got up from her bed. Silver-Tree went back to the trout, which told her Gold-Tree was still more beautiful, and living abroad with a prince. Silver-Tree begged a ship of her husband to visit her daughter. The prince was away hunting; Gold-Tree was terrified at the sight of the ship. The servants locked her away in a room so she could tell her mother she could not come out. Silver-Tree persuaded her to put her little finger through the keyhole, so she could kiss it, and when Gold-Tree did, Silver-Tree stuck a poisoned thorn into it. When the prince returned, he was grief-stricken, and could not persuade himself to bury Gold-Tree, because she was so beautiful. He kept her body in a room. Having married for a second time, he would not let his new wife into the room. One day, he forgot the key, and the new wife went in. She tried to wake Gold-Tree, and found the thorn in her finger. Pulling it out, she revived Gold-Tree. Because of the wakened one's identity, the second wife offered to leave, but their husband refused to allow it. Silver-Tree went back to the trout, who told her what had happened. Silver-Tree took the ship again. The prince was hunting again, but the second wife said that the two of them must meet her. Silver-Tree offered a poisoned drink. The second wife said that it was the custom that the person who offered the drink drank of it first. Silver-Tree put the drink to her mouth, and the second wife struck her arm so that some went into her throat. She fell down dead. The prince, Gold- Tree, and the second wife lived happily thereafter. ===== Spartacus begins with three young Roman patricians – Caius, his sister Helena and her friend Claudia, commencing a journey from Rome to Capua along the Via Appia a few weeks after the final suppression of the slave revolt. The road is lined by "tokens of punishment" – slaves crucified in the immediate aftermath of the revolt. During the first day of their travel the party encounter several representative individuals; a minor politician, a prosperous businessman of the equestrian class, an eastern trader and a young officer of the legions; all of whom give their respective perspectives on the rising. On arrival at a palatial country villa where they are to spend the night, the trio meet with other guests, both historical and fictional, who either played key roles in the events just finished or who have sufficient perception to analyze the significance of slavery as an institution within the Roman Republic. From the encounters at the Villa Salaria, the focus of the novel moves to occasions before and during the actual rising of the slaves. The emphasis is on Spartacus, his life in the mines and as a gladiator; his character, powers of leadership and dreams of a just society where exploitation and cruelty have been eliminated. Spartacus had been born a free man in his homeland of Thrace, but he was captured as a young man and sold as a slave in the gold-mines of Libya. Eventually, he and several Thracian slaves, including his comrade Gannicus, are bought by a wealthy nobleman, Lentulus Batiatus, who owns and trains a large number of gladiators at his estate near the Italian city of Capua. There, Spartacus and Gannicus meet a large number of Africans, Gauls, and Thracians who train and fight as gladiators for the roaring applause of Roman crowds. There, Spartacus and Gannicus meet and befriend three fellow gladiators, a large red-headed Gaul named Crixus, a Jew named David, and a dark-skinned African named Nordo. Spartacus trains and fights as a gladiator, while adjusting well to the comforts of the ludus that Batiatus and his trainers provide for them. He eventually meets and begins a romantic relationship with a golden-haired German girl named Varinia, who is one of several dozen female slaves that Batiatus keeps for the pleasure of his gladiators. But Spartacus and many of his fellow gladiators yearn for freedom, and after being harassed by the prison guards one day, the gladiators and female slaves rise up in revolt against their Roman master. Led by Spartacus and Crixus, the rebels overwhelm their trainers and prison guards, force Lentulus Batiatus to retreat from his villa to Capua, and destroy the city garrison sent to stop them. ===== Perry Mason is a distinguished criminal-defense lawyer practicing in Los Angeles, California, most of whose clients have been wrongly charged with murder. Each episode typically follows a formula. The first half of the show introduces a prospective murder victim and a series of persons involved with the victim, who through word or deed, reveal themselves as the likely perpetrator of the crime; in a parallel story, Mason's eventual client or someone associated with that client is introduced. Once the crime has been committed, Mason, his private investigator Paul Drake, and his secretary Della Street have some adversarial dealings with the homicide detective (Lt. Arthur Tragg in the early years), who arrests the wrong suspect, and perhaps Mason's legal nemesis, Los Angeles County District Attorney Hamilton Burger, who prosecutes an innocent suspect, until finally Mason's client is charged with murder based on the circumstantial evidence. In the second half, Mason spars with Burger in the courtroom, either during the trial or the preliminary hearing, in which the district attorney is required to produce just enough evidence to convince the judge that the defendant should be bound over for trial. As the courtroom proceedings advance, Mason often finds the case going against him, so outside the courtroom, either Mason himself or Paul and even Della pursue further leads. As the investigation or examination progresses, Mason and sometimes Burger uncover the morally ugly or even illegal conduct of some of the witnesses or participants, thus complicating the moral and legal intrigue of the case. Eventually, some detail uncovered or remark made inside or outside the courtroom gives Mason the clue he needs to enter into the line of questioning that causes the surprise perpetrator, whether on the stand or not, to break down and confess to the crime and admit to the appalling truth of the motive. With the exception of one episode, Mason's client is always found to be innocent of the charge through the confession of another, and at no time are Mason's clients ever declared guilty. In the closing scene or epilogue, Paul and Della, and sometimes Burger and Tragg, ask Mason what gave him the clue he needed; after Mason explains, he or someone else makes a humorous remark. ===== Around 2200, the Empire on Earth sends colonists to space to seek resources for the now-depleted Earth. The first settlement is on Primus IV. Its colonists are applauded and praised for their bravery. The Empire then sets up colonies all over the galaxy. Suddenly, Primus IV is attacked by a reptilian race known only as the Mantai. Much of the colonist population is killed, but the Empire sends no help. The Empire forgets about Primus IV, as does the rest of the universe. After the colonists manage to fight off the Mantai to less inhabitable parts of the world, they begin to rebuild. Soon after, they discover a material known as SL-18. It is proven to be the perfect material to use in armor and metals: stronger than any other known material. Once the Empire back on Earth hears about this, they are eager to trade with the colonists. The colonists themselves are not so willing. They trade SL-18 with anyone who'll pay for it, but the Empire sees this open trade as a danger to the SL-18 supply for Earth and its colonies. Earth sets up an outpost on Primus IV to make sure that they have sole control of the SL-18 supply. Using the funds they obtain in selling SL-18, the colonists hire an experienced mercenary force, known as the WarMonkeys. They use these forces to retake Primus IV. The Empire is infuriated, and sends its own armies to reclaim the planet. Thus the war between the WarMonkeys and Imperial Forces begins. ===== Well-meaning and mild-mannered milkman Burleigh Sullivan (Kaye) meets Polly Pringle (Mayo), a beautiful, but out-of-work, singer, whilst on his rounds early in the morning. He tries to get her a job at the club where his sister Susie (Vera-Ellen) is performing, but gets the sack for his trouble. Whilst meeting Susie after the show, he sees her being molested by drunken boxer 'Speed' McFarlane and his bodyguard 'Spider'. In the fracas, Speed is knocked out and his manager, Gabby Sloan, is furious. The newspapers pick up the story and photographers catch Burleigh 'knocking out' Speed again. In fact, as before, Speed is accidentally knocked out by Spider as a result of Sullivan's quick foot-work and propensity for ducking. Gabby decides to turn Burleigh into a fighter to turn the publicity to his advantage. Burleigh goes on tour, but doesn't realize that all his fights have been fixed and his opponents have been asked to 'take a dive' to build up his image. He comes to think that he really is a great fighter, and develops a swollen head. Polly and Susie are not pleased with the turn of events. Meanwhile, Speed and Susie have become an item themselves. Burleigh's contract is bought by Mr Austin, his former boss at Sunflower Milk, for $50,000, and he is set up to fight Speed for a charity fundraiser organised by socialite Mrs. E. Winthrop LeMoyne. Speed has accidentally been given an overdose of sleeping tablets and falls asleep during the fight, so Burleigh wins by default. Burleigh is reluctant to retire without having been KO'd, but Mrs. LeMoyne accidentally does just that. Now Burleigh can retire with a clear conscience. As promised by Mr Austin, he is given a partnership in the dairy company, with his former rival and new friend, Speed, as one of the district managers. But Gabby and Spider wind up working as milkmen. ===== The setting is in Taladas, although it's generally in the jungles of Neron and the Imperial League. ===== One day, during training, Joe was falsely accused of attacking his master, a crime for which the dog would be euthanised as punishment. However, the dog escaped before being killed and a $200 bounty was put on its head. Sgt. Corey believed Joe was innocent and joined the pursuit, hoping to find Joe before the authorities did. During the show's second season, Sgt. Corey, having never found Joe (although he always came close), was called back to duty. Joe then teamed with a hiker, Josh McCoy (played by Chad States), and continued to help others, all the while still on the run. ===== The film follows Dr. Hess Green (Duane Jones), a wealthy black anthropologist who is doing research on the Myrthians, an ancient African nation of blood drinkers. One night, while staying in Green's lavish mansion, richly decorated with African art, his unstable assistant George Meda (Bill Gunn) threatens suicide. Green successfully talks him down, but later that night Meda attacks and stabs Green with a Myrthian ceremonial dagger, and then kills himself. Green survives, but on discovering the body, drinks Meda's blood; he has become a vampire endowed with immortality and a need for fresh blood. He steals several bags of blood from a doctor's office, but finds that he needs fresh victims. Soon, Meda's estranged wife, Ganja Meda (Marlene Clark), arrives at Green's house searching for her husband. Green and Meda quickly become lovers, and she moves into Green's mansion. When she unwittingly discovers her husband's corpse frozen in Green's wine cellar she is initially upset, but then agrees to marry her host, who turns her into a vampire as well. Ganja is initially horrified by her new existence, but Green teaches her how to survive. Soon he brings home a young man whom Ganja seduces and then kills. The two vampires dispose of the body in the water. Eventually, Green becomes disillusioned with this life and resolves to return to the Christian church headed by his chauffeur, Reverend Luther Williams (Sam Waymon). Returning home, he kills himself by standing in front of a cross. Ganja, though saddened by his death, lives on, presumably continuing her vampiric lifestyle. The film ends with the young man Ganja had earlier killed rising out of the water, naked but alive, and running toward her. ===== Laurel and Hardy establish an electrical goods store next door to Charlie Hall's grocery store. Hall, still sulking and suspicious from their previous encounter with the liquor-spiked well water in Them Thar Hills, mistakenly thinks that Hardy is trying to romance his wife (Mae Busch). Angered by that misperception, he destroys a few items in Stan and Ollie's shop. The two business partners now leave their shop, without closing its door, to retaliate in Hall's grocery. While they wreak havoc there, a shoplifter (Bobby Dunn) removes items from their electrical store, later taking more and more as their confrontations with Hall escalate. At first the thief openly carries items out by hand; but since Stan and Ollie are distracted by their conflicts with Hall and largely ignore him, the shoplifter begins using a wheelbarrow to take away merchandise. A policeman finally arrives and halts all the personal assaults and retaliations, so Laurel and Hardy return to their store and find it virtually empty. The shoplifter has returned yet again, although this time with a large truck to haul away all the remaining items. As Stan and Ollie watch in silent disbelief, the shoplifter greets them cheerfully and strolls out of their store carrying a lamp, which he puts in the back of the truck. ===== Private detectives Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy travel from their hometown of Peoria, Illinois to Mexico City in pursuit of an infamous female larcenist named Hattie Blake (Carol Andrews), who is publicly known as ”Larceny Nell”. Meanwhile, an American sports promoter, Richard K. Muldoon (Ralph Sanford) meets with publicity man ”Hot Shot” Coleman (Richard Lane), and his assistant (Irving Gump) to discuss an upcoming bullfight featuring famed Spanish matador Don Sebastian. But when Muldoon sees pictures of the bullfighter he becomes enraged; Don Sebastian looks exactly like Laurel. Hot Shot is confused until Muldoon tells him the story: Eight years earlier in Peoria, Laurel and Hardy both testified against Muldoon in a criminal case, and Muldoon was wrongfully convicted of the crime (the details of which were never specified) and granted a twenty-year jail sentence; However, after five years the true criminal confessed to the crime and Muldoon was released. While in prison, though, he had lost his wife and business and he had to start all over in Mexico. He still holds a grudge against Stan and Ollie and vows revenge with a large knife for emphasis: "Someday I'll run across them again! And when I do, I'm going to skin them alive! First the little one, then the big one! I'll skin them both alive!!" Meanwhile, Ollie and Stan confront Blake in an attempt to arrest her only for her to snatch the papers that permit them to arrest her outside the U.S., followed by an egg-breaking tit for tat sequence before she escape. They run into Hot Shot who sees Stan's uncanny resemblance to the bullfighter while receiving a telegram that tells the real Don Sebastian's arrival is delayed because of passport trouble. After explaining Stan's resemblance to Don Sebastian to the confused Ollie and Stan and about the vengeful Muldoon's wrongful conviction, Hot Shot forces Stan to impersonate the bullfighter in the meantime, threatening to reveal his and Ollie's presence to Muldoon if he doesn't cooperate but promising them a very handsome payment for their trouble if he does. Stan reluctantly agrees, only because Hot Shot promises he won't have to fight bulls. Eventually, the real Don Sebastian's passport trouble turns out to be worse than originally feared and so Stan will have to take his place in the ring and fight bulls after all. On the day of the fight Stan, nervous about fighting bulls, gets drunk. But then, unbeknownst to anyone, the real Don Sebastian has somehow miraculously contrived to making it to Mexico City just in time for the big bullfight. Ollie mistakes him for Stan and forces him into the arena. Stan staggers up, and Hardy sends him into battle. With two Laurels in the ring, the outraged spectators cry foul, especially Muldoon, who now recognizes "Don Sebastian" as Stan Laurel from Peoria who sent him up for twenty years and, in a livid frenzy, punches out Hot Shot, calling him a swindler. Every bull in the arena is then unleashed. Stan and Ollie try to escape the vengeful Muldoon, but not fast enough; Stan and Ollie, while packing for their flight back home and planning to sneak away to the airport, discover Muldoon hiding in their closet, his knife handy. Just as promised, he skins them alive; leaving them, except their heads, in bare bones. Ollie says his "another nice mess…" catchphrase to Stan. Stan whimpers before Ollie decides that they go back home to Peoria, "where we belong!" ===== The protagonist of the book is Kurt Morgan, a crewman on the Alliance ship Endymion, which was destroyed in a space battle with Hanan forces. Morgan evacuates the ship and lands on an alien planet, home of the Nemet race. Morgan is rescued by one faction of the Nemet and becomes embroiled in their political and military struggles. Morgan is not the first human stranded on the planet, however. His encounters with a previous female human castaway endanger the entire Nemet race when she reacts badly and threatens to unleash weapons of mass destruction on the planet. ===== In the story, a ship belonging to a terrifyingly dominant space-faring race, the iduve, arrives at a space station. They demand that a particular station resident, a blue-skinned Kallian, be sent to their ship and all record of him be erased. No defiance is possible or the space station will be destroyed. The human-like Kallian is handed over to the iduve who mind-link him to a female Kallian in their service and, later, to a human prisoner, forcing him to service his captors on three levels.Cherryh, C. J. Hunter of Worlds. ===== Set in the mid-1960s, the story centers on ten-year-old Harriet Frankovitz, a lonely outcast who lives with her mother and older sister Gwen in a dilapidated North Carolina motel with cabins shaped like teepees her mother received as part of her divorce settlement. Harriet has a strong desire to escape her dull existence by means of any one of a number of creative ways - a magic carpet she tries to fly off the roof, on board a flying saucer she anxiously awaits in the schoolyard, through a tunnel she has been digging to China, or by attaching helium-filled balloons to a lawn chair. Mrs. Frankovitz is a bitter alcoholic with a propensity for driving on the wrong side of the road, while promiscuous Gwen entertains a series of men in vacant rooms. Terminally ill Leah Schroth is en route to an institution where she plans to admit her mentally challenged son Ricky when their car breaks down near the motel, and the two stay there while waiting for the vehicle to be repaired. Mrs. Frankovitz is killed in an automobile accident, and Harriet discovers Gwen is her biological mother. The distressed girl and her new friend run away and set up house in an abandoned caboose concealed beneath dense foliage in the woods. When Ricky becomes ill, Harriet is forced to seek medical assistance for him. Once he recovers, his mother sets off with him to complete their interrupted journey, leaving Gwen and Harriet to learn to interact in their new roles of mother and daughter. ===== In 1892 Horace Lamb lives on an inherited estate with his wife, their five children, his extended family and a slew of servants including the butler Bullivant. Though Horace is wealthy through his marriage to Charlotte he insists on controlling her money in a miserly way. The ones who suffer the most from his economy are his children (in particular his eldest Sarah) who dress in rags and are constantly cold and hungry. Charlotte and Horace's cousin Mortimer, who is his dependent, plan to run away together. Before this can be accomplished Charlotte is called to visit her ailing father. The children are taught by their great-aunt Emilia, however Horace is eventually persuaded to hire a tutor, Gideon Doubleday, for the elder children. After Gideon takes a casual invitation from Horace seriously he decides to return the favour by asking the Lambs to meet his mother, Gertrude, and sister, Magdalen. Gertrude takes an immediate interest in Horace while Magdalen develops feelings for Mortimer. The two families grow closer in Charlotte's absence and Gertrude hints to Horace that her daughter and Mortimer might marry some day which he finds appalling. Charlotte abruptly returns and discovers her children well-clothed and fed and her husband repentant. Horace claims to have seen the error in his ways but reveals he is aware of the plot between Charlotte and Mortimer. Charlotte decides to stay with Horace, despite no longer loving him, in order to maintain family harmony. Horace reveals that he will only continue to pay for Mortimer if he marries Magdalen and moves elsewhere. With no other options Mortimer ascents. Mortimer discovers however that an intimate letter of Charlotte's that she sent to a letter drop-off run by a Miss Buchanan has gone astray. He learns that it was accidentally collected by Gertrude who gave it to Magdalen to return. Acting in her own interest Magdalen instead opened the letter and then dropped it in the Lamb household in front of Horace. Because of the deception Mortimer breaks off his engagement with Magdalen and instead goes to live in a boarding house recommended by Bullivant. Before he leaves he tells Bullivant that the letter incident has made him realize that Miss Buchanan is illiterate. He urges Bullivant to socialize with her which he does. However during fits of irritation Bullivant occasionally places Miss Buchanan in an awkward position by asking her to read. He later shares Miss Buchanan's secret with the cook, Mrs. Selden. Despite the betrayal Horace misses Mortimer deeply. When he discovers that his two eldest sons conspired to let him die in an accident he is further distraught. Mortimer arrives just after Horace discovers the betrayal and persuades Horace to let him back into the house reasoning that it was Mortimer's relationship with Charlotte that inspired Horace to mend his ways and that he no longer loves Charlotte knowing that she will always put her children first. Going for a walk to reflect upon his children's betrayal, Horace narrowly escapes death and blames his sons when discovering one of their pocket knives near the scene of the crime. However it is quickly revealed that George, a young servant who resents his position and who has been stealing from the family, conspired to hurt Horace. George is punished by Bullivant who hopes that he will repent, though this seems far from likely. Horace grows sick from the cold and almost dies, causing the household to repent of their actions to him, and then makes a miraculous recovery. Miss Buchanan visits the servants and her secret is revealed by George, who then confesses he overheard Bullivant tell the cook. Though Miss Buchanan believes she will be illiterate until she dies, the teenage cook's assistant Miriam offers to teach her as she taught young children in the orphanage where she grew up. ===== When a childless couple find a baby left alone, they prefer to adopt her. Since they are rich and childless, they raise her in wealth and pomp. But when the girl grows up, she concentrates upon Lord Vinayaka and not thinking of marriage like other girls of her age. When the parents think of her marriage, she tries to escape from it, as she is devoted more to Lord Vinayaka. Hence, she prays to become an old-aged woman (as no young man likes to marry an old lady). Lord Vinayaka obliges and when others see it, they feel shell-shocked and understand what has happened. Now, this old woman is named Avvaiyar (K. B. Sundarambal). Avvaiyar leaves her parent's village to go around many places preaching Vinayaka's greatness through her songs. She also goes around and solves many problems. Impressed by her devotion, a local king and his two daughters ask her to stay at the court for some days. Avvaiyar is impressed by their hospitality and blesses them. And once again she goes around preaching and solving many problems. Now, after a long time, she once again comes across the two princesses, but in ordinary dress living in a hut. She then comes to know that their father's enemies killed him and imprisoned the person (Gemini Ganesan) who was to marry the two girls. Avvaiyar approaches the kings who were the slain king's former friends. But they refuse as they are afraid of the powerful enemies. Hence Avvaiyar herself goes to save Gemini Ganeshan. When she prays to Vinayaka, he sends many elephants towards the enemies' fort and the wild elephants destroy the enemies and bring back the man. Now, with her mission over, she moves to another place where a boy asks a funny question, to which she could not give a convincing reply. Then the boy reveals himself as the Lord Murugan whom Avvaiyar worshipped. Murugan says that Avvaiyar can now leave the world to join the place of the divine. ===== Walter Melon and his assistant Bitterbug run a company as "heroes for hire". Whenever people get in trouble, go missing, or fall victim to a villains' latest scheme, Melon and Bitterbug (Lefuneste) take their places temporarily. In the show, Walter and Bitterbug replaced spoofs of characters from pop culture such as Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Hulk, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Kirk and Spock, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, Tarzan, Mad Max, two of the Power Rangers, Jason Lee Scott and Billy Cranston, the Terminator, Fox Mulder, John Rambo, Little Red Riding Hood, Aladdin, Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket, Dr. Alan Grant, Marty McFly, Hercules and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Unlike most heroes, Walter is a dim-witted, overweight jolly French American time traveler with a large melon-shaped nose and a lot of luck, but nobody ever notices the apparent change in appearance, with his character's apparent weight gain merely being commented on immediately after his arrival and subsequently ignored. When he impersonates the heroes, he fights Sneero (le méchant), the main antagonist of the series who represents the main villain of the parody universe. Additionally, Walter is sometimes partnered with Amelia, a woman who represents the heroines, token female characters, female sidekicks, and love interests of the story. In the second season in order to make the show educational, Walter and Bitterbug would receive cross-time distress messages from historical figures such as George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo, Thomas Edison, Lewis and Clark, Georges Méliès, and the Apollo 11 astronauts, rather than fictional characters, unlike the first season. The series was available on Jetix Play, but is not currently available through any other outlet, although many of the episodes are available on YouTube to view. ===== In 1933, David Barr is the manager and chief designer of Glasgow shipbuilding firm Burns, McKinnon & Co. He comes up with a radical new ship design that can carry 25% more cargo for the tonnage and use less fuel at a time when the industry as a whole is in recession. Barr decides to build not just one ship, as Lord Dean advises, but twenty (to bring the costs down to a manageable level). Manning, a rival shipbuilder Barr loathes, hears rumors and sends two men undercover to find out what they can. They manage to get themselves hired. Manning then offers to purchase either the design or all the ships they can build. Both offers are rejected. With the support of June McKinnon, the chief shareholder, Barr proceeds, despite the opposition of Lord Dean and other members of the board. He receives a severe setback when the Government declines to give him a contract or pass a shipping bill, and is driven to use his own money to try to complete the ship. When he runs out and cannot secure a loan to cover the payroll, a rabble-rouser tries to stir up the men, but Barr convinces them to stick by him. June, having heard his rousing speech, offers to let him obtain a loan on the security of her trust fund. Manning's men knock out the night watchman and blow up the ship being built; a man named MacLeod is killed. Bassett, a reporter, informs Barr that MacLeod was third officer on one of Manning's ships. Now needing funds desperately, Barr forges Lord Dean's signature to obtain a loan when Dean, as a trustee of June's trust, refuses to cooperate (partly out of jealousy of Barr and June's developing relationship). Manning finds out and tries to blackmail Barr into selling the design, but Barr refuses to do so and is convicted of forgery. Later, however, Manning is sought for manslaughter, while Barr is present when June launches the first of the new ships, the SS David Barr. ===== ===== After escaping from jail where they had "one more week to serve," Laurel and Hardy travel to Scotland as stowaways on a cattle boat, where Laurel (as "Stanley McLaurel") believes he is heir to his grandfather's fortune. As it turns out, Laurel has only been bequeathed a set of bagpipes and a snuff container. Use of the latter causes Hardy, trying to demonstrate to Laurel the proper way to use snuff, to fly off an old bridge. His clothes are soaked. In the boarding house, Laurel swaps their overcoats for a large fish for dinner. In quick succession the fish "shrizzles" to about 1/10 its size, Hardy's pants are burnt and ruined, and an attempt to hide the still-hot stove results in the landlady throwing the two out and confiscating their luggage for non-payment of rent. Receiving an ad for a tailor's offer of a new suit, Laurel and Hardy accidentally go to the wrong floor and join a Scottish regiment of the British Army and travel to India, where they frequently run afoul of their Sergeant Major (Jimmy Finlayson), and help their friend Alan (William Janney) reunite with his love (and Laurel's cousin) Lorna McLaurel (June Lang). ===== A British rock and roll band from Liverpool descends on Hamburg, c. 1960. They form romantic liaisons with several townspeople. ===== A rash of spaceship disappearances around Earth results in a dearth of available transit, stranding Beowulf "Bey" Shaeffer on Jinx away from his love, Sharrol Janss. While visiting the Institute of Knowledge he runs into his old friend Carlos Wu. Carlos is the father of Janss' two children, a fact that he found so embarrassing that he decided to leave Earth rather than face Bey upon his expected return. But Bey proves perfectly happy to hear about the children, as his albinism denies him a license to have children of his own, and he and Sharrol had agreed that Carlos should act as a surrogate. Reconciled, Carlos mentions that he has been contacted by Sigmund Ausfaller of the Bureau of Alien Affairs, who has offered him a ride to Earth. Bey has had several run-ins with Ausfaller in the past; Ausfaller aims to protect human-alien relations in any way he can, and at one point he planted a bomb on Bey's alien-provided General Products' #2 hull to prevent him from stealing it and potentially causing a sticky diplomatic incident. Worried about what might happen to Carlos at Ausfaller's hands, he decides to accompany him on his next meeting. Bey, Carlos and Ausfaller meet. Ausfaller explains that alien passengers were aboard some of the vessels that disappeared, and he has been given the job of finding out what is going on to avoid further issues. His ship, the Hobo Kelly, appears to be a cargo and passenger ship, but in reality is a warship built out of a nearly invulnerable General Products' #2 hull, capable of 30G of acceleration, armed with guided missiles, an x-ray laser and smaller laser cannons. Additionally, of the eight ships that have disappeared to date, only two were incoming, the other six were outgoing. Their inbound mission should thus be safe. This proves to be the case for most of the journey, but only moments before entering the outskirts of Sol the ship suddenly lurches and drops out of hyperspace. Examining the area they discover three small tugs at some distance, but nothing else of interest. They turn towards Sol and continue on their way home while Bey checks the ship to try to find out what happened. He discovers that the hyperdrive motor is completely missing from the hull. When he informs the crew, Carlos uses the ship's hyperwave communications to retrieve information from Elephant's databanks on Earth, looking up a number of black hole related topics. When his inquiries are finally answered, he finds that one of bits of information was written by Dr. Julian Forward, a researcher Carlos has wanted to meet. Carlos calls him and they discuss the disappearing hyperdrive motor. Forward invites them to Forward Station to wait for a ferry to Earth. They agree to his plans, although Forward Station is right where the ships are disappearing. Ausfaller agrees that Carlos and Bey can go to Forward Station; he did not reveal himself during the conversation and the small ship would not give away the fact that there was a third crewmember. After equipping for potential combat, Bey and Carlos ferry to the station to meet with Forward. He shows them his prize possession, the "Grabber", an electromagnetic assembly that lets him shake masses of neutronium to produce polarized gravitational waves, which he is attempting to use to establish communications with alien races who may not have discovered hyperwave. When Forward asks Carlos what he thinks has happened, Carlos explains that a black hole might have been able to do it - gravity is one of the few forces that can penetrate a General Products starship hull. When Carlos admits that he has heard of quantum black holes, Forward takes them both captive. Forward explains that he found the Tunguska meteorite, which was actually a small black hole. Returning it to the station he fed it the sphere of neutronium he was previously using for his communications attempt, thereby increasing its mass, and then fed in the exhaust of an ion engine to give it a permanent electric charge. The hole could now be manipulated with magnets, and towed around by the tugs. The tugs move it into the path of incoming starships to disable them, and then pirate the now-defenseless ships. When the tugs return to the station, Forward suddenly asks if someone else is aboard the Hobo Kelly, a question that is answered when Ausfaller fires on the tugs, destroying two and causing the third to flee. The tugs drop the black hole, but Forward and his assistant Angel manage to catch it in the Grabber. However, by this time Bey has managed to free himself enough to cut through his bonds, which turns out to be the power cable feeding the Grabber, releasing the black hole once again. As the hole falls towards the station it hits the dome and cuts a hole in it, sucking Forward's assistant into it. Forward makes some adjustments on his control panel and is then sucked into the hole as well. Ausfaller rescues Bey and Carlos, who explain what was happening. They speculate that Forward deliberately turned up the air pressure in his final moments in order to allow the two to live until Ausfaller returned. They watch as the quantum black hole collapses the asteroid and it disappears in a searing blast of light. ===== Five spoiled high-school students are kidnapped and held for ransom in a remote swamp area. ===== Earth is invaded by the criminal organization known as Makuu, led by Don Horror, who had first destroyed a space colony near Earth. Don Horror wants to dominate the whole universe, and the Earth represents an obstacle that he has to overcome by turning it into a domain for all evil. In response to Makuu's attack, Space Sheriff Gavan of the is deployed to Earth to defend his mother's home world. Gavan is helped by Mimi, the daughter of Commander Qom, and is given information by Qom, assisted by Marin on his home planet. Gavan goes to Earth to defend it against Don Horror and his devilish schemes. He settles on Earth incognito as Retsu Ichijouji, taking a job at the Avalon Youth Club in Japan to track Makuu's forces down. ===== Lieutenant Colonel Cletus Grahame has been an instructor at the Western Alliance military academy since a battle injury crippled one of his knees, and forced his retirement from active duty. He has completed three volumes of a planned twenty-volume series of books on military strategy and tactics, and believes his analysis can revolutionize military science, although many do not take his work seriously. Feeling he needs to get out in the field and try putting his theories into practice, he leaves the academy and arranges to be sent to the world of Kultis, where the Alliance is supporting the Exotic colony of Bakhalla in a war against the neighboring colony of Neuland, backed by the Coalition. The heart of his military strategy, based in part on fencing, is what he labels the "tactics of mistake," enticing one's opponent into overreaching, and being ready to take advantage of the mistake. This description is an adaptation of a similar concept in the novel Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini when the character Moreau studies at the salon of the Master of Arms. On the first night out on the ship to Kultis, he deliberately antagonizes Dow deCastries, Secretary of Outworld Affairs for the Eastern Coalition, forcing deCastries to take notice of him. He also meets Colonel Eachan Khan, an officer of the Dorsai troops who have been hired by the Exotics, and Khan's daughter Melissa. Mondar, an Exotic official, is also present, and takes notice of Grahame. Putting his theories to work, Grahame repeatedly entices deCastries and the Neulanders into attempting incursions, where he is ready to pounce on them. Finally, after conveniently getting his own uncooperative commander out of the way, he entices them to launch a major invasion. Using the Dorsai troops, who had been underestimated and little-used by the Alliance command, he actually wins the war, handing deCastries a humiliating defeat. His victory has actually made him rather unpopular with his own command. Mondar, using the Exotic science of ontogenetics, recognizes him as a key mover of history, and tries to recruit him to join the Exotics, but he chooses instead to emigrate to the Dorsai, in order to begin building them into the kind of military force he envisions. It seems he possesses some of the advanced mental abilities of the Exotics, and with their help, he is able to heal his crippled knee. Melissa wants her father to return to Earth, and the General's rank he had enjoyed in the Western Alliance, and to do so, she needs the influence of deCastries. Grahame forces Melissa to marry him to prevent Eachan's departure, as he feels Eachan is necessary to his plans. Over the course of years, Grahame builds the Dorsai into the unique fighting force that becomes so famous in later years. With their advanced training and superior tactics, they can defeat larger forces and suffer far fewer casualties than any others, making them far more economical for other worlds to hire. Gradually, they reach a status where other worlds no longer need to depend on Earth for fighting forces to protect them, threatening Earth's control of the younger worlds through its system of client states. To prevent this loss of position, the two Earth factions, the Western Alliance and Eastern Coalition, unite their forces under deCastries, and attempt to stretch the Dorsai forces so thin that they will be conquered. When Earth invades the Dorsai, there are no soldiers to defend it, but deCastries underestimates the power of the Dorsai people themselves. The final result leads to a totally new balance of power among the settled worlds. (The actual battle for the Dorsai itself is given little coverage in this book. The ultimate battle for Foralie district, Grahame's home, ends up being between deCastries and Amanda Morgan, a woman in her late nineties who leads the home defense. In the novella, "Amanda Morgan", she is used as the ultimate example of the spirit of Dorsai.) ===== Dancing instructors Laurel and Hardy accept a phoney insurance deal from two gangsters posing as insurance salesman. At the same time, Grant Lawrence, a young inventor is working on creating a new invisible ray machine that will revolutionize jungle warfare for World War II. Trudy Harlan, Grant's lover and one of Stan's dancing pupils, invites Grant and the boys to her house for tea when her parents are away. Trudy's father Wentworth Harlan almost discovers Stan and Ollie when he returns home but finds Grant and angrily confronts him. Grant is ordered to leave and never talk to Trudy again, whilst the boys narrowly escape being found by Trudy's parents once again. The next morning, Stan and Ollie are confronted by their angry landlord Mr. Featherstone to pay the rent on their dancing school by twelve noon that day or else face eviction. When Ollie declares that he has not got the money to the pay the rent, Stan suggests paying the rent with Ollie's nest-egg money. Although he initially refuses, Ollie eventually gives in and reluctantly decides to draw the money out of the bank. On their way to pay the rent, however, the boys become sidetracked by an auction that they are passing. In a situation reminiscent of Thicker Than Water, the boys keep bidding against each other for an antique grandfather clock, which they were merely initially wanting to purchase for a lady who had left her money at home. While crossing the street with the clock, Stan trips and his hat falls off. The boys lay the clock down in the middle of the street while Stan retrieves his hat, but the clock is destroyed by a passing truck. Back home, Stan and Ollie decide to help Grant promote his invisible ray gun, by means of Stan posing as the inventor, an eccentric foreign scientist, and with Grant later revealing himself as the real inventor. Although the demonstration is a success at first, Stan forgets to turn the machine off after firing it and it explodes. Grant is dismayed at the destruction of his invention, but the demonstration has earned him the approval and respect of Mr. Harlan. In desperate need of money, Ollie decides to inflict a series of accidents upon Stan (using the fake insurance document) in hopes of raising money, but these events backfire and Ollie ends up receiving the intended consequence. Meanwhile, Mr. Harlan disapproves of his friend George Worthing (whom he had at first hoped to marry Trudy) attempting to steal Grant's invention and orders him to leave their home. He also decides to finance Grant's inventions following the demonstration of the invisible ray gun, much to the delight of Trudy and Grant. Ollie decides to cause Stan to have another accident after hearing from a hospital patient who had gained insurance money after standing up on a roller-coaster and suffering an injury. Stan and Ollie board a bus to the beach, but the bus driver and passengers flee from the bus mid-journey after a cake-eating (and apparently rabid) dog frightens them away. Stan manages to escape from the bus just outside a coastal amusement park and becomes the victim of a coconut-throwing amusement game. However, Ollie has had his foot caught and is stuck at the top of the bus as it careers onto a roller-coaster track. Ollie rides the bus along the roller-coaster track (whilst Stan gets pelted with coconuts) before it careers off the track just before a sharp turn. With his leg broken as a result of the bus accident, Ollie ends up in hospital and is visited by Trudy, Grant and Stan. In the film's final moment, Ollie states that his foot has gone to sleep. Stan asks in a whisper if there is anything he can do to make Ollie comfortable. When Ollie asks Stan why he is whispering, Stan answers, "I didn't want to wake your foot up." ===== The plot is based on the story of how "Jade Unicorn" Lu Junyi came to join the outlaw band at Liangshan Marsh and the outlaws' battle with the Zeng Family Fortress. Liangshan's chief Chao Gai was ambushed and killed by Shi Wengong. His fellows vow to avenge him. The current de facto leaders of Liangshan, Song Jiang and Wu Yong, decide that given Shi Wengong's skill, Lu Junyi (Shi's former fellow student) will be the best person to assist them in taking revenge. The outlaws also note that if they succeed in recruiting Lu Junyi, they will also win over Lu's servant, Yan Qing, who is also a formidable martial artist. Wu Yong disguises himself as fortune teller and infiltrates the northern capital, where Lu Junyi stays, together with Li Kui, who is disguised as his idiotic assistant. They visit Lu Junyi and lie to him that a great calamity will befall him if he does not travel 1,000 miles to the southeast. Lu Junyi is skeptical of the advice and asks Yan Qing for his opinion. By then, Yan Qing has recognized Li Kui and provokes the hot-tempered Li into a fight. Li Kui is defeated and confined together with Wu Yong. Wu Yong uses reverse psychology on Lu Junyi and manages to persuade Lu to release them. Just then, Lu Junyi's steward Li Gu, who is in a secret affair with Lu's wife, reports the outlaws' presence to the authorities so as to seize his master's fortune. When soldiers arrive to capture the outlaws, Lu Junyi orders Yan Qing to escort Wu Yong and Li Kui safely out while he confronts the soldiers and is arrested. Yan Qing attempts to free Lu Junyi from prison but Lu is captured again when Yan leaves him for a short while. Yan Qing travels to Liangshan to seek help and he attempts to rob two men for his travel expenses. The two men turn out to be actually outlaws from Liangshan, one of them being Shi Xiu. Shi Xiu goes to find Lu Junyi while his companion brings Yan Qing back to Liangshan. While in the city, Shi Xiu sees that Lu Junyi is about to be executed in the market square so he storms the area alone in an attempt to free Lu. Both Lu Junyi and Shi Xiu are eventually overwhelmed by soldiers and taken into captive. Meanwhile, Yan Qing meets the Liangshan outlaws and they plan to infiltrate the northern capital to save Lu Junyi and Shi Xiu. They take strategic positions around the execution ground and attack the soldiers when the prisoners are about to be beheaded. This time, the outlaws overpower the guards and swiftly take control of the area. Accompanied by the outlaws, Lu Junyi marches home and kills his disloyal steward Li Gu while his adulterous wife is slain by Yan Qing. As the outlaws leave the city, they run into Shi Wengong and his men, resulting in both sides clashing in an immense battle. Shi Wengong's forces are routed so he challenges the outlaws to engage him and his five students in man-on-man duels. The five students fight with Lin Chong, Li Kui, Hu Sanniang, Wu Song and Shi Xiu, while Lu Junyi faces Shi Wengong. By the time the five heroes had defeated Shi Wengong's students, Lu Junyi was still locked his duel with Shi. Yan Qing and Li Kui join in the fray and Shi Wengong is injured gravely but still remains alive. After declaring that Lu Junyi is now the new leader of Liangshan, Shi Wengong stops everyone from approaching and commits suicide. The outlaws, seeing that their quest for vengeance is now complete, ride back to their stronghold and the film ends. ===== The official storyline, as quoted from the game's original press release, is as follows: > U.S. surveillance satellites detect activity onboard the decommissioned > Soviet Bargration Missile Defense Station 4 off the east coast of Siberia. > When the Russians deny the U.S. access to the facility, Department of > Defense strategists suggest that a small, plausibly deniable reconnaissance > mission be sent in to investigate. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency is > given the go-ahead for operation BLACKOUT, the insertion of a single expert > Operator on Russian WMDs and launch facilities. Lt. Col. John Sullivan, > callsign: Cipher is air dropped in, and what was supposed to be primarily a > reconnaissance mission becomes a race against a terrorist threat; one with > implications that will shake the foundations of American democracy and > freedoms. It is unknown to what extent the game's plot changed during development. As such, the synopsis outlined above may not be indicative of the final plot intended for the game. ===== In 1840, a girl named Amiran (Aishwarya Rai) is kidnapped from her home in Faizabad by Dilawar Khan (Vishwajeet Pradhan) who had been sent to jail based upon the evidence presented by Amiran's father. To take his revenge, he kidnaps Amiran and sells her to a brothel in Lucknow run by Khannum Jaan (Shabana Azmi). Bua Hussaini (Himani Shivpuri) and Maulvi Sahib (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) adopt Amiran and treat her as their own daughter. In the company of Khurshid (Ayesha Jhulka), Bismillah (Divya Dutta), and one of the courtesan's sons, Gauhar Mirza (Puru Raaj Kumar), Amiran learns the art of being a courtesan, or tawaif. The girl turns into an elegant, poetic beauty by the name of Umrao Jaan (Aishwarya Rai). Umrao's beauty and poetry are enough to catch the eye of Nawab Sultan (Abhishek Bachchan). The two begin a passionate romance but, when his father hears of their relationship, he disowns Nawab Sultan from his life, wealth and property. The penniless Nawab goes to stay in the house of his uncle, who is a judge in Ghari, to sort himself out; Umrao is left desolate without him and prays every day for his return. In the Nawab's absence, Umrao catches the eye of Faiz Ali (Sunil Shetty). Though she rejects his romantic advances, he determinedly pursues her and eventually asks her to accompany him to his home in Daulatabad. Umrao accepts, but only after she learns that they will be travelling through Ghari. Along the way, the whole party is arrested after a confrontation between Faiz Ali's men and a group of state soldiers. Faiz Ali is revealed to be a dacoit whom the soldiers have pursued for years. Nawab Sultan hears that Umrao and Faiz Ali are in Ghari and goes to meet Faiz Ali in prison. Faiz Ali, who then realises that Umrao only accompanied him so that she could meet Nawab, manipulates the information concerning his time with Umrao and implies to the Nawab that they had a sexual relationship. The Nawab confronts Umrao and, feeling that she betrayed him, shuns her and sends her back to Lucknow. Heartbroken, Umrao returns to her old life, but fate has other plans for her. In a drunken state, Umrao's childhood friend Gauhar Mirza (Puru Raaj Kumar), who has always been in love with her, becomes frustrated at her for rejecting his advances and rapes her. Soon after, the British attack the city and she is forced to leave Lucknow. She and the refugees separate after she decides to go to Faizabad, her childhood home. There, she learns that her father is long dead. She meets her mother and brother, but they refuse to accept her because of her profession. Umrao, rejected by her family and her lover, leaves to return to Lucknow. Then, fate plays another joke on her: on her way out of the city, she encounters Dilawar Khan, the man who had kidnapped her and sold her to the brothel when she was a child. Poor, wretched, homeless, injured, and infected with leprosy, he begs Umrao for money, not recognising who she is. She gives him her gold bangles and prays to God for his forgiveness. Ostracized by all and having forgiven those who destroyed her life, Umrao lives out the rest of her days in Lucknow with her poetry and ill fate. ===== Darna Mana Hai interweaves six stories into one film. Seven friends get stuck in the middle of a forest when their car breaks down, and all of them except Vikas find refuge in an abandoned house. To keep each other amused, they tell each other horror and supernatural stories that they have heard over a bonfire. ===== An author of highbrow literary novels, Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton), is better known for the bestselling murder mystery suspense-thrillers he writes under the pen name "George Stark". Beaumont wishes to retire the Stark name and symbolically buries Stark in a mock grave. However, Stark has mysteriously become a physical entity (also portrayed by Hutton) and begins terrorizing Beaumont's family and friends after he emerges from the grave. Stark then kills local photographer Homer Gamache and steals his truck. He also murders Thad's editor, agent, and his agent's ex-wife, and kills a man named Fred Clawson, who was trying to blackmail Thad for "being a con artist that should not have written books under a false name". When the police suspect Thad of murdering Gamache, he tries to convince Sheriff Alan Pangborn of Castle Rock, Maine he had nothing to do with it. After putting an all- points bulletin on Clawson, who was accused of the death of Gamache, the New York police find him castrated and his throat slit. They find a message on the wall, written in Clawson's blood, "The sparrows are flying again." Thad starts to think that he may have a psychic connection to the killer. While in his office, Thad begins to receive messages from Stark, and begins to worry about the next victim. He and his family start to receive threatening phone calls from Stark. Pangborn initially suspects the phone calls are a prank by Thad himself until Stark begins to describe how he is going to kill Thad's family, disturbing Pangborn. State Police find Homer Gamache's truck with Thad's fingerprints all over it. For some reason, Stark wants to live in the material world, after only appearing in a set of Thad's best selling books. Thad writes, but he is not alone in suspecting something strange: Sheriff Pangborn is equally suspicious and continues investigating. Thad begins to realize that Stark is, in fact, his parasitic twin brother who died at "childbirth." His mother never told Thad about the twin, and he was completely unaware until a local doctor tells him that Stark was a fraternal twin that was living inside Thad's brain. (A scene in the film's start shows a developing fetus inside Beaumont's brain). Stark arrives, kills the doctor, and blames Thad for the crime. Thad's colleague Reggie realizes that Stark is an entity controlled by the books that Thad wrote and that Stark will do anything he can to stop Thad. Stark kidnaps Thad's wife Liz and his children, and makes a deal with Thad: finishing a book that depicts Stark living in the real world, or he will kill his family. While writing the book, Thad notices Stark is healing himself with his writings, as George started to deteriorate due to Thad not writing anymore books, causing Thad to absorb his sickness. Thad and Stark get into a fight, which ends with Thad stabbing Stark in the neck with a pencil. Sheriff Pangborn arrives and unties Liz, who says that Thad and Stark are upstairs. However, a huge flock of sparrows inexplicably comes and tears Stark apart, and take him "back to hell where he belongs". The sparrows are agents of Satan, that come to collect evil souls that were not allowed to live. Thad and Liz are spared, and they, along with Pangborn, watch as the sparrows disappear into the night. ===== The movie opens in the swamp lands that Kermit the Frog calls home. After meeting his old friend Horace D'Fly again, he recaps an adventure from his childhood where he enjoyed a serene amphibian's life with his smooth and confident best friend, Croaker the Frog, and a nervous and cowardly friend of his, Goggles the Toad. Young Kermit wonders what lies beyond the swamp, but his companions do not think the same. The friends run into Dr. Hugo Krassman (John Hostetter) and his assistant Mary (Kelly Collins Lintz), intent on capturing frogs. Arnie the alligator saves them and warns them about the dangers lurking outside the swamp. The next day, they run into the bully Blotch, a huge bullfrog, who attacks Goggles. The fight spills onto a road, where the pair are taken by a pet store owner named Wilson (William Bookston), and Kermit and Croaker venture forth on a quest to save their friends. When Goggles and Blotch are taken into a pet store, Blotch's anger causes the pair to be put in a cage with Vicki the snake, who intends to eat Blotch. Goggles saves him by goading Vicki to attack him and then using his poison gland. Meanwhile, the other animals at the store manage to convince Goggles and Blotch in a lively musical number that being sold to someone as a pet isn't such a bad idea. After getting run over by Wilson's truck and having tire tracks on his chest, Croaker is no longer able to hop and starts to lose his bravery. Kermit and Croaker meet a stray dog named Pilgrim (voiced by Cree Summer), who saves them from Krassman and Mary, then decides to help them find their friends. Kermit is able to find Wilson's truck by using helium balloons, but discovers they are no longer in the vehicle. Kermit reconnects with Pilgrim and Croaker again, and together they find Wilson's Pet Store. After Kermit gives him a short pep talk, Croaker finally manages to hop again by hopping through the window and helps Kermit up the window, but they find out from Vicki that their friends have gone to George Washington High School. The next day, Kermit and Croaker intentionally get discovered by Wilson to get taken to the high school and escape upon arrival. They meet Pilgrim again, who followed them. While trying to find Goggles and Blotch, Pilgrim and Croaker get captured by Wilson. Kermit overhears Wilson heading to biology class, so he hitches a ride on a student's backpack. Krassman decides to dissect Goggles, but Blotch takes his place to return the favor for rescuing them from Vicki. Krassman discides to dissect Croaker instead, when Wilson brings him into the class. Mary refuses to show the class how the dissection is done, so she leaves the classroom. In a daring rescue, Kermit manages to free Croaker from the dissection table and fend off Dr. Krassman using some swashbuckling techniques he picked up earlier at a movie theater, but Krassman is able to defeat Kermit, Croaker, and Blotch. Goggles finds the knife that Kermit dropped, but after he picks it up, Krassman spots him. Despite the warnings that Kermit should never talk to humans, Kermit stops Krassman from dissecting Goggles by talking and asks him to please release the frogs. This action leads Krassman to reveal that as a child, he was about to dissect his first frog when the frog begged him to stop, but the frog refused to say anything to everyone else in Krassman's classroom, which caused him to be humiliated. With the truth revealed that frogs can talk, Krassman frees all the frogs, dismisses the class and enables Kermit and his friends to return home. After a ride back to the swamp's border in Wilson's truck, Wilson adopts Pilgrim and the four friends head back home. Back in the present, Kermit says that they are all still friends. He then enters the swamp to meet up with his three old friends, and Horace D'Fly is seen singing. ===== Throughout different variations, the story takes place in four sections.Ashley, Melissa. “'And Then the Devil Will Take Me Away': Adaptation, Evolution, and The Brothers Grimm's Suppression of Taboo Motifs in 'The Girl without Hands'.” Double Dialogues, 15 Dec. 2010, www.doubledialogues.com/article/and-then-the-devil-will-take-me-away- adaptation-evolution-and-the-brothers-grimms-suppression-of-taboo-motifs-in- the-girl-without-hands/. The Mutilated Heroine: A strange man approached a miller and offered him wealth in exchange for what was standing behind the mill. Thinking that it was just an apple tree, and unaware that the strange man was actually the devil, the miller agreed. He soon found out that it was actually his daughter standing behind the mill and that the man was the devil. When three years had passed, the devil reappeared to take the girl as he said he would, but the girl had kept herself sinless and her hands clean, and the devil was unable to take her. The devil threatened to take the miller instead if he did not chop off his daughter's hands. Out of fear, the miller and his daughter agreed to do so. However, she continued to weep onto the stumps where her hands once were, so they remained clean and the devil was still unable to take her. Marriage to the King: She decided to set out into the world to escape, despite her father's new wealth. She came upon a royal garden and saw fruit on the trees. After walking all day, she was hungry and wanted to eat the fruit, so she prayed that she be able to get into the garden. An angel appeared and helped her. The next day, the king noticed that pears were missing and his gardener told him that he had seen a spirit taking them. The king awaited her and approached her when she came back to the garden the next day. She told him that everyone had abandoned her and he said that he wouldn't abandon her. Soon after, he married her and made her the queen and gave her new hands made out of silver. A year later, she gave birth to a son; and the king's mother sent news of his birth to the king who had gone off to battle. The messenger made a stop along the way, and the devil changed the letter to say that the queen had given birth to a changeling. The king sent back that they should care for the child nonetheless, but the devil stole that letter too and reworded it once again. This time, making it say that they should kill the queen and the child and keep the queen's heart as proof. The Culminated Wife: The king's mother despaired. To aid the queen and her son, she killed a deer for its heart and told the queen to take her child into the world to hide. The queen went into the forest and prayed for help, and an angel appeared and brought her to a hut and nursed her son. She lived in this hut in the forest for seven years, and eventually her hands miraculously grew back. The Hands Restored: The king returned to his castle and discovered the letters had been tampered with, so he set out to find his wife and child. After seven years, he found the hut that the angel took the queen into. He was brought inside by an angel and laid down to sleep with a handkerchief to cover his face. His wife appeared and the handkerchief fell from his face. The child became angry because he had been told that God was man's one and only father. The king asked who they were, and the queen told him that they were his wife and son. He initially did not believe her and said that his wife had silver hands. She replied that God had given her real hands and retrieved her silver hands that had fallen off and showed the king. The king rejoiced at finding his wife. They both went back to their kingdom and lived happily ever after. ===== The play is in two acts, the first of which has two scenes. It is set in London, England, in the future but "sometime quite soon". It is a bleak future where law and order has broken down in at least some parts of the city, and social interaction is limited by the automation of many shops and services. Composer Jerome has been estranged from his wife Corinna (a bank manager) for four years. Their 13-year-old daughter, Geain (pronounced Jane) lives with her mother. Jerome has been unable to compose music since they left and is convinced he needs Geain back with him to be his inspiration. ===== Jimmy Shannon (Buster Keaton) is the junior partner in the brokerage firm of Meekin and Shannon, which is on the brink of financial ruin. A lawyer (whom they dodged, mistakenly believing he was trying to add to their woes) finally manages to inform Jimmy of the terms of his grandfather's will. He will inherit seven million dollars if he is married by 7:00 p.m. on his 27th birthday, which happens to be that same day. Shannon immediately seeks out his sweetheart, Mary Jones, who readily accepts his proposal. However, when he clumsily explains why they have to get married that day, she breaks up with him. He returns to the country club to break the news to his partner and the lawyer. Though Jimmy's heart is set on Mary, Meekin persuades him to try proposing to other women to save them both from ruin or even possibly jail. He has Jimmy look in the club's dining room; Jimmy knows seven women there (the chances of the title). Each turns him down. In desperation, Jimmy asks any woman he comes across. Even the hat check girl rejects him. He finally finds one who agrees, but it turns out she is underage when her mother spots her and takes her away. Meanwhile, Mary's mother persuades her to reconsider. She writes a note agreeing to marry Jimmy and sends the hired hand to deliver it. Unaware of this, Meekin has his partner's predicament (and potential inheritance) printed in the newspaper, asking would-be brides to go to the Broad Street Church at 5 p.m. Hordes of veiled women descend on the place. When they spot Jimmy (who had fallen asleep on a pew), they begin to fight over him. Then the clergyman appears and announces he believes it all to be a practical joke. Infuriated, the women chase after Jimmy. While hiding, he gets Mary's note. He races to Mary's house, pursued by furious females. Along the way, he accidentally starts an avalanche, which drives away the mob. When he gets to Mary's home, Meekin shows him his watch; he is minutes too late. Mary still wants to marry him, money or no, but he refuses to let her share his impending disgrace. When he leaves, he sees by the church clock that Meekin's watch is fast. He and Mary wed just in time. ===== 14-year-old Marcus Frederick (Brendan Sexton III) resides in Manhattan's Lower East Side with his grandmother, Lucy (Lynn Cohen). His mother, Joanna (Edie Falco), has spent the last nine years of Marcus's life in prison for smuggling undocumented aliens into New Mexico. Presumably, Marcus's father died in a car accident when Marcus was five. Lucy owns and operates her own establishment called Lucy's, where she works as a bartender, giving Marcus a lot of unsupervised time to spend with his four friends Chip (David Roland Frank), Benny (Carlo Alban), Louis (Mtume Gant), and Harold (Antoine McLean). The group spends the majority of their time committing petty theft and hanging around in their underground clubhouse near the waterfront. Chip has grown tired of the small-time crime and wants to move into more serious theft, such as robbery. Marcus has aspirations to move back to his home state of New Mexico and live on a ranch with his uncle Billy who had promised to mail Marcus an airplane ticket. However, Lucy doesn't believe Billy was being serious. Later that day, Marcus sells stolen merchandise to children during recess at the local elementary school while Chip serves as a lookout. There, Marcus meets 14-year-old Melena (Isidra Vega). Marcus invites Melena to his fifteenth birthday party, although she declines claiming her abusive father, Paco (Shawn Elliott), a tow truck driver, doesn't approve of her staying out late. That night, Melena sneaks out of her apartment and meets Marcus in front of the bar where she gives him her ski mask as a gift before leaving. The next morning, Marcus receives the flight ticket to New Mexico in the mail and relays this information to Lucy. Mack (L.M. Kit Carson), a regular patron at the bar, reveals to Lucy he actually sent Marcus the ticket (under the guise of Billy) believing it would do Marcus good if he left the city. Marcus, Benny, and Louis are subsequently introduced to Justin (Damian Corrente) and Shane (David Moscow), Chip's drug dealing friends from Miami. Marcus tells Melena about his plans to move to New Mexico and offers her to join him. Melena declines, knowing her father would never approve and not being able to afford the price of the ticket. Afterwards, Marcus gets caught by a plainclothes officer named Kramer (Jose Zuniga) after he continues to sell stolen merchandise to the elementary school children and is hauled off to the police station. Marcus is interrogated by Kramer and another detective named Hank (Richard Petrocelli) who threaten to charge him with commercial burglary and inform him that his mother is in prison for murder, not smuggling undocumented aliens like she had told him (it is implied that Joanna killed his father.) Marcus visits his mother and tells her about his meeting with Melena and the two of them planning to travel to New Mexico. Marcus then reveals that he knows she's in prison for killing his father. Joanna explains that his father was abusive towards her and Marcus and didn't know how to tell Marcus without him being upset. She also admits that she isn't up for parole until another four years, but promises Marcus they will go to New Mexico once she is out. Marcus is clearly done with her promises and leaves. Later, Marcus returns to the clubhouse where he is surprised by Mack who is a wanted fugitive hiding out from the police. Marcus sympathetically gives his ticket to Mack in hopes that it will help him with his dilemma. The following day, Marcus tells Melena and friends his decision to remain in New York in order to straighten his life out. At the clubhouse, the group reveals to Marcus they plan on breaking into a policeman's (Leslie Body) apartment and stealing his valuables. Marcus refuses to get involved after his run-in with the police. Paco drives to the clubhouse's location where Melena and Marcus congregate regularly. When Paco starts to get rough in disciplining Melena, Marcus intervenes before Paco shoves him into the lake and leaves with Melena. A vengeful Marcus rides his bicycle to Melena's apartment building and coldcocks Paco. Marcus and Melena leave and camp out in a tent for the day. They plan to meet at Penn Station at noon the next day to catch the train after coming to a consensus that they will travel to New Mexico. In order to procure the amount of money it costs for the train fare, Marcus joins his friends in the robbery plot. In the apartment, Harold finds and secretly steals the officer's gun before the group departs and returns to the clubhouse. Meanwhile, in his search for Melena, Paco sneaks inside the clubhouse and looks around. When he hears the group approaching, he hides in the closet. Chip insults Harold's ability to play darts which results in Harold pulling out the stolen gun and shooting the target on the dartboard to show off. Unknowingly, Harold has shot and killed Paco (through the closet door the dart board was hanging on) whose corpse falls from the closet. Unable to lift the body, Marcus takes the keys to Paco's tow truck from his pocket, and uses the crane on the tow truck to lift Paco and release him into a shallow grave. Harold feels guilty and Marcus fears that he may go to the police. He warns Benny to not let Harold talk before telling him he changed his mind and he is resuming his plans to go to New Mexico, though promises he'll return in two weeks. On the day Marcus and Melena are supposed to leave for New Mexico, Marcus visits the ruins of a building where he keeps a hidden stash of cash, only to find that it's missing along with the loot from the robbery. While Marcus is riding his bicycle downtown, he notices Chip showing off his brand new Diamondback bicycle to a crowd of onlookers. Marcus punches him in the face, accusing Chip of stealing the robbery loot and his stash of cash to pay for the bike. Justin and Shane accost Marcus before Justin reveals he stole Marcus's money. Justin, Shane, and Chip then mercilessly beat Marcus to the ground before leaving. Immediately after, Marcus returns to the clubhouse and takes the gun before noticing an unmarked car and police cruiser pull up and it's revealed that Benny had reported Paco's murder to the police. Meanwhile, two police officers question Lucy on Marcus's whereabouts. Soon after, Chip is arrested by the police. Running out of time and desperate for cash, Marcus enters a convenience store and holds the cashier, Duane, at gunpoint. Duane (Terry Alexander) hands over the cash and Marcus promises to pay him back. Marcus races to Penn Station where he reunites with Melena. The two board the train and Melena, not knowing her father is dead, remarks that her dad is going to kill her when he finds out she ran away. Marcus, knowing full well Paco won't be able to anything of the sort, doesn't respond. ===== The film revolves around the court- martial of 1st Sgt. Braxton Rutledge (Strode), a "Buffalo Soldier" of the 9th U.S. Cavalry, in 1881. His defense is handled by Lt. Tom Cantrell (Hunter), Rutledge's troop officer. The story is told through a series of flashbacks, expanding the testimony of witnesses as they describe the events following the murder of Rutledge's Commanding Officer, Major Dabney, and the rape and murder of Dabney's daughter, for which Rutledge is the accused. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the first sergeant raped and murdered the girl and then killed his commanding officer. Worse still, Rutledge deserts after the killings. Ultimately, he is tracked down and arrested by Lt. Cantrell. At one point, Rutledge escapes from captivity during an Indian raid, but later, he voluntarily returns to warn his fellow cavalrymen that they are about to face an ambush, thus saving the troop. He is then brought back in to face the charges and the prejudices of an all-white military court. Eventually he is found not guilty of the rape and murder of the girl when a local white man breaks down under questioning and admits that he raped and murdered the girl. ===== Ding-on is an orphaned blacksmith working in Sharp Foundry, which is run by his master, a friend of his deceased father. The master's daughter, Ling, who narrates the movie, is romantically attracted to both Ding-on and his colleague, Iron Head. One day, Ding-on and Iron Head see a monk fending off a group of thugs, who later ambush and kill him in revenge. Iron Head is so furious that he identifies himself as someone from Sharp Foundry and taunts the thugs to fight him. The master is angry when he hears of Iron Head's reckless behaviour so he punishes him. Iron Head holds a grudge against Ding-on for telling their master about the incident. He becomes even more unhappy when their master announces his decision to make Ding-on his successor. That night, Ding-on overhears a conversation between Ling and her grandmother, and learns that his father died while saving Ling's father from Flying Dragon, a notorious heavily-tattooed assassin. Ding-on desires to seek revenge so he takes his father's weapon, a broken sword (the titular Blade), and bids his master farewell. Ling tries to catch up with him but runs into trouble with the thugs. Ding-on hears Ling's screams for help and returns to save her. He fights with the thugs but loses his right arm and falls off a cliff. Ding-on is saved and nursed back to health by a peasant called Blackie. Seeing that he is now crippled, Ding-on abandons his quest for vengeance, buries his father's sword, and tries to lead a normal life with Blackie. At the same time, Ling and Iron Head venture out in search of Ding-on, whom they believe to be still alive. During this period of time, Ling gradually becomes more disillusioned with life and people, especially after she witnesses Iron Head taking advantage of a prostitute whom he saved earlier. Meanwhile, Ding-on endures humiliation while working in a restaurant. One day, he sees Flying Dragon and feels very frustrated because he can no longer take revenge. One night, a gang of bandits burn down his house, tie him upside-down, and beat him mercilessly. Later, Blackie finds a martial arts manual hidden by her parents and passes it to Ding-on. Ding-on becomes excited and tries to learn the techniques in the book, but cannot afford a good weapon so he uses his father's broken sword. Owing to his handicap and the book's incompleteness, Ding-on's efforts turn out to be futile initially. However, when driven to rage by his frustration, he suddenly makes a breakthrough and develops a devastating spinning movement which allows him to compensate for his lack of an arm and his broken weapon. Ding-on kills the bandits who burnt down his house and saves Ling from danger but does not reveal himself to her. At the same time, an evil man called Skeleton recruits Flying Dragon to help him destroy Sharp Foundry and kill everyone there. A battle breaks out between Flying Dragon and Sharp Foundry's blacksmiths. While his master is struggling to defend himself, Ding-on returns in the nick of time to save his master, and he kills Flying Dragon after a long fight. Skeleton and his men flee after seeing that Flying Dragon is dead. Ding-on then turns his back on Sharp Foundry and leaves with Blackie. In the final scene, an aged Ling imagines herself embracing Ding-on and returning to the happier times in the past. ===== A quiet neighborhood outside of Oakland, California, is held hostage with terror when a serial killer armed with a crossbow begins to stalk and kill the residents from their rooftops. ===== The movie is set in 1936 in Barcelona in the midst of the Spanish Revolution and Spanish Civil War.Sandra Brennan, Rovi. Libertarias (1996) New York Times Militia women Pilar (Ana Belen) and Floren (Victoria Abril) are joined by former prostitute Charo (Loles Leon) and former nun Maria (Ariadna Gil), who had hidden in a brothel to escape revolutionary violence against clergy. The film opens with scenes of working class militants demolishing and burning religious icons, as they shout "down with Capitalism!" and "long live the libertarian revolution!" While fully immersed in the overall enthusiasm of revolutionary Spain, Pilar and friends find themselves fighting against deep gender inequality which complicates their efforts in the war against Francisco Franco's Nationalist/Fascist/Catholic forces. They encounter resistance even within their own "Free Women" (Mujeres Libres) organization as one woman (that resembles Federica Montseny) tries to persuade them to stay and work in defense factories, while men try to convince them to go work as cooks, not front-line soldiers. ===== Spring Forward is the story of the burgeoning friendship between two very different men, Murphy and Paul, who work for the parks department in a quaint New England town. Paul is a short- tempered ex-convict recently released from prison for armed robbery, who is exploring his spiritual side hoping for atonement and a second chance. On his first day working in parks maintenance he is partnered with Murphy, a veteran groundskeeper, facing his advancing age and impending retirement. The day gets off to a rough start when Paul clashes with a condescending local business heir over a materials donation, loses his cool, announces he is quitting, and stalks off into the woods berating himself for always ruining everything. Murphy follows him, defuses Paul's outburst and convinces him to stay. Against the backdrop of the changing seasons the relationship between the men strengthens and develops more as father and son, poignant in contrast to Murphy's relationship with his dying homosexual son, whose impending death causes Murphy to doubt his past as a father and a man. Working together through mundane days and personal crisis they share their lives, hopes, ambitions and regrets, as Paul learns to find stability and calm in his life and Murphy achieves acceptance and forgiveness for his mistakes. The film ends with Paul presenting Murphy with a hamsa as a retirement gift and to signify the "helping hand" that Murphy has provided him through the past year. ===== In the backwoods southern town of Rockwood, a vampire and a werewolf in a run-down old truck come across Gil's All Night Diner, a 24-hour restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Nearly out of gas, they stop in at the diner only to discover it is the target of zombie attacks, hauntings, and occult activity. The manager of the diner, Loretta, offers them a job helping her out around the diner, and maybe helping solve her zombie problem. They accept. ===== Repentance is set in a small Georgian town. The film starts with the scene of a woman preparing cakes. A man in a chair is reading from a newspaper that the town's mayor, Varlam Aravidze (Avtandil Makharadze) has died. One day after the funeral the corpse of the mayor turns up in the garden of his son's house. The corpse is reburied, only to reappear again in the garden. A woman, Ketevan Barateli (Zeinab Botsvadze), is eventually arrested and accused of digging up the corpse. She defends herself and states that Varlam does not deserve to be buried as he was responsible for a Stalin-like regime of terror responsible for the disappearance of her parents and her friends. She is put on trial and gives her testimony, with the story of Varlam's regime being told in flashbacks. During the trial, Varlam's son Abel (Avtandil Makharadze) denies any wrongdoings by his father and his lawyer tries to get Ketevan declared insane. Varlam's grandson Tornike (Merab Ninidze) is shocked by the revelations about the crimes of his grandfather. He ultimately commits suicide. Abel himself then throws Varlam's corpse off a cliff on the outskirts of the town. At the end, the film returns to the scene of the woman preparing a cake. An old woman is asking her at the window whether this is the road that leads to the church. The woman replies that the road is Varlam Street and will not lead to the temple. The old woman replies: "What good is a road if it doesn't lead to a church?" ===== As the film begins. A former criminal and drug dealer Lucky (Wesley Snipes) was released from prison and tries to lead a respectable life despite his troubled past. However, Lucky once or twice reflects on the wisdom of his grandfather who supposedly told him "sometimes without bad luck, it would seem you don't have any luck at all." Shortly after his release from prison, Lucky tries to get back on his feet but inexplicably ends up a victim of Hurricane Katrina's wrath, and loses his newly found life. After Lucky returns to New York, Lucky is dealt another blow when the government withdraws funds for his yoga and samba dance classes which he uses to try to keep kids off the streets. This unfortunate event leads to Lucky enduring the bad influences of two old friends from his past life as a criminal, who lure Lucky to a strip club under the false pretense of his friend's birthday. When a drug deal with some dangerous mobsters goes bad, and Lucky is now on the run with a feisty Puerto Rican stripper from the strip club, Angela (Jacquelyn Quinones), and over $500,000 in American currency, which is wired with marking dye. Later that night, there are short cuts of an unconventional and troubled couple, unexplained and also known to the police as the "Sawtooth Killers". Chang (James Liao), an egotistical and maniacal accomplice to his old-fashioned girlfriend Cass (Cybill Shepherd), the mother of a mentally challenged man named Eugene (Mike Messier). Motivated by Cass's son Eugene's unpleasant experiences with society's rejection of mentally challenged individuals, the couple brutally kidnaps, tortures, and presumably kills their abductees, recording their exploits on video, possibly for future viewing. Angela and Lucky find themselves caught up in the path of violence, and Lucky ends up an unlikely hero by saving the life of a would be victim of the Sawtooth Killers. Lucky saves Captain Davis (Mario Van Peebles) from Cass's son Eugene, who is armed with a shovel. Lucky chooses to have a positive outlook on the events by using perspective gained from his grandfather, characterizes the events as being "the luckiest day in an unlucky man's life." Lucky and Angela go on to receive a $200,000 reward which had been offered by the police for information leading the capture, arrest, and or prosecution of the Sawtooth Killers. ===== Undercover C.I.A. agent Sonni Griffith (Wesley Snipes) travels alone to Romania to expose an arms dealer and stop the sale of a nuclear weapon. When the arms dealer is tipped off to Griffith's identity, he lands himself in prison...but is quickly released by the C.I.A. only to be given a new mission: to escort a beautiful Russian woman named Nadia (Silvia Colloca) back to the United States. Griffith soon learns that strong-willed Nadia is being hunted by the very arms dealer that he intended to destroy, but this evil dealer will stop at nothing to get the information out of Nadia that he needs: the location of the $30 million she has hidden that will buy him a nuclear bomb. As the leak within the C.I.A. continues to expose the location and identity of Griffith and Nadia, they must fight the arms dealers to the death to save themselves and the world! ===== The Drawer Boy replays the adventures of a young actor from a Toronto theatre group who visits the rural Ontario home of two elderly bachelor farmers to "research" farm life for a new play. In doing so, he demonstrates the way in which a collective creation appropriated the lives of its subjects and changed their own interpretation of it. The two farmers, Morgan and Angus, have achieved a precarious balance in their lives together. Morgan, a tough-minded, stubborn man, cares for Angus, who has had brain damage and lost his memory during the bombing of London in the Second World War. Angus is initially identified as "the drawer boy" because he used to design buildings and has the talents of an architect. Morgan calms and reassures Angus by retelling their story - of the two tall women whom they loved, and who came to live with them in Canada. The young actor, Miles, learns, however, that this story is a fiction and that the truth is much sadder. It would, in fact, destroy their friendship. In the process of telling their story as play, however, he reawakens Angus's memory. Art becomes life. Miles is in effect the "drawer boy," delineating and creating an alternative reality. As he tells Morgan, "We're here to get your history and give it back to you." The Drawer Boy is fundamentally about the power of storytelling in creating and interpreting reality and how it can transform lives. There is much more in the play than a history of Canadian drama. The Drawer Boy premiered in Toronto at Theatre Passe Muraille in 1999 and was subsequently produced by Ed Mirvish Productions at the more opulent Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto and the Manitoba Theatre Centre, Winnipeg in 2001. The 2001/02 revival was a collaboration between the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and has toured to the major regional theatres: Hamilton's Theatre Aquarius, Edmonton's Citadel Theatre, and the Vancouver Playhouse. It has won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, a Chalmers Award, and a Governor General's Award. The Drawer Boy received its London premiere at Finborough Theatre on 19 June 2012, with John Bett, Neil McCaul and Simon Lee Phillips, directed by Eleanor Rhode. The revival was produced by London theatre company Snapdragon Productions. ===== The story is narrated by a young rich man, heir to a huge sum of money. He devotes his life to an organization called "We Live Again" which investigates the reality of reincarnation. People have souls that pass on to other individuals and give them their memories, usually alongside, but sometimes in place of their own memories. The story focuses on Mallory Gabus, a recently reincarnated woman and her fascinating integration into the new world. She recalls and narrates her experiences and memories of Hitler's victory, which allowed Hitler to bring his desire for an "Aryan" world to fruition. She realizes all that went wrong. The Nazis had won World War II and purged their empire of all non- whites, then rewrote history so as to say that Dachau, a concentration camp, was instead a battle with Adolf Hitler as its hero. After Hitler's victory, the Third Reich is solely Aryan, the Aryans have killed all non-Aryans in their new empire. They now use A.D. to refer to After Dachau, the turning point in their civilization, and "A.D.-A.D." to refer to our A.D. Mallory was (re-)born in 1922 A.D.-A.D. as an Afro-American woman in New York. We find out that the Nazi purges in the Third Reich have started to have a cultural effect on the United States, and soon Jews are being executed. Blacks are being "repatriated", which turns out to mean that they are being placed into concentration camps. Mallory hides out with her lover in the New York City underground and makes a life until their hiding place is discovered by police. At that point, they commit suicide rather than being taken alive or executed. Jason Tull, the Protagonist, in an attempt to publicize the story and the atrocities the Aryans committed, contacts a newspaper and other news media. His investigation gets him sequestered in an unknown location until he can write three words upon a chalkboard. The words turn out to be "No One Cares", and, as it turns out, no one does. The narrator explains that he cares, and he doesn't care if others don't care, he is still going to pursue this for his own personal interest. He opens an exhibit displaying relics from the old world, including works by Jewish authors such as Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. The narrator receives a gift from his "uncle" (the man who imprisoned him), and expresses his intent to publish the gift. He opens a shop where he displays pictures of Africans that had been saved in Mallory's hideout. Finally, one night, someone throws a brick through the gallery's windows, prompting the narrator to conclude that somebody "does care". The last line reveals that the gift is The Diary of a Young Girl, written during World War II, the Diary of Anne Frank. =====