From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Brian’s gay cousin Jasper comes to Quahog with his Filipino boyfriend Ricardo, and announces that they are going to get married. Everyone is delighted -- except for Lois, who is against same-sex marriage. Later, Mayor Adam West reveals in the city center a solid gold statue of the Honey Smacks mascot Dig 'Em, and dedicates the statue to the servicemen who died in what he refers to as the "recent Gulf conflict". The cost of the statue puts the city in debt. In order to distract the townspeople, he proposes a bill outlawing same sex marriage. Meanwhile, Chris falls for Alyssa, a beautiful girl who belongs to the Young Republicans, and joins the group to impress her. An enraged Brian vows to make West change his mind, getting 10,000 people to sign a petition to oppose the bill. Lois refuses to sign and takes Stewie to visit her parents. Before Brian can present the petition to the mayor, Chris burns it because Alyssa has agreed he may touch her breasts if he destroys the document, much to Brian's anger. Brian manages to get 10,000 more signatures on a new petition to show it to Mayor West, but West still won't change his mind. Out of desperation, Brian takes a security guard’s gun, and holds the mayor hostage. Lois hears about Brian on TV, and then discovers that her parents do not love each other, and even raised her to believe that a heterosexual couple who hate each other have every right to marry while a homosexual couple who love each other don't. Horrified, Lois changes her mind on same-sex marriage, deciding that gay couples who love each other have the right to be together. She returns to Quahog to convince Brian to free the mayor, saying that if he pursues this any further, he will be hurting his own cause. Brian agrees, and ends the hostage situation. Since it has distracted the town from the Dig 'Em scandal, Mayor West agrees to drop the ban on gay marriage. Brian gives him a key for a Volkswagen Scirocco, and West drops the hostage charges. Jasper and Ricardo get married in the backyard of the Griffin house. ===== The story is set during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japan has invaded China, and the Japanese attack the village where young Tien Pao and his family live. The family flees upriver in an abandoned sampan to the town of Hengyang. While the boy's parents go to a nearby American airfield to seek work with his younger sister, Tien Pao spends the day taking care of the sampan as well as three ducklings and the family pig, named Glory of the Republic. During a rainstorm, while Tien Pao is asleep, the sampan breaks loose from its moorings. Tien Pao is swept down the river. After a night in the raging waters, the storm abates, and Tien Pao finds himself floating in the area where his village used to be. He releases the ducklings in the river and heads for higher ground with his pig. He must travel over high mountains and through dangerous Japanese occupied territory to reach Hengyang. As he journeys home, Tien Pao begins to starve and suffer from exhaustion. He witnesses terrifying scenes of violence. Once, he sees a plane strafe a Japanese military convoy, only to be shot down over the forest. Sitting on a big rock, Tien Pao watches the entire skirmish. He later comes upon the injured American pilot (whom he had met before during his stay at Hengyang river) and helps the man return to his unit. The American pilot is a member of the Flying Tigers, and the sixty men in the unit become the "sixty fathers" who care for Tien Pao. Tien Pao exhibits a strong will to continue to try to find his parents, an incredibly difficult task; with the help of the American pilot he finds an airfield similar to the one his parents once worked on. The pilot only wishes to show Tien Pao an airfield but Tien Pao finds his mother and is at last reunited with his family. ===== Tracker is the story of Daggon, an alien life form who lands on Earth from the planet Cirron in a bid to capture 218 prisoners who had escaped from the planet SAR TOP in the Migar Solar System in the form of "life forces" then took over various human identities. He lands in an abandoned field in the outskirts of Chicago where he takes on the form of an underwear model and takes the name "Cole" from the underwear ad he sees on a billboard. He later meets Mel Porter, a Chicago bar owner who has an outgoing British bartender that she inherited along with her grandmother's police bar. Though she is suspicious at first, she gradually comes to accept Cole and lets him stay, offering him some of her ex- boyfriend's clothes. He has a device to capture the life forces and contain them in spheres, and once his mission is over, he has to take them back to SAR TOP. A brilliant scientist named Zin engineers the jailbreak from SAR-TOP prison, located a hundred light years away from Earth. Zin creates a wormhole, which allows almost instantaneous travel from the Migar solar system to Earth. The wormhole ends in Chicago, where Zin and the escapees have taken over the bodies of human beings and blended into society, but still retain some of their alien otherworldly abilities. With an army of escaped alien convicts, Zin creates a criminal empire, not unlike the mafia, which he can rule over as Godfather supreme. However, as Cole will discover, Zin may have a larger agenda in mind than running illegal enterprises for profit, an agenda that might carry interplanetary implications. Cole must find the fugitives and stop them before they can carry out their plans, using Mel's help and constant guidance to do so. ===== After a long night of unfinished work, the morning dawns for George Dane, a writer whose life has grown too busy with his career and relationships. An expected breakfast guest appears and suddenly Dane is transported to a new environment, the great good place of the title. James does not describe this place as an unreal paradise. Guests even have to pay for service. The place seems more like a retreat or getaway resort, where Dane eventually recovers his peace of mind. Dane spends three weeks at the place, and tells a Brother of his former life and the mysterious breakfast guest. Back in his usual world, Dane is eventually awakened by his servant after eight hours' sleep, and he realizes that his vision is gone. But the mysterious guest has straightened up his study, and Dane's life seems clearer and more manageable. ===== The novel is transcribed by 'Michael Moorcock' (the author's fictional grandfather) in 1903. Holidaying at the remote Rowe Island, he befriends Oswald Bastable, an ex-soldier stowaway who seems confused and disoriented beyond what could be explained by his opium addiction, and who is tormented by great guilt from an action he performed in his past. Bastable agrees to tell Moorcock the story, and begins his narrative with his experiences in North East India in 1902, sent as part of a British expedition to deal with Sharan Kang, an Indian high priest at the temple of Teku Benga, a mysterious and seemingly supernaturally powerful region. After a confrontation with Kang and his men, Bastable finds himself lost and alone in the caves around the 'Temple of the Future Buddha', where he is assaulted by a mysterious force and knocked into unconsciousness. When he awakes, and escapes the caves, the Temple is in ruins, as if a great amount of time has passed. He is soon found and picked up by a massive airship, where he learns that it is in fact the year 1973, but not the one that the reader would recognise. In this alternate future, the First World War never happened, and the colonial powers continue to assert dominance over their empires—for example, India remains a British territory, though Winston Churchill had been viceroy in this alternate future as well as in Bastable's own. At first, Bastable marvels at the wonders that await him in his 'future' — London is a clean and peaceful city, and the world seems to be a utopia, held in balance by the great empires. Gaining employment amongst the great airship armadas, however, he soon comes into contact with a troop of anarchists – among them a mysterious woman named Una Persson, and a Russian revolutionary named Ulianov. He initially maintains a patriotic resistance to their activities, but gradually discovers the truth: life is peaceful for the dominant empires but the seeming utopia of the empires' home countries is based on decades of unimpeded and unopposed colonial oppression, brutality and domination of their territories. As the First World War never happened to bankrupt the European colonial empires and begin the gradual liberalization and freedom of the colonies, imperialism remains unchecked and the world is greatly unfair and unjust. The United Kingdom, France, the Tsarist Russian Empire, the German Empire, Japan, the Italian Empire and the United States ruthlessly dominate this world and suppress anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist dissent. Bastable, a fair and honourable man, is outraged by the cruelty, injustice and horror revealed to him, and begins to fight for the oppressed peoples of the world (opposing, amongst others, his former friend in the airship service, Major Enoch Powell). Tragically, his actions result in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima at the hands of the anarchists. The atomic blast knocks him loose from the alternate 1973, sending him to a new 1903. Wracked with guilt over his part in the destruction of countless millions of innocent lives, and dreading the 'future' of science and imperialism gone mad, Bastable makes his way to the caves of Teku Benga and returns to 1903, but alas, not his own original time. His experiences have altered him too much to settle into life in this new alternate universe; both his experiences and this sense of dislocation have driven him to opium. The novel ends with Bastable disappearing mysteriously, much to the 1903 Moorcock's amazement; and a postscript from the modern author Moorcock, establishing his grandfather's death on the Western Front in 1916. ===== Coming to the assistance of a nanny who is almost killed during a bungled hit-and-run assassination attempt, Richard Hannay (More) is surprised to find that there is no baby in her pram. Curious, he meets her at the Palace Music Hall where she has gone to see the act of Mr Memory (James Hayter). Afterwards, she goes back to Hannay's flat with him, where she reveals that she is a spy working for British Intelligence following a group called "The Thirty-Nine Steps"; all they know about their elusive leader is that he is missing the tip of a finger. The Thirty-Nine Steps are in possession of a set of top-secret plans for "Boomerang", a British ballistic missile project that could tip the balance of power in Europe. She tells Hannay that she must leave for Scotland immediately, but while Hannay is out of the room, she is killed by two hitmen. Fearing he will be accused of her murder, Hannay decides to continue her mission and catches an ex LNER Class A4 hauled train to Scotland from King's Cross railway station, evading the hitmen outside his flat by adopting a cunning milkman disguise. During the journey, he has a chance encounter with Miss Fisher (Taina Elg), a netball coach at a boarding school for girls. He is forced to pretend they are lovers to avoid the police detectives who boarded at Edinburgh. However, Miss Fisher gives him away and Hannay jumps from the stationary train on the Forth Bridge. He then meets Percy Baker (Sid James), a helpful ex-convict lorry driver who advises him to stop at "The Gallows", an inn owned by Nelly Lumsden (Brenda De Banzie), who was once imprisoned for practising the occult. She helps him pass the police patrols by disguising him in a cycle party she is accommodating and creating a diversion with her husband. Hannay eventually finds the house of the man he thinks he is looking for, Professor Logan (Barry Jones), but finds out that he has been tricked; the man is actually the spy ring's leader. He escapes and informs the police, but is not believed and has to jump out of the police station window. Hannay escapes in the back of a passing sheep transporter. He then poses as a lecturer in a Highland girls' boarding school, coincidentally where Miss Fisher works, and ends up giving a bizarre lecture on "the woods and the wayside in August". Miss Fisher recognises him and he is again taken into custody, but this time by two assassins posing as detectives. After he shouts out to Miss Fisher to telephone Scotland Yard about Boomerang, the assassins are forced to take her with them. Hannay is handcuffed to Miss Fisher in a Ford Zephyr with the hitmen, who are taking them back to London. A burst tyre gives Hannay his chance to escape, but only having one hand to drive with, he crashes the car, forcing him to wander through the bleak Scottish Highlands handcuffed to Miss Fisher. Eventually, they chance upon a bed and breakfast run by Mrs MacDougal (Betty Henderson). Hannay hides their handcuffed condition and informs her that they are a runaway couple. While Hannay sleeps, Miss Fisher frees herself from the handcuffs, but then overhears their pursuers inquiring about them and about The Thirty-Nine Steps. She realises her error and goes back to help Hannay, telling him the final rendezvous for the conspirators. The finale is back in the Palace Music Hall where Hannay provokes Mr. Memory into telling him where "The Thirty-Nine Steps" are, just as the police arrest him. Mr Memory has used his formidable memory to memorise the Boomerang plans. However, before he can reveal the secret, Memory is shot by the ringleader and the secret is safe, as the main conspirators are either dead or in custody. ===== Former actress Adela Cork owns the Beverly Hills property known as the Carmen Flores place, after the famous and tempestuous Mexican actress who previously owned the house. Flores was killed in a plane crash the previous year. The will of Adela's late wealthy husband Alfred says Adela should support his impecunious brother Smedley, though she merely lets him live in her house. Smedley dislikes living with Adela, who makes him drink yoghurt instead of cocktails. Adela's sister Bill, a former scriptwriter, is ghostwriting Adela's memoirs. Adela's impeccable butler Phipps is nervous that Bill, who was part of the jury that sentenced him to prison for safecracking a few years ago, will tell Adela about his past which he has kept secret, but she promises not to tell. Smedley hopes to find the late Carmen Flores's diary. He believes she wrote about her affairs with men who would pay to have it suppressed. Bill thinks Smedley needs looking after and wants to marry him, but Smedley has doubts about marriage. In New York, Joe Davenport, Bill's former co-worker, asks Bill's niece Kay Shannon in a joking way if she will marry him. Kay likes him but turns him down because she thinks he is not serious. They both separately go to California. Bill suggests to Joe that they buy her literary agent's business for twenty thousand dollars. Bill wants Joe to fund the purchase, since he won a radio jackpot, but he explains that he has nearly spent all his winnings. Joe later meets Smedley, who looks rich, and gives him a car ride hoping for money. Adela has invited Kay and the rich Lord Topham to her house, hoping they will marry. Adela gives Phipps notice for looking around in her bedroom against her orders. He tells Bill that he was looking for the valuable diary of the late Carmen Flores, and has not found it. Joe comes to the house, having been invited by Smedley while they were out drinking. Smedley was celebrating because he found the diary, which is written in Spanish, on top of Adela's wardrobe. He has been offered fifty thousand dollars for it. By pretending to help translate it, Adela tricks Smedley into giving her the diary. Bill reveals to Smedley, Kay, and Joe that Phipps is a safecracker, and suggests that he get the diary from Adela's safe. Phipps's cut will be five thousand dollars. He agrees. Late that night, they assemble to steal the diary. However, Phipps has been hired by movie mogul Jacob Glutz to play butler roles, and is unwilling to risk being caught burgling. Bill comes up with the idea to give Phipps strong drinks and taunt him into burgling the safe by suggesting he has lost his skill. Phipps becomes drunk and remarkably less formal, then goes to break open the safe after being taunted by Bill. Kay tells Bill that she loves Joe but thinks his proposals are too flippant, though Bill thinks he is just shy. Phipps fails to focus on his task and argues in a disjointed way with Smedley and Joe before falling asleep. Joe tells Bill he is too shy to propose to Kay seriously. Bill knocks Joe out with her only Mickey Finn drug, planning to make Kay sympathetic to him. Bill wakes up Phipps, who does not remember anything from when he was drunk. She claims Phipps knocked out Joe. Kay sees Joe unconscious and instantly goes to his side, as Bill planned. Joe recovers, and is happily surprised that Kay returns his feelings. Phipps apologizes and works on the safe. Smedley inadvertently makes noise and wakes up Adela. Adela investigates but is stopped by Bill, who stalls by talking to Lord Topham. Topham loves Gladys "Toots" Fauntleroy, but they had an argument about her new hat. He sent a cable to England apologizing and awaits her reply. A sergeant and patrolman arrive, having been telephoned by Adela. Bill again stalls by talking to the policeman about their ambition to become actors. Bill keeps them occupied long enough for Phipps to finish his task and dismiss the policemen. However, Phipps refuses to give Smedley the diary and keeps it. Topham learns that Toots loves him still, making him very amenable, but he cannot lend Bill the money she needs for the literary agency because he can't spend his money out of England. Adela thinks Bill took the diary and telephones the police again. Bill convinces Phipps to give the diary to Smedley by pointing out that Phipps will be in trouble if the police find it. She also convinces Adela that Smedley could sue her for losing a diary he had an offer for, which would bring her bad publicity. She persuades Adela to pay him off with thirty thousand dollars, with a check made out to Bill. The two policemen return and are cheerful, having been hired as background actors. Later, Phipps says that the book he gave to Smedley was not actually the diary, and is not even in Spanish. Smedley protests that it is in Spanish and gives it to Phipps to show him, but Phipps takes it and drives off. Bill is amazed that Smedley has again been tricked out of the diary, and wants to look after him. She asks him to marry her and he agrees. ===== The story revolves around a male Kathakali artist Kunhikuttan, an admirable and respected performer but a member of a lower caste. He struggles to come to terms with the rejection and estrangement of his father, a member of an upper caste who denies his son. Poor, unhappy, and stuck in an arranged marriage that provides no relief, he gets by for the sake of his daughter. One night, whilst performing as Putana from Poothanamoksham from the epic Mahabharata on stage, his performance is witnessed by Subhadra, an educated and married upper-caste women, niece of the Dewan and an aspiring composer. Impressed by his performance she invites him to play Arjuna in her adaptation of Subhadraharanam. Defying the norms of India's rigid caste system, the two have an affair which results in a son. But it soon becomes clear that Subhadra loves the character Arjuna from his stage performances, and not Kunhikuttan the artist. More in love with the valiant, noble hero of the Mahabharata, than the lower-caste dancer Kunhikuttan, she rejects him and refuses to let him see his son. Denied access to his son, and rejected by his father, Kunhikuttan returns to the stage, leaving behind his hero roles to play demonic characters, reaching within the dark corners of his mind, becoming increasingly resentful and full of anger, until one last dance which brings the feature to a stunning end Subhadraharanam. ===== Jack Dunne (Winkler), an amnesiac Vietnam veteran most likely suffering from a severe case of PTSD , escapes a mental ward in New York City intent on starting a business as a worm farmer in Eureka, California. At the bus station, he accidentally meets Carol Bell (Field), a woman unsure of her engagement to a man towards whom she has confused feelings. Initially annoyed by Jack, Carol gradually warms to him as they set off on a trip through middle America towards Northern California: during the journey she has time to reflect on her impending nuptials as Jack tries to locate his three war buddies hoping to enlist them in his dream to start a worm farm. It becomes clear that the first two friends Jack and Carol locate are in too poor condition to do much work of any kind. When a visit to the parents of the third results in the disclosure that the friend had died in the war, Jack, who knew as much but was in denial, relives the battlefield trauma of his buddy's death. Finally, Carol's compassion and caring enable Jack to come to terms with reality. ===== The Enterprise responds to a distress call from a Talarian vessel. They rescue five teenaged crewmembers - four Talarian, and one human, Jono (Chad Allen). Jono keeps to himself, but shows strict obedience to Captain Picard, which together with some unexplained past injuries leads Doctor Crusher to suggest Jono may have been physically abused. It is determined that Jono is Jeremiah Rossa, a long-lost Federation citizen. His grandmother is a Starfleet admiral, and he was orphaned ten years ago when his parents were killed in a skirmish with the Talarians. When the Captain introduces the topic of Jono's human family, Jono becomes angry. After persistent effort by Picard, Jono's memories of the attack begin to return and a friendship develops between Jono and Wesley Crusher. A Talarian ship arrives. Its Captain, Endar, asks for a status on his son, who happens to be Jono. Ten years ago, Endar claimed Jono after Jono's parents were killed. This is part of the Talarian custom of adopting the children of slain enemies to replace their own children who have died in battle. Endar explains Jono's injuries as the products of a boy trying to impress his father by participating in high-risk activities; Picard seems satisfied and observes that Endar seems to care for Jono. Picard allows Endar to see Jono, but when Jono says he wants to stay with Endar, Picard suspects the boy is afraid to say he wants to stay in the Federation. Endar insists that Jono will come back with him, even if the result is war between the Talarians and the Federation. Returning to his vessel, Endar calls for reinforcements, as Picard decides to try to convince Jono to stay. After Jono receives a message from his grandmother, Picard takes the boy to play a form of racquetball, where Jono breaks down and cries. The crew believes they are making progress with the boy, but that night, Jono stabs the Captain. The dagger is deflected by Picard's sternum, and the wound is minor. The problem of where Jono should live is now compounded as Jono has committed a crime. When Picard learns that Jono feels he cannot betray Endar by befriending Picard, the Captain realizes he has been trying to impose his wishes on the boy. Just as Endar's patience is about to run out, Picard contacts the Talarians and lets them know he will let Jono go back. Jono bids Picard farewell with a Talarian ritual that is normally reserved for family members. ===== Starting out as a harrowing wartime sea adventure, Burroughs's story ultimately develops into a lost world story reminiscent of such novels as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1912) and Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island (1874) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864). Burroughs adds his own twist by postulating a unique biological system for his lost world, in which the slow progress of evolution in the world outside is recapitulated as a matter of individual metamorphosis. This system is only hinted at in The Land That Time Forgot; presented as a mystery whose explication is gradually worked out over the course of the next two novels, it forms a thematic element serving to unite three otherwise rather loosely linked stories. ===== Professor Henry Morlant (Boris Karloff), a great Egyptologist, thinks the ancient jewel he calls the "Eternal Light" will give him powers of rejuvenation if it is offered up to the ancient Egyptian god Anubis. But when Morlant dies, his servant Laing (Ernest Thesiger) steals the jewel. While a gaggle of interlopers, including a disreputable solicitor (Cedric Hardwicke) and a fake parson (Ralph Richardson), descend on the Professor's manor to steal the jewel for themselves, Morlant returns from the dead ("when the full moon strikes the door of my tomb" he predicted before dying) to kill everyone who has betrayed him. ===== The school year ends with everyone at East High School looking forward to summer vacation ("What Time Is It?"). Troy Bolton is still dating Gabriella Montez, who decides to stay in Albuquerque with her mother. Troy eventually decides to look for a summer job to gain money for college. Sharpay and Ryan Evans plan to spend the summer at their family's country club, Lava Springs ("Fabulous"), but Sharpay's summer plans also include pursuing Troy, whom she has arranged for to be hired at the club. However, Troy convinces the club's manager, Mr. Fulton, into hiring Gabriella and their close group of friends as well, including Taylor and Chad. Sharpay is enraged upon learning that Gabriella is working as one of the lifeguards but is unable to get her fired, so she orders Fulton to give them difficult tasks so they would want to quit. Fulton attempts to intimidate the group, but Troy rebuilds their confidence and convinces them that they can persevere ("Work This Out"). Troy continues to worry about funding for college. Sharpay senses his need and arranges for Troy to be promoted to the University of Albuquerque's senior basketball team, hoping that this will convince him to sing with her at the talent show. Meanwhile, Kelsi writes a song for Troy and Gabriella ans the agree to sing with their friends in the show ("You Are The Music In Me"), not knowing that Sharpay is vying for his attention. In the extended version, Sharpay and Ryan trap Troy as he prepares for a date with Gabriella by performing their own song ("Humuhumunukunukuapua'a"), much to Troy's annoyance. Ryan realizes he does not mean much to Sharpay anymore, as she is ready to blow her brother aside for the opportunity to perform with Troy. This leads to tension between the siblings, and Ryan angrily informs Sharpay that he will no longer obey her orders. Taylor and Gabriella invite Ryan to the baseball game, where he persuades the Wildcats to take part in the talent show ("I Don't Dance"). Troy and Gabriella's relationship is strained when Troy sees Ryan with Gabriella, sparking jealousy. Owing to a "promise" from Troy, he and Sharpay rehearse another song for the talent show ("You Are The Music In Me (Sharpay Version)"). Troy also gets into a heated argument with Chad for abandoning his friends, due to his perceived selfishness after being promoted by Sharpay. When Sharpay discovers that Ryan and the Wildcats are putting together their own performance in the show, she orders Mr. Fulton to ban all staff members from performing. Gabriella confronts Sharpay about her interference and quits her job at Lava Springs. Troy overhears the exchange and tries to persuade Gabriella to change her mind. Gabriella expresses her loss of trust with Troy ("Gotta Go My Own Way"), leaves Lava Springs, and returns to him her necklace, which he had given to her after school ended. Troy returns to work the next day to find that his friends refuse to talk to them, following his earlier argument with Chad. Kelsi silently shows Troy the notice from Mr. Fulton, causing Troy to question his own motivations ("Bet On It") and confronts Sharpay, informing her that he will not sing with her. He then reconciles with Chad and apologizes to the Wildcats for his absence. They convince him to sing in the talent show, which he does only under the condition that they are all allowed to perform as well. At Sharpay's supposed instruction, Ryan gives Troy a new song to learn moments before the show. As Troy goes onstage, he asks Sharpay why she switched the song, and Sharpay is shocked to find that her brother tricked her. Troy sings the song ("Everyday") alone until Gabriella and the Wildcats joins him onstage. In the end, Sharpay proudly presents her brother, Ryan, with the award for the talent show. After the talent show, all the Wildcats go to the golf course to enjoy the fireworks. Everyone celebrates the end of the summer with a pool party ("All for One"), which features a cameo appearance by Miley Cyrus. ===== The poem is a grimly realistic piece set in France during the Hundred Years' War. The doomed lovers Jehane and Robert de Marny flee with a small escort through a convincingly portrayed rain-swept countryside, to reach the safety of English-held Gascony. They are however intercepted by the treacherous Godmar and have a last despairing parting besides the "old soaked hay" of the title. The encounter takes place shortly after the Battle of Poitiers but the characters Godmar and Jehane are entirely fictional. Morris used the name of an English knight Sir Robert de Marny, who was born in Essex and fought at Poitiers but who did not die in the manner recited. ===== A singer, Sugar Kane (Linda Evans), is unwittingly being used for publicity stunts for her latest album by her agent (Paul Lynde), for example, faking a skydiving stunt, actually performed by Bonnie (Deborah Walley). Meanwhile, Frankie (Frankie Avalon), duped into thinking he rescued Sugar Kane, takes up skydiving at Bonnie's prompting; she secretly wants to make her boyfriend Steve (John Ashley) jealous. This prompts Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) to also try free-falling. Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and his Rat Pack bikers also show up, with Von Zipper falling madly in love with Sugar Kane. Meanwhile, Bonehead (Jody McCrea) falls in love with a mermaid named Lorelei (Marta Kristen). Eventually, Von Zipper "puts the snatch" on Sugar Kane, and in a Perils of Pauline-like twist, the evil South Dakota Slim (Timothy Carey) kidnaps Sugar and ties her to a buzz-saw. ===== After his mother's death and with his sailor father away at sea, imaginative 11-year-old Eric Johansson is sent to live in a small fishing village with his mother's twin brother, Johnny Johansson. Eric's adventures in Gimli will help him to feel at home with his new family and come to terms with some pre-adolescent uncertainties while Johnny, burdened with unexpected fatherly duties, has to make some choices he avoided to face before. ===== For the story read the article on the novel Corazón salvaje. ===== Kramer is dating Leslie (Wendel Meldrum), a "low-talker" whom everyone struggles to understand due to her quiet speaking voice. When Jerry and Elaine have dinner with them, Kramer explains that Leslie is a fashion designer and has designed a new puffy shirt "like the pirates used to wear." Elaine tells Leslie that Jerry is making an appearance on The Today Show to promote a Goodwill benefit to clothe the poor and homeless. Leslie says something in response, but they can't make out what it is. To be polite, they nod their heads. The next day, Kramer delivers the shirt to Jerry, who realizes that he had inadvertently agreed to wear Leslie's puffy shirt on The Today Show. The idea of wearing such an ostentatious shirt while promoting a benefit for the poor outrages Elaine. At a restaurant with his parents, George accidentally bumps into a woman who turns out to be a modeling agent. When she notices his hands, she declares they are beautiful and that he should become a hand model. He agrees, and in preparation for his first photo shoot becomes protective of his hands, having manicures and shielding them with oven mitts. During the Today Show, host Bryant Gumbel repeatedly mocks Jerry's shirt, driving him to angrily denounce it on air. Leslie finally raises her voice to angrily call Jerry a "bastard." After the show, George arrives at the dressing room and takes off his oven mitts to show off his hands. When he mocks the puffy shirt, Leslie angrily pushes him, causing him to fall onto a hot clothes iron and ruin his hands, ending his hand model career. Elaine is fired from the Goodwill benefit committee, and Jerry is heckled about the shirt during his stand-up comedy. The stores cancel their pre-orders and the unsold shirts are given to Goodwill. As Jerry, Kramer, Elaine, and George walk down the street, they see homeless men dressed in the puffy shirts. Jerry remarks that it is not a bad-looking shirt after all. ===== ===== {| class="infobox" |- ! Actor ! class="unsortable" | ! Role |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |} Peter Neal, an American writer of violent horror novels, visits Italy to promote his latest work, Tenebrae. He is joined in Rome by his assistant Anne, and his literary agent Bullmer. Unbeknownst to Neal, his embittered fiancée Jane McKerrow has vandalized his suitcase in JFK and followed him to Rome. Hours before Neal's arrival, young shoplifter Elsa Manni is killed with a razor by an unseen assailant. Detective Giermani and Inspector Altieri question Neal because Elsa's mouth had been stuffed with pages of Tenebrae. Neal receives an anonymous letter, deemed by Giermani a prelude to an impending killing spree. The film is punctuated hereafter by visions tormenting an unseen man. Implied to be flashbacks, they showcase a young woman flirting with several male youths in a beach. One of them slaps her and is then chased and held down by the others while she kicks and orally rapes him with red high-heeled shoes. Later, POV shot flashbacks show him stabbing her to death in revenge. More killings and letters ensue in the present, confirming Giermani's prediction. Lesbian journalist and Neal acquaintance Tilde is murdered at her home, along with her lover Marion. Maria Alboretto, the daughter of Neal's landlord, is axed to death after stumbling into the killer's lair. TV book reviewer Christiano Berti shows an intense fixation on Neal's work, as well as bigoted prudishness much like that of the killer's letters. Following this hunch, and the fact that Maria's body was found in Berti's district, Neal and his young assistant Gianni spy on Berti, who is burning pictures and files identifying him as the killer. Gianni sees Berti telling someone "I killed them all!" and having his head split by an axe, but is unable to see the murderer. He finds Neal knocked unconscious on the lawn and they flee the scene. Neal has sex with Anne that night, a first in their six-year acquaintance. After Neal leaves Bullmer's office the next morning, his fiancée Jane comes out of an adjacent room and is revealed to be Bullmer's lover. Giermani calls Neal to the Berti crime scene after finding dossiers proving Berti's obsession with him but is unaware of the burnt evidence. He thus believes the killer is still at large and is comforted by Neal's intention to leave Rome. Jane receives a gift of red shoes like those prevalent in the seaside flashbacks. Bullmer is stabbed to death in a public square while waiting for Jane, who witnesses the aftermath and flees. Neal's plane leaves for Paris that evening. Meanwhile, Gianni is haunted by the significance of what he saw in Berti's house. He returns there and realizes that Berti's self-incriminating last words imply two murderers. Before Gianni can share this detail with anyone, he is garrotted to death in his car. A distraught Jane calls Anne to her place and waits in her kitchen holding a pistol. An axe shatters the window and hacks off her forearm. Blood sprays over the walls and Jane falls to the floor, where several blows finish her off. Inspector Altieri enters and is also killed, at which point Neal is revealed to be the murderer. Giermani and Anne arrive soon afterwards. Held at gunpoint by Giermani, Neal tacitly confesses to killing Berti and everyone after him, then slits his throat. Giermani reports the incident from the car radio and comforts Anne. A final explanation takes form. The teenage murder flashbacks were Neal's. Berti's sadistic murder spree had unlocked a repressed memory in Neal, namely his murder of the girl who had humiliated him as a youth in Rhode Island. The memory inflamed Neal's previously suppressed bloodlust, driving him insane. It also fueled his plan to eliminate Jane and Bullmer, whose affair he knew of, by maintaining a semblance that the original killer had murdered Berti and was still active. Whether Berti destroyed his murder files at Neal's secret behest, or spontaneously, is left to speculation. Giermani returns inside and is murdered by Neal, who had faked his own death. Neal waits for Anne to return; when she opens the door, she accidentally knocks over a metal sculpture that impales and kills Neal. The horror-stricken Anne stands in the rain and screams repeatedly. ===== ===== The game starts in the town of Grove, where on the outskirts of town the ancient Dungeon Gate leads would-be adventurers to multiple levels of fame, fortune, and death. The player assumes the role of one of these adventurers, and is assigned a randomized quest at the beginning of the game that will take them to approximately the 45th-50th level of the dungeon. Along the way, randomized side-quests are made available to the player by the townspeople of Grove. Eventually, the player completes the primary quest by defeating the randomized boss monster. ===== The book follows the life of Simonides from the point of view of his older self. As a boy, silent and lacking confidence due to his extreme ugliness, he is brought up with strict discipline by his father, Leoprepes. He finds comfort in the love of his handsome older brother Theasides, and in music. When a travelling singer, Kleobis, visits Keos to perform at a wedding, Simonides begs to be taken on as an apprentice. This Kleobis does, and they leave together on their travels. Under Kleobis' tutelage Simonides becomes a talented composer and performer, but he remains physically ugly. This proves a severe disadvantage when, after the fall of Kleobis' native city of Ephesos to the Persians, Kleobis and Simonides attempt to find a patron at the court of Polycrates of Samos. Polycrates is a connoisseur of beauty, in boys as much as in music or art, and Simonides' appearance is not a recommendation. Kleobis and Simonides find themselves out of fashion at court, and scrabbling for work. Simonides travels back to Keos to enter a music contest, leaving Kleobis behind in Samos nursing a slight illness. He wins the contest, but discovers, on returning, that Kleobis has died. Simonides now finds a patron in Peisistratos, the tyrant of Athens. He becomes a successful musician in that city, and after Peisistratos' death, his sons Hippias and Hipparchos continue the family's patronage. Through Hipparchos, Simonides is introduced to the hetaira Lyra, whose lover he becomes. Hipparchos himself is sexually oriented to boys, not women, and Simonides witnesses his eventual downfall, when Hipparchos uses his political power to punish the family of a young boy who rejects his advances, and the boy and his lover retaliate by murdering him. Here Renault draws on the tale of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, also known as the Tyrannicides (τυραννοκτόνοι), whose attack against the Peisistratid tyranny made them iconic personages of Athenian democracy. Category:1978 British novels Category:Novels by Mary Renault Category:Novels set in ancient Greece Category:1970s LGBT novels Category:Novels with gay themes ===== Trantor is a demonic troll who transforms children into wooden dolls to feast upon their energy in Briarville, Missouri in the late 19th century. He is captured by the townsfolk and sealed under an oak tree. One of the village elders, Phineas Worrell, an ancestor of Ernest, establishes the seal. Out of vengeance, Trantor places a curse on the Worrell family, stating that he can only be released on the night before Halloween and by the hands of a Worrell. As part of the curse, every generation of Worrells will get "dumber and dumber and dumber", until the dumbest member of the family is foolish enough to release him from his earthly prison, culminating in Ernest P. Worrell. One hundred years later, Ernest, a sanitation worker, helps a few of his middle school friends, Kenny Binder, Elizabeth and Joey, construct a tree house in the same tree that unknowingly contains the dormant creature, after the mayor's sons demolished their own cardboard haunted house. When Old Lady Hackmore discovers this, she angrily leaves. When Ernest follows her, he learns the story of Trantor and idiotically reports it to the kids. Inadvertently, Ernest releases the troll. Joey is walking home from the tree house when he hears something rustling through the trees. Joey slowly walks and slips down in a muddy hole. Trantor grabs Joey's wrist and turns him into a wooden doll. Ernest finds Sheriff Binder, who is Kenny's dad, and explains the situation but they do not believe him. After none of the towns folk will assist Ernest because they care about the Halloween party, he mounts a one-man (and one-dog) defense operation in preparation for Trantor's appearance. Meanwhile, Trantor captures a boy on a skateboard for his second victim. Tom and Bobby Tulip, hoping to take advantage of Ernest, sell him a variety of fake troll traps, but one backfires on the mayor's sons and Ernest is fired from his job. Ernest, Kenny and Elizabeth return to Hackmore, where they learn that "the heart of a child, and a mother's care" are the only defenses against the troll. Later that night, Trantor claims Elizabeth as his third victim as he sneaks into her house while she is resting on her bed. While Kenny and a friend named Gregg are walking, Trantor uses Elizabeth's voice to lure Kenny away, then takes Gregg as a fourth victim. Despite parents being upset at their missing children, Mayor Murdock and Sheriff Cliff Binder still proceed with a Halloween party at the school and they believe the missing children will be at the party. Trantor appears there and takes the mayor's oldest son as his fifth and final wooden doll. In the ensuing fight between Trantor and Ernest, Trantor turns Ernest's dog Rimshot into a wooden doll before being driven off by soft serve ice cream covering Ernest's hands. Kenny realizes that "mother's care" refers to milk and rallies a troll-fighting team to destroy them. Back at the treehouse, Trantor successfully summons his army of trolls while Ernest tries, but fails, to stop them. The townspeople show up; however, the trolls overwhelm and beat them up. Kenny and his friends arrive and begin destroying the trolls with milk. During the fight, Trantor escapes beneath the tree where he summons the powers of the underworld, making him invincible, especially to milk. Kenny unsuccessfully tries to destroy Trantor, who turns Kenny into a doll as well. With the rest of the townsfolk now backing him up and telling him to douse Trantor in milk, Ernest realizes that the troll children were susceptible to the milk, while Trantor himself would be weak against unconditional love: "the heart of a child." He takes Trantor and dances with him while the mob watches, filling him with as much love as possible and finishing it off with a kiss to his snot-ridden nose, which causes Trantor to explode. With Trantor's destruction, Ernest is proclaimed a hero. All of the wooden dolls are restored, including those from the early 19th century, and life returns to normal. Sheriff Cliff Binder apologizes to his son for not believing him and Ernest. Ernest is happy that his dog is back to normal as well. ===== The story takes place in Istanbul, where a violent criminal organization led by Spider-Man surfaces in the city with counterfeit United States dollars. They also decapitate a woman via a boat propeller. A small task-force consisting of Captain America, Santo and Captain America's girlfriend, Julia arrives to help local police stop Spider-Man and his gang. Julia, who has infiltrated Spider- Man's hideout, is captured and taken to a house in a remote location. She manages to send an SOS signal to the Captain. Captain America saves Julia and chases after Spider-Man, who manages to escape. Meanwhile, Mexico's national superhero/wrestler, Santo, infiltrates the dojo that is used as a front for counterfeiting. After being captured, he manages to escape along with incriminating evidence. Captain and Santo raid a very important hideout where most of the counterfeiting operation is taking place. They manage to shut down the hideout while Spider-Man kills a couple, steals a statue and runs away. Soon afterwards, another fight between heroes and Spider-Man begins. It is revealed that there are four Spider-Men as one is beaten to a pulp by Santo and another is strangled to death by Captain America. Captain America and Santo then go undercover in a club. Spider-Man's gang notice them and a fight occurs. The heroes are seemingly overpowered this time and are taken to Spider-Man's hideout. Once there Captain America and Santo act like they are fighting themselves to confuse their captors but manage to break out and eliminate most of the gang members. Spider-Man arrives at the end of the fight with his girlfriend, only to have her struck by a wild shot from the gun of one of his henchmen. He flees, with Captain America in hot pursuit. Captain America catches Spider-Man and defeats him, only to hear the taunting laugh of yet another Spider-Man. The fight continues until all of the Spider-Men are dead. As the heroes are about to leave Istanbul, Captain America sees the face of Spider-Man in a taxi and furiously runs and removes the mask of the person in the car, only to realize that it was just a child wearing a wrestling mask. ===== Jesus is crucified on Mount Golgotha. To the side of the crowd stands Barabbas. A violent man, a brigand, and a rebel, he cannot muster much respect for the resignation of the Man who died in his place. He is skeptical about the Holiness of Jesus, but he is also fascinated by His sacrifice. He seeks out different followers of Jesus in trying to understand Him, but finds that their exalted views of Jesus do not match his down-to-earth observation of Him. More important, since Barabbas has never been the recipient of love (the cornerstone of the Christian faith), he finds that he is unable to understand love and, hence, unable to understand the Christian faith. He says that he "wants to believe," but for Barabbas, understanding is a prerequisite for belief, so he is unable to. Enslaved, shackled to another man named Sahak, and condemned to work in the notoriously life-shortening and infernal copper mines of Ancient Rome, Barabbas has an extraordinary crisis of faith, the exact nature of which is elucidated in the final portion of the novel. Barabbas's ultimate loyalties lie with the opaque, remorseless void that fed and surrounded his former life, manifested in the darkness of the night of his execution, which he surrenders himself to with his final breath. ===== Mamie Cutter is an American living in London. She supports herself by getting questionable people into fashionable social circles, in return for a fee. Her worthless but personable half-brother Scott Homer turns up at her apartment looking for a handout. A particularly tough case for Mamie is a certain Mrs. Medwin, who is apparently beyond the pale even by the lax standards of current English society. But Scott comes to Mamie's rescue by charming the snooty Lady Wantrigde into inviting Mrs. Medwin to one of her exclusive parties. Mamie collects her fee and Scott becomes an unexpected social success. ===== Harvey Cheyne (Freddie Bartholomew) is the spoiled son of American business tycoon Frank Burton Cheyne (Melvyn Douglas). Harvey is shunned by his classmates at a private boarding school, and eventually suspended for bad behavior. His father therefore takes him on a business trip to Europe, travelling there by trans-Atlantic steamship. Mid-passage, Harvey falls overboard in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. He is rescued by a Portuguese- American fisherman, Manuel Fidello (Spencer Tracy), and taken aboard the fishing schooner "We're Here", from Gloucester, Massachusetts. Harvey is shocked the schooner's captain, Disko Troop (Lionel Barrymore), intends fishing in the Atlantic for three more months. He fails to persuade the captain to take him back to New York nor can he convince him of his wealth; but Captain Troop offers Harvey temporary crew membership until they return to port. Harvey is reluctant to do real work but eventually accepts. Befriended by Captain Troop's son, Dan (Mickey Rooney), he becomes acclimated to the demanding fishing lifestyle. The We're Here fills with fish they catch. When a prank of Harvey's causes a fish hook to lodge in a crewman's arm, Manuel defends the boy. In the climactic race back to the Gloucester, Massachusetts port against a rival schooner, the Jennie Cushman, Manuel climbs to the top of the mast to furl the sail. However, the mast cracks and he is plunged into the icy sea, tangled in the rigging that will cut him in half. Manuel speaks to the cook in Portuguese and the cook tells the Captain: All the bottom half of him is gone, and he doesn't want the boy to see. He tells the captain to cut him free from the boat, knowing this will kill him. Harvey crawls out on the wreckage, crying and distraught, while the captain strikes blow after blow after blow with the ax until the rigging finally parts. Manuel kisses the cross around his neck and sinks below the water. The schooner returns to port and Harvey is reunited with his father, who is impressed by his son's maturity. Harvey grieves for Manuel, pushing his father away and wanting to stay on the We're Here, but Disko reassures Cheyne, telling him that there is room in Harvey's heart for both men and that once there he “will find Manuel mighty satisfactory company.” At the church, Harvey lights two candles, one from Manuel to his father and one from him to Manuel. His father overhears Harvey praying that someday he will be with Manuel again and follows the boy to Manuel's dory, floating near the ship. Harvey is inconsolable and begs Cheyne to leave him alone. The next day, in front of the Fisherman's Memorial, he and his father join the Gloucester community in casting bouquets and wreaths on the outgoing tide in tribute to the men and boys lost during this fishing season. The last shot shows the Cheyne's car, speeding down the road with Manuel's dory on a trailer behind. Through the side window, we see that Harvey is laughing and gesturing, regaling his father with stories of his adventures. Dissolve to a close-up of a smiling Manuel and then to the Fisherman's Memorial .The movie and the book have very different endings. Harvey's mother rewards Manuel, who does not die, and Harvey's father gives Dan a berth in his clipper fleet. Tracy and Bartholomew as Manuel and Harvey ===== A funny schoolgirl (Adah Glassbourg) becomes friends with a stand-up comedian called Tony Maroni (Jim Carrey) who is struggling with his career. ===== An old man named, Kim is telling his family history to his grand daughter, as she found the bones of his father. When he was a boy, Kim's father was ill, when their lands flooded. His two buffaloes have no forage. Kim takes the two buffaloes in search of good grass. He joins Lap's herding team, but One of the two buffaloes dies. Later he helps Det, who builds a new herding team with him, to reunite with his girl friend and their son, whom Det hasn't seen for 5 years. When Kim hears his father is dying, he goes to U Minh. The father reveals the truth of Kim's ancestry. A couple of strangers help Kim put his father's corpse in a safe place in the water, until the flooding subsides and he can be properly buried. Lap confirms what Kim's father told him as he died:--that Kim's true mother is the sister of Lap, whom Kim's father raped on a buffalo herding run. Kim tries to rape Det's wife. Det dies in a skirmish between Lap's and Kieng's buffalo herding teams. Kim adopts Det's son, Thieu. In a voiceover, Kim says that the Japanese came in to drive out the French, and then were themselves driven out. This political change does not seem to affect rural Vietnam. ===== A widowed schoolteacher, Anna, arrives in Bangkok with her young son Louis after being summoned to tutor the many children of King Mongkut. The two are introduced to the intimidating Kralahome, Siam's prime minister, who escorts them to the Royal Palace where they will live, although Anna had been promised her own house. The King ignores her objections and introduces her to his head wife, Lady Thiang. Anna also meets a recent concubine, a young Burmese named Tuptim, as well as the fifteen children she will tutor, including his son and heir Prince Chulalongkorn. In conversation with the other wives, Anna learns that Tuptim is in love with the man, Lun Tha, who brought her to Siam. Anna still wants her own house and teaches the children about the virtues of home life, to the irritation of the King, who disapproves of the influence of other cultures. She comes across Lun Tha and learns that he has been meeting Tuptim in secret. He asks her to arrange a rendezvous. The lovers meet under cover of darkness and Lun Tha promises he will one day return to Siam and they will escape together. King Mongkut becomes troubled over rumors that the British regard him as a barbaric leader, and are sending a delegation, including Anna’s old lover, Sir Edward, possibly in order to turn Siam into a protectorate. Anna persuades the King to receive them in European style by hosting a banquet with European food and music. In return, the King promises to give Anna her own house. Sir Edward reminisces with Anna in an attempt to bring her back to British society. The King presents Tuptim's version of Uncle Tom's Cabin as a traditional Siamese ballet. However, the King and the Kralahome are not impressed, as the play involves slavery and shows the slaveholding King drowning in the river. During the show, Tuptim has left the room to run away with Lun Tha. After the guests have departed, the king reveals that Tuptim is missing. Anna explains that Tuptim is unhappy because she is just another woman in his eyes. The King retorts that men are entitled to a plenitude of wives although women must remain faithful. Anna explains the reality of one man loving only one woman and recalls her first dance before teaching the King how to dance the polka, but the touching moment is shattered when the Kralahome bursts into the room with news that Tuptim has been captured. For her dishonor, the King prepares to whip her despite Anna's pleas. She implies that he is indeed a barbarian. The King then crumples, puts his hand over his heart and runs out of the room. The Kralahome blames Anna for ruining him. Tuptim meanwhile is led away in tears when she learns that Lun Tha is dead. This causes Anna to sever all ties as a governess and declare that she will leave on the next boat from Siam. On the night of her departure, Anna learns that the King is dying. Lady Thiang gives Anna his unfinished letter, stating his deep gratitude and respect for her, despite their differences. Moments before the ship departs, he gives Anna his ring, as she has always spoken the truth to him, persuading her and Louis to stay in Bangkok. He passes his title to Prince Chulalongkorn, who then issues a proclamation that brings an end to slavery and states that all subjects will no longer bow down to him. The King dies, satisfied that he is leaving his kingdom in capable hands. ===== In late 1963, Mary 'Mouse' Bradford is sent to boarding school by her unsympathetic father and jealous stepmother. There, she meets the rebellious Paulie, and together they embark upon a quest to discover what, fundamentally, separates men from women. ===== ===== Morris Gedge is a librarian at a dull provincial library in England that is "all granite, fog and female fiction." He gets a welcome offer to become the custodian of the Shakespeare house at Stratford-on-Avon. Although Shakespeare's name is never mentioned in the story (James used the name twice in his Notebooks when he was planning the tale) it's obvious to whom "the supreme Mecca of the English-speaking race" is devoted. Once installed as the custodian, Morris begins to doubt the chatter he is forced to give to tourists who visit the home. He starts to qualify and hesitate in his spiel. This brings anguish to his wife and a warning from the shrine's proprietors. Gedge finally decides that if silliness is what's wanted, he'll supply it abundantly. The last section of the story shows him delivering a hilarious lecture on how the child Shakespeare played around the house. Of course, receipts from tourists increase and Gedge gets a raise. ===== In 1947, Stingo moves to Brooklyn to write a novel, and is befriended by Sophie Zawistowski, a Polish immigrant, and her emotionally unstable lover, Nathan Landau. Nathan is constantly jealous, and when he is in one of his violent mood swings, he convinces himself that Sophie is unfaithful to him, and he abuses and harasses her. A flashback shows how Nathan first met Sophie after her immigration to the U.S. when she nearly died due to anemia. Sophie tells Stingo that before she came to the U.S., her husband and father were killed in a German work camp, and that she was interned in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Stingo later learns from a college professor that Sophie's father was a Nazi sympathizer. When Stingo confronts Sophie with this, she admits the truth and tells him about her war-time lover, Józef, who lived with his half-sister, Wanda, and was a leader in the Resistance. Wanda tried to convince Sophie to translate some stolen Gestapo documents, but Sophie declined, fearing she might endanger her children. Two weeks later, Józef was murdered by the Gestapo, and Sophie was arrested and sent to Auschwitz with her children. Nathan tells Sophie and Stingo that he is doing groundbreaking research at a pharmaceutical company, but Nathan's physician brother tells Stingo that Nathan is a paranoid schizophrenic, and that all of the schools that Nathan attended were "expensive funny farms". Nathan is not a biologist as he claims. He does have a job at a pharmaceutical firm, but it is in the library, which his brother obtained for him, and he only occasionally assists with research. After Nathan believes Sophie has betrayed him again, he calls Sophie and Stingo on the telephone and fires a gun in a violent rage. Sophie and Stingo flee to a hotel. She reveals to him that, upon arrival at Auschwitz, she was forced to choose which one of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp. To avoid having both children killed, she chose her son, Jan, to be sent to the children's camp, and her daughter, Eva, to be sent to her death. Sophie and Stingo have sex, but while Stingo is sleeping, Sophie returns to Nathan. Sophie and Nathan commit suicide by taking cyanide. Stingo recites the poem "Ample Make This Bed" by Emily Dickinson — the American poet that Sophie was fond of reading. Stingo moves to a small farm that his father recently inherited in southern Virginia to finish writing his novel. ===== County Cork, Ireland, 1920. Dr. Damien O'Donovan is about to leave his native village to practise medicine in a London hospital. Meanwhile, his brother Teddy commands the local flying column of the Irish Republican Army. After a hurling match, Damien witnesses the summary execution of his friend, Micheál Ó Súilleabháin, by British Black and Tans. Although shaken, Damien rebuffs his friends' entreaties to stay in Ireland and join the IRA, saying that the war is unwinnable. As he is leaving town, Damien witnesses the British Army vainly trying to intimidate a railway personnel for refusing to permit the troops to board. In response, Damien decides to stay and is sworn into Teddy's IRA brigade. After drilling in the mountains, the column raids the village's Royal Irish Constabulary barracks to acquire revolvers, then uses them to assassinate four Auxiliaries. In the aftermath, Anglo-Irish landowner Sir John Hamilton coerces one of his servants, IRA member Chris Reilly, into passing information to the British Army's Intelligence Corps. As a result, the entire brigade is arrested. In their cell, Damien meets the train driver, Dan, a union official who shares Damien's socialist views. Meanwhile, British officers interrogate Teddy, pulling out his fingernails when he refuses to give them the names of IRA members. Johnny Gogan, a British soldier of Irish descent, helps the prisoners escape, but three are left behind. After the actions of Sir John and Chris are revealed to the IRA's intelligence network, both are taken hostage. As Teddy is still recovering, Damien is temporarily placed in command. News arrives that the three remaining IRA prisoners have been tortured and shot. Simultaneously, the brigade receives orders to "execute the spies". Despite the fact that Chris is a lifelong friend, Damien shoots both him and Sir John. Later, the IRA ambushes and wipes out a convoy of the Auxiliary Division, and in retaliation another detachment of Auxiliaries loots and burns the farmhouse of Damien's sweetheart, Cumann na mBan member Sinéad Sullivan. Sinéad is held at gunpoint while her head is roughly shorn, her scalp being wounded in the process. Later, as Damien treats her, a messenger arrives with news of a formal ceasefire between Britain and the IRA. After the Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed, the brigade learns that a partitioned Ireland will only be granted Dominion status within the British Empire. As a result, the brigade divides over accepting the terms of the Treaty. Teddy and his allies argue that accepting the Treaty will bring peace now while further gains can be made later. Others oppose the Treaty, proposing to continue fighting until a united Irish Republic can be obtained. Dan and Damien further demand the collectivisation of industry and agriculture. Any other course, declares Dan, will change only "the accents of the powerful and the colour of the flag". Soon the Irish Free State replaces British rule, and Teddy and his allies begin patrolling in National Army uniforms. Meanwhile, Damien and his allies join the Anti-Treaty IRA. When the Battle of Dublin launches the Irish Civil War, the Anti-Treaty column commences guerrilla warfare against Free State forces. As the violence escalates, Teddy expresses fear that the British will invade if the republicans gain the upper hand. His position is: "They take one out, we take one back. To hell with the courts." Soon after, Dan is killed and Damien is captured during a raid for arms on an Irish Army barracks commanded by Teddy. Sentenced to execution, Damien is held in the same cell where the British Army imprisoned them earlier. Desperate to avoid executing his brother, Teddy pleads with Damien to reveal where the Anti-Treaty IRA is hiding the stolen rifles. In return, Teddy offers Damien full amnesty, a life with Sinéad, and the vision of an Ireland where Pro- and Anti-Treaty Irishmen can raise families side by side. Insulted, Damien responds by saying that he will never "sell out" the Republic the way Chris Reilly did and Teddy leaves the cell in tears. Damien writes a goodbye letter to Sinéad, expressing his love for her, and quoting Dan's words: "It's easy to know what you're against, quite another to know what you're for". But he says that he knows what he stands for and is not afraid to die for it and tells Sinéad to look after Teddy. At dawn, Damien dies before a firing squad commanded by a heartbroken yet obstinate Teddy. Teddy delivers Damien's letter to Sinéad who is distraught and heartbroken. She attacks Teddy and orders him to leave her land. ===== Debbie's favorite band is Dream Street, and her favorite member is Chris Trousdale. When Chris gets a fever while travelling on the Dream Street tour, in a haze, he strays away and ends up in Debbie's bed, much to the shock of his "Biggest Fan", who thinks she's in heaven. Debbie proposes that Chris stay with her and he agrees. So, over the week they spend time together and she secretly hides him so he can escape the pressures of being a pop star for a little while. Chris even attends high school with Debbie, while disguised as a nerd. Meanwhile, the band's managers are going crazy at the loss of the star, thinking he has been kidnapped. At the end of the week Debbie and Chris (in disguise) go to her high school prom where two jealous popular girls figure out Chris's true identity and tell the police about Chris's whereabouts, splitting him and Debbie up. They are eventually reunited on stage at a concert, ending in a sweet, final kiss and a performance by Dream Street. ===== Princess Addie is fearful and shy. Princess Meryl is bold and brave. They are sisters, and they mean the world to each other. Bamarre is plagued by a fatal disease called the Gray Death, which has three stages: Weakness, Sleep, and then Fever. While the weakness may last for hours to weeks, the sleep always lasts nine days, and the fever always lasts three. Bamarre also has specters, which lure travelers to their deaths unless exposed, sorcerers, ogres, dwarves, elves, gryphons, dragons, and fairies. Fairies, however, have not been seen since Drualt, Bamarre's greatest hero and subject of myths, went up to visit them after the tragic death of his sweetheart Freya. The two princesses strike up a friendship with Rhys, the apprentice sorcerer helping their father. Soon after, Meryl is suddenly struck ill with the Gray Death. Addie has trouble coming to terms with the fact that Meryl is going to die, while Meryl tries in vain to prove Addie's theory that the Gray Death might be cured if the person who is ill refuses to be sick, running when weak, staying awake when tired, etc. Since a prophecy from a long ago specter states that :The Gray Death will be cured :When cowards find courage :And rain falls over all Bamarre When King Lionel returns just as cowardly as before, Addie sets out to find the cure herself. Using a pair of seven-league boots and a magical spyglass from her deceased mother, a copy of Drualt, an invisibility cloak a magic tablecloth from Rhys, some of Milton's herbs and Meryl's sword, Addie successfully travels to the Mulee forest to find a specter, only to be tricked by one that took the form of Rhys. The real Rhys makes her realize the truth, and she learns from the specter that a dragon would be her best bet for finding the cure. Rhys has to leave for the Sorcerers' Citadel, but not before Addie realizes that there's more behind their friendship. After accidentally overcoming a pack of gryphons with her tablecloth, Addie is found by the dragon Vollys and taken to her lair. Although dragons are solitary creatures, they are also lonely, so Addie is forced to entertain Vollys to avoid a fiery demise in Vollys' stomach. She does this through her embroidery, which is her sole bold attribute. Although Addie is terrified of the dragon, she learns that Vollys is always sad when she eats her "guests" after they have angered her one time too many. Addie also learns the dragon version of Drualt's story, which portrays the hero as a villain who mercilessly kills noble dragons, including Vollys' mother. Vollys also tells Addie that the Gray Death came from her mother's corpse, a revenge for her death. Because she does not think Addie can escape, Vollys also tells Addie that the Gray Death can be cured by the water of a waterfall that flows from Mount Ziriat, the fairies' invisible mountain. She even tells Addie where the mountain is. Meanwhile, Addie learns through her spyglass that Meryl has entered the sleeping stage of the Gray Death, and later fever stage of the Gray Death. Addie manages to escape Vollys with her boots, and returns to the castle. After reuniting with Rhys, Meryl tells Addie that she has until the next dawn to live. Addie tells them about the cure, and she and Rhys uses the seven-league boots to carry Meryl to the mountain. They end up outside the same village that refused to help Drualt's sweetheart due to their cowardice. Upon questioning, the isolated villagers say that although they have heard of the Gray Death, no one in the village has ever had it. The three also learn that all the villagers drink from a waterfall that comes from a mountain so tall and shrouded in mist that no one has ever seen it. Realizing that they are talking about Mount Ziriat, and the villagers are never sick because they drink the water, Rhys and the Princesses manage to find a few villagers courageous enough and willing to show them the waterfall, which is a few hours away, despite the dark night and the threat of ogres and gryphons. While they walk, Rhys confesses his love to Addie, and she does the same. Just as they reach the waterfall, though, the party is attacked by ogres, gryphons and an enraged Vollys. The sky begins to lighten, and Addie tells Meryl, who is having the time of her life in battle, to run to the water and drink. While she is running, though, Addie is caught by an ogre unexpectedly and screams in pain. Meryl runs back to rescue her when the first rays of sunlight come, just as rain begins to fall. Addie is knocked unconscious, Meryl falls to the ground, and wholes of light fly down. When Addie wakes up, she learns from Meryl, who seems different somehow, that they were rescued by fairies and taken to the top of Mount Ziriat. The rain had fallen everywhere, curing all with the Gray Death except those who were too close to death to save. When Addie gained the courage to save her sister, and when the cowardly villagers redeemed themselves by helping Meryl and Addie, the fairies made water from their enchanted waterfall rain over all Bamarre. Meryl also tells Addie that she, too, was one of those on the brink of death when the rain came, so the fairies could not truly save her. However, they offered to transform her into a fairy and join them in an endless battle against fearsome, monstrous creatures, the outcome of which affects the world below. Meryl accepted the offer, and is now a fairy, unable to return with Addie. Addie also learns from Meryl that she is now with Drualt, who was also transformed after leaving Bamarre, and that he had been the presence Addie felt in her darkest hours, cheering her up and giving her the strength to go on. Rhys and Addie marry and live happily ever after, with Meryl as Fairy Godmother to their children and grandchildren, the first after hundreds of years. The book concludes with a Drault-like tale, recounting the adventures of the two Princesses of Bamarre. ===== This historical novel is about a Livonian nobleman, Timotheus von Bock, who has married a peasant girl named Eeva to prove everyone that good men are equal before nature, God and ideals. Eeva's brother Jakob analyses von Bock's life throughout his journal and tries to figure out if the nobleman is truly mad as everyone seems to believe. The Czar's Madman is arguably one of the best-known Estonian novels in the world. ===== The story is written in diary form, describing the impact of revolutionary thinking on the part of a family member. Aristocrat Timotheus von Bock (the diarist's brother in law) writes a letter to the Czar criticising the way in which the Czar's family runs the country. He justifies this act by an oath made to the Czar to give an honest appraisal of the situation. Von Bock is imprisoned as a traitor (although the reason for his imprisonment is kept secret, as is the letter) for 9 years before being released into house arrest on the basis that he is 'mad'. ===== The main character of this game, referred to as "you" by the game engine, is a treasure hunter.http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C564/Twin+Kingdom+Valley.html The player starts the game at the southern edge of the forest kingdom, with few possessions. An early encounter with the innkeeper of The Sword Inn may persuade the player to rent a small log cabin from him. In the cabin are some very meager supplies, such as a plain jug. To progress through the game, the player must determine which characters to regard as friends, and which as foes. Some characters, such as a gorilla who attacks the player with a wooden club, are clearly presented as foes, while others are ambiguous. There are two kingdoms - a forest and a desert - separated by a deep canyon. Each kingdom is ruled by a king, and the kings do not get along with one another. The player is told that the situation has got worse recently, and a royal from the forest kingdom is missing, the crime being attributed to the desert king. With two rich kingdoms at war, it is suggested that the player could take advantage of this and loot treasure from both sides. As the game progresses, the player finds it a challenge to transport spoils back to the log cabin, and is forced at times to choose between carrying a treasure and carrying a weapon, both types of object being at risk of theft if left unguarded. The plot develops over time. In the original BBC Micro game, there were a limited number of locations and graphics. Some additions appear in the C64 version, though the plot is largely the same. The modern smartphone edition of the game yet more locations and some new plot twists. ===== Bob Munro (Robin Williams), a successful California beverage company executive, is struggling to reconnect with his dysfunctional family, which includes his materialistic wife Jamie (Cheryl Hines), his sharp-tongued teenage daughter Cassie (Joanna Levesque), and his twelve-year old son Carl (Josh Hutcherson), who is an adolescent weightlifter and likes hip hop. At a company picnic, Bob is embarrassed in front of his self-absorbed boss Todd Mallory (Will Arnett) by Cassie's militant friend Gretchen, who hurls a bottle of the company's drink all over Todd's face for putting unhealthy drinks in schools. Looking forward to a big family vacation in Hawaii, the Munros are forced to cancel the trip when Todd, out of spite, tells Bob that he has to attend a meeting with the Alpine Soda company in Boulder, Colorado instead, or else he will be fired. Concealing the real reason for not going to Hawaii, Bob rents a garish RV from the dodgy dealer Irv (Barry Sonnenfeld) and tells his family they are traveling to the Rockies. On their trip, the Munros encounter many mishaps. These include him damaging the parking brake, crashing into and running over various objects, flushing out a trio of raccoons with a stink bomb, and fixing a clogged sewage system. Along the way, the Munros meet another traveling family, the Gornickes, consisting of Travis (Jeff Daniels), Mary Jo (Kristin Chenoweth), and their children, Earl (Hunter Parrish), Billy (Alex Ferris), and Moon (Chloe Sonnenfeld). Earl develops a romantic interest in Cassie and Carl starts to like Moon, but thinking that the Gornickes are too strange for them, Bob and Jamie decide to ditch them; when the Gornickes reappear at another stop, the Munros believe they are stalking them. Meanwhile, Bob tries to e-mail a proposal outline from his laptop, working in restrooms; eventually, a hitchhiker steals the laptop, leaving Bob with only a BlackBerry PDA, which he does manage to use to compose and wirelessly send his proposal to his company. The Gornickes then recover the stolen laptop after picking up the same hitchhiker and persuading him to return it. Eventually, the Munros begin to enjoy their vacation. In order to attend the Alpine merger meeting, Bob distracts his family by faking illness and sends them on a hike. The meeting with Alpine Soda is a success, and Bob is invited to talk to the whole company again the next day. Rushing back to his family in the RV, Bob takes a treacherous 4 wheel drive trail, and gets the huge RV stuck atop a jutting boulder in the middle of the trail. Bob eventually manages to dislodge the RV from the boulder by getting on the front and rocking it until it eventually wobbles and tips forward enough to slide down from atop the boulder. Now riding on the front while it is traveling at a frenzied pace, Bob barely manages to return to his family in time. While Bob is attempting a similar ruse the next day, the parking brake fails again and the RV rolls into a lake. Bob comes clean about the true purpose of the vacation, and the family becomes upset that he would treat them like that. Still needing to get to the meeting, Bob retrieves one of his family's bicycles from the lake where the RV fell and pedals off. Jamie, Cassie, and Carl are then picked up by the Gornickes, and soon realize how well they get along, when Bob appears again, climbing atop the moving RV. Bob apologizes to his family, and they, in turn, apologize to him for their selfishness and reveal that they love him more than the lifestyle his job gives them. At another meeting, Bob starts his speech and it goes well, but then he has an epiphany and recommends against the merger, realizing that Todd's selfishness would destroy a great independent company. Carl gets angry at Todd and flips him over his shoulder, onto the ground. Bob is then fired, but he quits anyway. Todd is arrested, and Bob soon retrieves the sodden-but-still-operable RV from the lake. At the end, Bob is offered a job by the owners of Alpine Soda, who want to go national independently. In addition, at the same time, the parking brake fails once again, causing the RV to roll backwards, flattening both the police car and the Alpine Soda company owner's car. As the credits roll, the two families are shown dancing to and singing the song, "Route 66" (RV Style). ===== It is 1824 as Beethoven (Ed Harris) is finishing his Ninth Symphony. He is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A new copyist, Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger) is engaged to help the composer finish preparing the score of his symphony for the first performance. Anna is a young conservatory student and aspiring composer. Her understanding of his work is such that she corrects mistakes he has made, while her personality opens a door into his private world. Beethoven is initially skeptical, but he slowly comes to trust Anna's assistance and eventually grows to rely on her and view her with respect, and even with admiration. Anna Holtz (as Beethoven always refers to her) is sent to be his copyist, but due to her gender, is constantly thought less of, and is mistaken for a serving girl, maid, and even prostitute. Pushing past, though quite unhappily, from these assumptions, Anna proves herself to Beethoven, not only as a copyist, but also as his friend, and something of his protégé and heir as far as he is concerned. He gains much admiration of her, after she assists him by directing him, hidden among his musicians, as he simultaneously copies her movements to direct the orchestra during what would turn out to be his final concert. Though Anna agreed to her romantic interest, Martin Bauer, that she would help him complete his symphony, and then immediately leave after showing him her work, she instead continues to assist him as his copyist. After seeing the admiration she has gained from Beethoven, Anna proceeds to show him a piece of music that she composed. Beethoven tactlessly and unknowingly insults her. Anna, more than ready not to return, continues to stay with her great aunt and the nuns at the convent. Anna is surprised when Beethoven, desperate to keep Anna in his employment and under his tutelage, bursts into the convent and begs Anna, on his knees, to come back and work as his equal on both of their music. He begins to teach her about Romanticism, music, and mostly, how to allow her artistic side freedom. Continuing his infuriating behavior, Beethoven smashes the model of Martin's bridge he built for an engineer's competition, thereby ruining Martin as well. Anna, angry, confronts Beethoven, asking him if he had ever considered that she loved Martin. Beethoven replies, "You don't love him." Upon hearing this, Anna angrily asks if she is supposed to love Beethoven instead. Beethoven again replies, "No. You want to be me." From here, Anna agrees that Beethoven did the right thing, and continues to work with him, pushing him past his hardships and failures, and then staying by his bedside until he died. The movie ends though, with Anna finally embracing herself as an artist, unique from all other composers, including Beethoven, and readying herself for a promising future. Though the film is directed very abstractly, leaving room for the audience to view Anna and Beethoven's relationship as that of a chaste romance, the characters remain very platonic, and could much more easily be viewed as a strong and close friendship, bordering on Beethoven even being viewed as a father figure of Anna's. ===== Don Boni (Orellana) is diagnosed with a deadly disease and decides to spend his last days doing good deeds. He leaves his wife and decides to help people. He then gets drunk and wakes up with a winning lottery ticket and realizes that the doctor who diagnosed him has been sent to prison for fraud. ===== The series is set during the 18th century, sometime between the period known as the 'Golden Age of Piracy' and the Napoleonic Wars, and follows the adventures of a misfit band of pirates led by Captain Butler (Craig Charles). However, the setting intentionally introduces historical anachronisms, as both Blackbeard and Admiral Horatio Nelson are portrayed in the series, and it is difficult to determine the specific time period. ===== John, Charles, and Jack are three Oxford scholars united by the death of Stellan Sigurdsson, John's mentor, who thereafter receive The Imaginarium Geographica, which records mythical and fictional locations. When pursued by the anthropophagous, plural Wendigo, they are rescued by Bert, with whom they travel aboard the ship Indigo Dragon (captained by Bert's daughter Aven), to Avalon, and then to Paralon, the capital of the Geographica's 'Archipelago of Dreams', where they discover this Archipelago in an interregnum and discover that its social order can be restored by a descendant of Arthur Pendragon. Desirous of obtaining the royal 'Ring of Power', and thus the kingship, is the 'Winter King' (Mordred). Upon a visit to shipbuilder 'Ordo Maas' (Deucalion), the protagonists learn that the Winter King is using Pandora's Box to create the wraithlike 'Shadow-Born', his principal servants, from the citizens of lands conquered by himself. Fearing that the Winter King may gain an advantage by possession of the Imaginarium Geographica, they visit its author, the Cartographer of Lost Places, in his refuge, the Keep of Time, where they discover that their servant 'Artus' is a descendant of Arthur. Knowing this, they challenge the Winter King to pitched battle, wherein the still-loyal Elves, Dwarves, and Centaurs etc. oppose Shadow-Born, Trolls, and Goblins while Charles and the badger 'Tummeler' close Pandora's Box in secret. On the battlefield, Jack accidentally causes the death of Captain Nemo, while John and Artus approach the 'Ring of Power' (a ring of standing stones resembling Stonehenge) to summon the Archipelago's dragons, who rout the enemy. Mordred is cast from the Edge of the World by the dragon Samaranth. Upon return to their own world, John, Jack, Charles, and Bert are identified as J.R.R Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and H.G. Wells. ===== Darren McCord is a French Canadian-born firefighter for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire now serving as the fire marshal for the Pittsburgh Civic Arena, after being unable to save a young girl from a house fire two years prior. During the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks (a fictional rematch of the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals), a group of terrorists take the Vice President of the United States and several other VIPs hostage in a luxury suite. Former CIA operative Joshua Foss has the arena wired with explosives, and plans to blow it up at the end of the game, while having hundreds of millions of dollars wired into several off shore accounts. Darren takes his son Tyler and daughter Emily to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals as a birthday gift for Tyler. A spat between brother and sister causes Emily to run off before getting kidnapped by Carla, the sole female member of the terrorists (who is disguised as the local mascot Iceburgh after killing the original performer). Carla places Emily in the suite with the other hostages about to be executed. Not wanting his son to go missing, Darren orders Tyler to stay in his seat while he goes searching for Emily. Carla is about to kill Darren, but he evades her attacks in a fight and kills her. Afterward, Darren asks for a security guard's help, but the guard is another terrorist in disguise and reveals their criminal operation before being killed by Darren. Now aware of the situation, Darren finds a mobile phone in the executive offices and uses it to contact Secret Service Agent Matthew Hallmark; Hallmark advises Darren to stand by while the agents take charge. He angrily refuses, saying that he will handle this himself. The Secret Service and the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police team up to surround the arena and a standoff ensues. Meanwhile, Darren manages to find and disarm a few of the bombs (as well as killing and evading a few of Foss' men), whilst Foss himself kills several hostages after the end of the first and second periods. Hallmark finally makes his way inside and meets Darren, who explains where the rest of the bombs are most likely located. Hallmark is revealed to be in league with Foss, and tries to kidnap Tyler, but fails. Hallmark then reveals his true self to Darren, who sets him on fire and ultimately kills him. Darren then uses Hallmark's phone to contact Foss, who taunts that he is holding his daughter captive. As time ticks down, Darren disables more bombs, but is severely slowed by confrontations with Foss' men. At one point, Darren, dressed as the Pittsburgh goalie to escape the thugs, enters the game and successfully defends a shot on goal. As the third period runs down, Luc Robitaille scores the game-tying goal for Pittsburgh in the last second, prompting sudden death overtime and prolonging the game. Deciding that there's no time left to find the remaining bombs, Darren climbs to the roof of the arena. He fights off two of Foss' henchmen; one of them falls onto the score display, blowing it up. As the arena erupts into chaos, Darren advances upon the owner's box from above and forces his way in, rescuing Emily, the Vice President and the remaining hostages. Darren and Emily reunite with Tyler and set out to leave the arena. Foss manages to escape and blend in with the panicking crowd. He sets off one of the bombs, flooding part of the arena, and recaptures Emily when she recognizes him. They head towards the top of the arena, where a helicopter is waiting to lift Foss away. Darren intervenes and saves his daughter before Foss could shoot her. As Foss attempts to flee, Darren shoots the pilot, causing the chopper to stall and fall into the arena, sending a screaming Foss to his death as the chopper explodes on impact with the ice. Darren is led to an awaiting Pittsburgh Bureau of EMS medic unit while his children tell the paramedics of his heroism. As a contented Darren is loaded into the ambulance, it is presumed that he was restored back to his position. ===== While Marilyn Monroe is enjoying her rise to stardom and iconic pop culture status, three childhood friends are happy enough to sneakily obtain racy pictures of her for their pubescent enjoyment. Once they mature (at least by age), Roy has his eyes set on joining the Military despite his strained relationship with his father. His buddy, Scott, has a prosthetic leg and is to be married soon to his darling significant other Becky, and his other pal, Ned, known affectionately as "Bleuer", works at a small town store and is not initially as anxious to partake on this crazed notion as his friends. Thanks to Roy's Uncle, the three desirous and hapless friends shack up at his place out in California where they yearn to meet—if only for a brief second—the fabulous and stunning Miss Marilyn Monroe. Their quest leads to shenanigans and silliness ensues as they arrange the most brainless ideas to win over their idol. One includes corralling a "sad" cow to moo outside of Miss Monroe's luxurious residence, another has the guys speeding after Marilyn towards a nude beach and an entirely separate subplot has them dodging some bad guys that are after Roy. Eventually, however, it is up to Marilyn to pity the trio's collectively desperate agony. The boys devise a clever scheme to avoid Miss Monroe's hawkish maid and Roy slips in the question, to which Marilyn refuses a date. This leads to further despair amongst the trio. They begin to regret coming out for the trip and they decide to go out on the town one last time. Surprisingly, in a sudden twist, Monroe finally does agree to a date upon the sandy splendor of the Californian beach. Initially, while animosity has grown between the three friends, Roy is designated to be the lucky one that gets to hopefully "canoe" Miss Monroe, but nonchalantly, he passes off the opportunity to his buddy "Bleuer" who surprisedly agrees and treats the lovely Miss Monroe to a wonderful platonic night. While Roy (in his macho way) is disappointed by Bleuer's effort, the boys return home to the sad news that Marilyn has abruptly died of a drug overdose. Back home, Scott continues his plans to marry his love, Becky, and Roy tussles with his father in the gym which leads to one last touching moment between the two before Roy is shipped out to boot camp. The last image seen is of Bleuer as he embraces his wild side and partakes in a wild telephone booth gathering that woos a local college girl in his favor. ===== The film's narrative consists of several interwoven subplots taking place in the town of Northfork, Montana circa 1955. A new dam is being built which will flood the valley of Northfork, and the town is in the midst of an evacuation. The narratives focus on several individuals who, for one reason or another, have yet to evacuate. Walter O'Brien (James Woods) and his son (Mark Polish) are on the evacuation team, helping to evacuate the last few inhabitants of Northfork. In return, the government will give them acres of lakeside property if they meet their evacuee quota. Father Harlan (Nick Nolte) is one such individual, who has stayed behind to care for Irwin (Duel Farnes), a dying orphan too weak to leave town. While the O'Briens and their co-workers encounter an array of unusual characters, Irwin discovers that he is the "unknown angel" through a suitcase with his angel wings in it and a bible with an angels feather telling his family 'story', and finds himself a family of angels (Daryl Hannah, Anthony Edwards, Ben Foster, and Robin Sachs) in his dreams, who he makes a deal with to take him 'a thousand miles'. ===== Ranjit Rai and Harbans Lal Saxena are two wealthy business magnates who despise the poor. Thus, they decide their children, Ajay Rai and Madhu Saxena, will marry wealthy spouses. They try to break their children's friendship with Raja and Kajal, who are both poor. They fix up Ajay's marriage with Madhu and send Ajay to meet Madhu. As fate would have it, Ajay falls in love with Kajal instead and Raja and Madhu fall in love. This angers the two men, and they try to bribe Raja and Kajal into leaving Madhu and Ajay. When this doesn't work, they try to get Raja and Kajal killed. When the children realize what their fathers really did, they refuse to back down, their determination set in stone. Eventually, the parents play a nasty trick. They make the four lovers believe that they have changed their ways and are ready for their children to marry the person they wish to. On the way to Raja and Madhu's engagement ceremony, the fathers have Kajal kidnapped. Raja saves her from being raped and comforts her. Meanwhile, without their knowledge, photos are taken of them. The fathers then show the photos of Raja comforting Kajal at the party. Taken out of context, the photos make it look like Raja and Kajal are being intimate with each other. Raja and Kajal are willing to prove their innocence, but the fathers keep them away. To make matters worse, Kajal's uncle falsely testifies to the fabricated illicit affair between the two. In fact, Kajal's uncle was paid to lie to Ajay and Madhu. Raja is willing to prove that he is not in the wrong but Madhu and Ajay both enraged and disgusted, refuse to listen to him and force him and Kajal to leave. Ajay and Madhu break up with Kajal and Raja, and the fathers' plan to create a rift between Ajay and Raja, once the best of friends, succeeds. The situation worsens further when Ajay and Madhu think that Kajal is pregnant with Raja's child. They tell Raja and Kajal that they are getting married, which is what their fathers wanted all along. After hearing this, Kajal attempts to kill herself, but Raja stops her. Raja attacks Ajay and Madhu while they are in a car mobile. Raja pretends to show that he is about to rape Madhu, but Ajay saves and comforts her. The police beat Raja brutally and Kajal pleads the fathers to release him. The fathers agree, but on the condition that Kajal and Raja leave the country for good and that they would be killed if they ever did return. Kajal agrees and Raja is set free. Ajay and Madhu's wedding is about to start when Ajay's uncle shows them pictures of Ajay comforting Madhu after Ajay seemingly had saved Madhu from Raja's supposed attack, taken out of context. This proves that Raja had attacked them to recreate the situation he and Kajal had been in, which in turn proved that Raja and Kajal are innocent and that the fathers were behind the initial attack on Kajal. Further proving Raja and Kajal's innocence, Kajal's uncle also confesses that he lied out of bribery. Angry and heartbroken, Ajay almost chokes his father to death but his conscience stops him. He then tries to kill himself but Madhu stops him. Ajay and Madhu rush to the shipyard and succeed to stop Raja and Kajal from leaving the country on the ship. They ask for forgiveness and the lovers get back together. The fathers arrive, having realized their grave mistake, and also ask for forgiveness. The lovers forgive them and they sing and dance to a song. ===== In medieval England, a homeless orphan girl who has no name, and can recall being named Brat, attempts to nestle in a warm dung heap on a cold night. She wakes up to the taunts of village boys, and Jane Sharp" asks her if she's alive. Jane takes her on as her apprentice, renames her "Beetle," but does not teach Beetle about midwifery for fear of competition. Jane is greedy and cruel, but she has a monopoly on her services, and the villagers, unable to take their anger out on the midwife, take it out on Beetle. Beetle goes to the fair in place of Jane Sharp there she is called Alyce so she changes her name Alyce (changing her name from "Beetle") is friends with a little homeless orphan boy, whom she names Edward, after the King, and tells him to go to the manor to get food and a job. Jane helps a woman in labor with the help of Alyce and word arrives the Lady of the Manor is in labor. Jane abandons the new mother to Alyce's care to the Lady. Alyce is kind to the woman and successfully delivers the baby, and the grateful parents pay her and name the child "Alyce Little." A woman's son comes to Alyce asking her to deliver her baby. This is a more difficult birth, Alyce fails and is overwhelmed by her inability to help. Jane sweeps in and presides over the birth, and Alyce flees, not wanting to endure the shame. She leaves the town with her cat. In another town, she comes to an inn where the owner gives Alyce work in exchange for food, and becomes fond of Alyce. A scholar from Oxford, staying for the winter, teaches Alyce how to read. Alyce misses Edward and wants to find out how he is faring. She returns to the village to check on him and finds that he has been supported without working. Their reunion is like that of a brother and sister. Alyce tells him to work properly and she returns to the inn. All she wants is to be a midwife, so she returns to the village with a new sense of self-purpose and asks to be the midwife’s apprentice again. ===== The story is set thirty-eight years after the fall of civilization in New York. The central character is Veto Skreemer, an imposing giant in an age when giants are near obsolete. His story is narrated by Peter Finnegan as he looks back on both Veto’s life and how it intersects with the lives of the Finnegan family, contrasting the formers’ rise to power with the latter’s struggle to survive. ===== Judy Tanner, grieving after the murder of her husband Jack, desires to get revenge on the murderer. She submerges her identity into that of "The Extremist", an alias her husband went by in both his life as a patron of the most extreme sex clubs, and as a hired assassin for a shadowy organization called "The Order". Judy eventually murders a woman she believes to be her husband's killer, but later learns the real killer was a man named Patrick, the "Chief Hedonist" of the Order. Patrick claims he killed Jack in order to manipulate Judy into becoming the Extremist, and manipulate her into killing an innocent woman to "liberate" her from her bourgeois moral system. After Judy goes missing, her neighbor Tony Murphy attempts to find her, while discovering more and more about what "The Extremist" really is, and is both ashamed and titillated by his discoveries. In his quest to find Judy, Tony's obsession prompts his wife and newborn child to leave him, although he does eventually manage to track Judy down, after which a thoroughly indoctrinated Judy kills him to prevent him from exposing her activities or those of the order. ===== Preparing to leave for Delhi, Purushan bids his mother goodbye, promising to write to her regularly. In the thinly populated forest area of Wayanad in the north- east of Kerala, the jeep in which he is travelling is stopped by the Police, who take possession of it to carry a dead body found hanging on the wayside tree. The dead man's face looks familiar to Purushan. He becomes restless and is seized with a pathological obsession to find out the identity of the deceased. Against the wishes of his girl friend, he abandons his trip to Delhi and sets out to seek his friends who may have some clue. Purushan meets journalist friends, doctors, and finally a veteran comrade, fondly addressed as Balettan who identifies the dead as the fellow musician who accompanied Satyajit, the guitarist. Satyajit confirms the deceased is his friend Hari, the tabla player. Together they decide to inform Hari's mother who stays in Cochin. They set out on a long eventful journey from the northern highlands of Wayanad to the Southern port city of Cochin. As they move from Kozhikode to Beypore, Kodungalloor, Thrissur, Kottapuram, Vypin, and finally to Fort Kochi, the group swells as they meet many mothers and their sons and relatives who have known Hari; some had known him as a tabla player, some as Tony, the jazz drummer and others as a silent political activist, a victim of police brutality, and a loner. And for others he was a drug addict and one who used to drown his sorrow and pain in his music. Through their recollections, Hari's rather diffused identity unfolds. His classmates remember Hari as an introvert, weak and indecisive. His worker comrades identify him as a staunch revolutionary with a strong resistance and will power. But then what went wrong? The colonial past of the places, what they took from us and what they left behind as well as the peoples protests and uprisings, the region witnesses and their heroes and victims are integrated into the narrative, by way of information as well as critiquing. While reporting to his mother about Hari and his friends and their mothers on his southbound journey, John also reconstructs the history of the land through a series of class struggles, student protests, and workers union clashes that took place in the region where Purushan traversed. Starting with the medical students agitation against commercialization of medical education, to a short dialogue with Karuppuswamy, the unfortunate victim who had lost both his legs in a colliery workers struggle for better wages and human dignity, in Kottapuram, to Vypin island where several mazdoors (labourers) either died or lost their eyesight in the man-made hooch tragedy, to the Citizens group's forcible taking over of rice and sugar hoarded by unscrupulous black marketer traders and distributing to ordinary people at fair prices and giving back the money collected to the traders, to the manipulated fight between workers of two feuding unions in a Mattancherry street in Fort Kochi, where four fishermen had died, and also some targeted working class leaders in a fake Police encounter, an abortive factory workers strike extending solidarity to the retrenched women workers in Fort Kochi, are some of the long list of peoples protests and struggles reported with deep concern and feeling by Purushan in a long letter to his Mother. As Purushan and his group wait for Hari's mother to come out of the Baptism ceremony from the church, they analyse their own past, note the emerging debate focusing on the romantic evasions and tragic failures of the extremist movement. When Hari s mother finally turns up and faces the youth congregation, she asks "Suicide wasn't it?" The film ends with Purushan's mother watching Hari's mother wiping her tear. ===== The story is a loose collection of events and narratives centered on a naive but good-natured hero and his life and adventures. It begins in a typical forward caste family setting, with the young Prathapa Mudhaliar indulging in hunting and enjoying himself. The plot also introduces the heroine as a rather intelligent and morally upright girl who marries the hero through a myriad of events. ===== The scenario is the British capital of London in 2470. A ragtag group of human misfits with strange powers struggle against an occupying force of malevolent, shape-shifting alien beings. After a disastrous guerilla assault on one of the invaders' living ships, the protagonists are attacked by the unstoppable Wardroid. Meanwhile, in the ruins of the Houses of Parliament, secrets are unearthed that may be the key to understanding the aliens' true motives. ===== Roma (Amrita Singh) and Reema Mathur (Juhi Chawla) are the daughters of Mr Mathur (Saeed Jaffery), a wealthy businessman. Roma, the older one, has always been spoiled, gets everything she desires, and is very competitive. On the other hand, Reema is a beautiful and shy girl who is quite reserved and usually lets her sister take the spotlight. Both grow up to be entirely different. The only similarity is that the sisters fall in love with the same man, Ravi Saxena (Jackie Shroff). Always the centre of attention, Roma catches his eye first. Reema is heartbroken but puts on a brave face. Ravi and Roma decide to get married. Unfortunately, Roma is ambitious to be a star in a film and gets an offer on the day of her wedding. She accepts and abandons Ravi minutes before their wedding. Ravi is furious and, in turn, marries Reema to save the honour of her family. At first, Ravi and Reema's relationship is quite uncomfortable. But, as time passes, Ravi falls in love with Reema. Unfortunately, Roma comes back home in a rage and tells them that they will never be happy because she has been betrayed. Determined to get Ravi back, Roma is willing to do anything including ruining her sister's life. She creates a lot of trouble like pretending to commit suicide etc. In the end, Reema gives in and leaves her house, so Ravi furiously makes Roma understand what the difference is between her and Reema. Roma realises her mistake and reunites Ravi and Reema. ===== ===== Property company chairman Hu Zian was attracted to his secretary Sun Yuxia's beauty and competence. One day after dinner when Hu was escorting Sun home, he received from a child on the street a box containing a mirror and two silver coins engraved with dragons. He was so frightened that he was absent from the office the following day. Sun went to visit him at home and Hu asked her to stay. Sun refused and left. In another occasion Hu asked Sun to follow him to inspection outside, during which there was a heavy downpour which soaked them both. They were forced to stay in a hotel, where Hu tried to force his intentions on Sun. Sun resisted with vigour and threatened to resign from office. Enraged at Sun's stubbornness, Hu urged his driver to spread the rumour in the office that Sun had stayed with him in a hotel. As Sun was annoyed and embarrassed, Hu proposed to her. Sun laid down a list of conditions and demanded his acceptance before marriage. Hu agreed. On the first night of their wedding Hu found that Sun had divided their bedroom into two partitions with an unlocked sliding door. Hu and Sun lived in one of these, and Sun's partition was decorated with mirrors. This frightened Hu so much that he remembered an early episode of his life: More than two decades ago, when the Second Sino-Japanese War was still going on, Hu worked in an inn under the name Hu Amao. One day he picked up two silver coins engraved with dragons and took them in possession, without knowing that they actually belonged to a traitor. One day a friend of the inn owner Tao Ajiu came and stayed in the inn. The inner owner and Hu collaborated to put him in trouble so that they could grab his valuables. As the police were tracking down the traitor, they found the two silver coins under Tao's pillow. Tao could not prove his innocence but plunged to his death. Hu was so horrified that he could never forget Tao's dead face as reflected in a mirror. At midnight Hu escaped with the inn owner, who wanted to kill Hu but was instead injured badly. Seeing that Hu was so panicked, Sun asked him to tell her what happened, but Hu did not utter a word. On the second night Hu made his way to Sun's partition, where he heard a terrible voice calling his old name. Hu was so scared that he fell and fainted. When Hu recovered consciousness he was suspicious of Sun. He made an excuse to send her out and investigated into the matter. Finally he found that it was all Sun's plot and locked her up in the basement. Knowing that she could conceal no more, Sun admitted that she had approached Hu in revenge for her father, Tao. Furious at her plot, Hu wanted to kill her but Uncle Fan, the inn owner, appeared and fought with him. Eventually both men die, leaving Sun lost in her thoughts in front of the mirror. ===== Aina is a love story of two hearts and two souls but from two different social classes, one being a daughter of a business tycoon i.e. Rita (Shabnam) and one being a realistic, self-confident and a little bit arrogant poor young man, Iqbal (Nadeem). Rita is a leisure girl whereas Nadeem works as a hotel receptionist and they both fall in love. The differences between Nadeem and Rita's father Seth (Rehan) arises right from the beginning, esp. when he (Rita's father) criticized Iqbal for his social status and earning capacity, saying his daughter's sari costs 7,500 rupees as compare to Iqbal's monthly salary of 750 rupees. But after a struggle by Rita and a threat to her parents that she would suicide if she would not be allowed to marry Iqbal, her father agreed. So both married but Iqbal knew that Seth was not really happy with this marriage. One day Rita's mother (Bahar) came to her daughter's house, located in a middle class, and offered Iqbal a job in Seth's friend's business firm, which he denied. Not only this, he also became angry with Rita about the telephone (which was thought to be a very luxurious item esp. in those days) installed in his house by her. A few days later, Rita's mother purchased furniture for Iqbal's house (perhaps to hurt Nadeem's ego) and invited her guests to a dance party in Iqbal's house. When Iqbal came back home, he became very angry and he asked Rita to leave the house and stay in her father's house. Rita left, with tears, Iqbal's house. Next day, Iqbal got an appointment from a bigger company perhaps from a hotel in Murree, so he has to leave the city immediately. But before leaving the city he tried to meet Rita, but, at the entrance of her house, he met Seth. Seth misinforms him that Rita does not want to see his face again and decided to get divorce from him, as she has realized that she has made such a big mistake in marrying a poor man like Iqbal. Shocked and disheartened Iqbal left the city. On the other side, Rita was waiting for him in the hope that he would come back and take her back to his home. But her father deceived her too that he had visited Iqbal but he insulted him in front of his friends and said that he is going to divorce her. This shocked Rita to such an extent that she could not bear the pain of pregnancy. So they moved to a hospital in the same city where the Nadeem was gone for his new job. During his journey to Murree, a car driver incidentally injured Iqbal. Iqbal moved to the same hospital where Rita was admitted for child delivery. In the hospital's lobby, he found his wife unconscious on the hospital bed, during this Seth interrupted and said that he is going to give away the child to an orphanage, but Iqbal refused to do that and said that he will take care of child himself. The film has taken a very sad turn at that point esp. when Nadeem carrying the baby to his house and singing the sad version of the song '... and remembering those happy days with Rita. On the other side, Seth lied not only to Rita but to his wife (Bahar) also that the baby has died. This was a tremendous shock for Rita and she somewhat lost her mental balance. After few years the baby is grown up to a teenage boy (Shahzeb), a very sensitive and very anxious about his mother. Whereas, Rita's mental instability grew day by day, so her mother asked Rita's father to let Rita visit her baby's grave which would perhaps help her. Next day all visited (Murree) and searched the graveyard, where they come across the real baby (Shahzeb), who was picking flowers there. As there was nothing to found there, they started leaving the place. During this Shahzeb immediately reached home and asked his father (Iqbal) about the features of his mother, Iqbal hand him over her photo. Shahzeb recognised his mother and ran towards the road where Rita and her parents come from and started singing the same song which he used to listen from his father ... Rita stopped the car and ran towards the place where the voice was coming from and finally she reached Nadeem's house. Amazed by the situation both asked about the divorce, as both were in misunderstanding, the truth revealed that it was Rita's father who had actually planned their separation (not legal divorce) and who had lied to her that her child is dead. Rita turned angrily and slapped her embarrassed father, who was listening this. Her mother said at this moment: 'You have not slapped your father, but you have actually slapped that mentality that believes in differences between poor and rich'. And then they lived happily ever after. ===== The plot is initially the banal daily routine of a rich woman taking her son to piano lessons, and conversing with a working class man in a café, drinking wine all the way, then reaches a scandal at a dinner party in chapter 7, followed by a dénouement in the final chapter. The story concerns the life of a woman, Anne Desbaresdes, and her varying relationships with her child, the piano teacher Mademoiselle Giraud and Chauvin. Chauvin is a working-class man who is currently unemployed and whiles away his time in a café near the apartment where Anne Desbaresdes' child takes piano lessons with Madame Giraud. After the fatal shooting of a woman in the café by her lover, Anne and Chauvin imagine the relationship between the lovers and try to reason why it occurred. Anne frequently returns to the café, before returning to her comfortable home, the last house on the Boulevard de la Mer, which itself represents the social divide between the working- and middle-classes. In the climactic 7th chapter, she returns home late and drunk to a dinner party, then causes a scandal (and is subsequently ill, vomiting) whose consequences are seen in the 8th and final chapter. ===== The film revolves around a young girl who is forced into child labour working for an urban family after a tragedy in her own family. Paavaadai (Nassar) is a potter living in a village in the outskirts of Madurai. Even though his profession is in a miserable condition, he has high hopes for his daughter Kannammaa (Baby Swetha) and raises her with much affection. Unfortunately, he dies in an accident and this forces Kannammaa to be sent to work for an urban family. The girl is quite happy about this, thinking about the prospects of good food and clothes. The family's working couple (Ramesh Aravind & Kousalya) too treat her with kindness. However, the arrival of the mother - in - law (M. N. Rajam) changes everything. Kutty doesn't get enough food to eat and is ill - treated by the old woman & her grandson. Day-by-day things get worsen. Once, Kutty's relatives come to see how she is doing. The grandmother behaves kindly to Kutty and makes them believe that she is completely happy there. Kutty too fails to communicate with them about her misery. Kutty watches the teenage girl who works in the opposite apartment being molested. And in a few days, she comes to know that the girl committed suicide. Even though supported by the couple (which infuriates the old-woman), Kutty becomes desperate and decides to send a letter to her mother asking her to take her away back to the village. She tries to seek the help of a store owner (Vivek), who is very kind to her. However, matters do not improve when Kutty reveals that she doesn't know the name of her village but she just knows the directions. One night, she decides to run away but she runs right into a man, who has a shop set up right next to Vivek's. He promises to help her and boards her onto a train. The man is then seen speaking to another man and bargaining for more money. The man says to Kutty that the other man will take good care of her and will reach her to her mother. But, the train is actually leaving not for her village, but to Mumbai, indicating that perhaps Kutty will be sold off into a brothel. The film ends with showing Kutty's anticipated face on the prospect of going back to her mother. ===== Chicago college student Max Hanson (Jackson) is a talented artist and hockey player. Though more interested in the latter, he is under pressure from his mother, Sophie (Williams) to pursue a career in art, influenced by the fact that she put her own career aside to raise the family and has just landed a coveted position with a local art gallery. Max's father, Ed (Colm Feore), is a tax attorney with a more laid-back approach to his son's future, just wanting him to be happy. While working at the local video store with best friends Orin (Christensen) and Kate (Amy Stewart), a cute girl comes in with her friends seeking a copy of Arachnophobia, and Max is immediately smitten. After locating her on campus the next day, she introduces herself as Molly White (Pope), who already knows Max's name from his hockey jersey. She then gives Max her phone number and invites him to a party she's attending that night. Before long, Max and Molly are becoming an item, the two even managing to make love in his bedroom with his mother and younger sister Chloe in the house. However, Max soon finds out that Molly is a drug addict, as he accompanies her on a trek to score some heroin, which she promptly snorts. Max invites Molly to Chloe's birthday party, and though she initially refuses to attend because it's the same night as a Smashing Pumpkins concert, she later relents. However, a minor argument erupts between her and Sophie, resulting in Molly leaving abruptly and putting the brakes on their budding relationship. Devastated, Max does his best to move on, but has a hard time doing so. Finally, he's taken to a party one night by Orin and Kate, where he promptly spots Molly. She asks if they can go somewhere and talk; he accepts, she apologizes, and the two make up. The next day, Max visits Sophie at work and tries to express his feelings about Molly, but her response is less than positive. A short time later, Molly celebrates their new-found relationship by having them shoot up together in her apartment, and Max soon becomes hooked, neglecting his studies and job. Soon thereafter, Molly learns that she's three months behind on rent, and has a week to pay before being evicted. Not having enough money in his bank account to pay it, Max goes to the video store to get his paycheck, but having only worked two hours during the past week, that's all the pay he receives, and he is also given a pink slip. Sensing his friend may be in over his head, Orin offers to try to help Max, but all he wants is money to supposedly "fix the car" (though Orin sees right through this flimsy claim). After returning home, Max takes $200 from Ed's wallet; when he gently attempts to approach the subject with his son, even offering to help him out of his financial situation, an argument erupts that culminates in Sophie striking Max. Feeling as though he can never go back home, Max and Molly (who was kicked out of her place) move in with her druggie friends. Not long after, Max shows up at the ice rink attempting to steal money from Orin in the locker room, but is caught in the act (during which time we learn Max has been kicked off the team). Once back at the pad, Max catches Molly having sex with a man in exchange for drugs, and physically confronts him. Later, as their financial situation worsens, the couple is reduced to panhandling at the local mall, where Sophie spots Max, but says nothing until a few days later. After hearing this news, Ed and his other son Brian attempt to find Max, but are unsuccessful. His addiction now totally out of control, Max tries to rob a local comic book store for drug money, but is caught by the police. Ed and Brian later bail Max out, and while Brian thinks he needs to be put into rehab, Ed insists he can take care of Max at home. However, the effects of withdrawal are in full swing, and it proves to be an uphill battle. Finally, after going into a rage, Max becomes unconscious and is taken to a hospital. Once there, an arguments erupts between Ed and Sophie, with Sophie insisting that she did what anyone else would have done, but Ed retorts "that's a bunch of crap" and reminds her that neither he nor the kids made her stop painting; she did it all by herself, and that in her self-absorbed attitude, she failed to notice that all Max wanted was "to know it was OK to not be perfect". The next day, a doctor informs the family that Max needs to get into a treatment program, but stresses the difficulty of doing so. However, while this discussion takes place, Max manages to slip out of the hospital and begins frantically searching for Molly, finally finding her in a sleazy motel room where she has died of a heroin overdose. Out of his mind with grief, Max shows up at Kate's apartment and begs her for money; when she refuses, he accuses her of "wanting" him and offers to prostitute himself. Enraged, Kate throws Max out of the apartment, but in his stupor, he takes a tumble down the stairwell. The following morning, after his family had searched unsuccessfully for him, Max is brought home in a taxi, Kate by his side. Informing his mother of Molly's death, the two tearfully embrace, and as he prepares to leave for his month-long stay in rehab, he and Sophie finally reach an understanding. Sophie admits that she never saw Max for who he was and encourages him to be whatever he wants, telling Max that she loves him as the two embrace again. The film ends with Max saying goodbye to Brian and Chloe as he departs for rehab, before he and Ed drive away. ===== The Simpson family attend a church fundraiser for a new steeple. Ned Flanders wins a rubber duck racing contest and is awarded a computer, although he gives it to Marge because he does not have any use for it. Marge babysits Rod and Todd to repay the favor. She finds that all the games they play are boring and overly safe, such as a "sitting still contest," and helps Rod and Todd have fun by encouraging them to liven up. With Marge spending so much time at the Flanders' house, Homer, Bart, and Lisa go to an animal sanctuary for retired film animals. Bart sees an elderly female chimpanzee named Toot-Toot and offers her some ice cream, only to be taken into her cage and "adopted." Ned comes home and sees Todd wearing a Band-Aid, having injured himself during one of Marge's games. Marge encourages Ned to let his kids start taking more risks, showing him a flyer for a child-safe activity center. Marge takes Rod and Todd to the activity center. Ned follows her and is surprised to see Rod climbing a structure, yelling that he will get hurt. Rod gets worried and falls, chipping a tooth against the structure. A news broadcast plays about Bart's kidnapping, surprising Marge and causing Ned to view her as a bad mother. Following this, he starts child-proofing the house, although Rod and Todd protest and tell him that they liked having Marge over. Lisa suggests that Toot-Toot is keeping Bart captive because her real son has gone missing. When Marge goes into the cage to talk to Toot-Toot, she escapes and climbs atop the unfinished church steeple. With Toot-Toot's son, Mr. Teeny, Rod climbs up the steeple and Ned encourages him. Toot-Toot happily reunites with Mr. Teeny and lets Bart go. In a mid-credits scene, Maude Flanders looks down from Heaven, proud that Rod is growing up. ===== The film opens in Victorian London on a December night in 1900. The first night of the season at the London Opera House finds the opening of a new opera by Lord Ambrose D'Arcy (Michael Gough), a wealthy and pompous man who is annoyed and scornful when the opera manager Lattimer (Thorley Walters) informs him the theatre has not been completely sold out. No one will sit in a certain box because it is haunted. Backstage, despite the soothing efforts of the opera's producer, Harry Hunter (Edward de Souza), everyone, including the show's star, Maria, is nervous and upset as if a sinister force was at work. When the body of a murdered stagehand swings out of the wings during Maria's first aria, pandemonium ensues. With the show postponed and Maria refusing to perform again, Harry frantically auditions new singers. He finds a promising young star in Christine Charles (Heather Sears), one of the chorus girls. Lord Ambrose lecherously approves of the selection and invites Christine to dinner. In her dressing room, Christine is warned against Lord Ambrose by a Phantom voice. That night, Lord Ambrose attempts to seduce her, but as they are about to leave for his apartment, Harry saves her. On the ride back home, Christine tells Harry about the voice she heard. Intrigued, Harry takes Christine back to the opera house, wherein her dressing room, the same voice tells Harry to leave her there and go. At the same time, the rat-catcher (Patrick Troughton) is murdered by the Phantom's lackey, a dwarf (Ian Wilson). Investigating the murder, Harry leaves Christine by herself, where she is approached by a man dressed in black, wearing a mask with only one eye, The Phantom of the Opera. He tells her she must come with him, but she screams, and The Phantom flees. Harry comforts her and takes her home. The next day Lord Ambrose sends a dismissal to Christine for refusing to come back to his apartment. Lord Ambrose chooses a more willing but less talented singer to take Christine's place. When Harry refuses to accept this, he is also dismissed by Lord Ambrose. Visiting Christine at her boarding house, Harry finds some old manuscripts that he recognizes as a rough draft of the opera he has produced. Questioning Christine's landlady Mrs. Tucker, he learns that it was written by a former boarder named Professor Petrie, who had been killed in a fire at a printing press that was to print his music. Making further inquiries, he learns that Petrie did not actually perish in the fire, but was splashed with Nitric Acid while apparently trying to extinguish the blaze, had run away in agony and was drowned in the River Thames. This is confirmed by the policeman who was in the area at the time, but the body was never recovered. Harry and Christine have a romantic day together. While having a moonlight carriage ride, Harry tells her about Petrie, and that he is convinced that Lord Ambrose stole Petrie's music. He leaves it at that, as he believes that the Professor is long since dead. When Christine gets home, she is confronted by the dwarf and faints from fright and is carried off. When she wakes, she is in the Phantom's lair deep in the cellars of the opera house, and the Phantom (Herbert Lom) is playing a huge organ. He tells the frightened girl that he will teach her to sing properly and rehearses her with fanatical insistence until she collapses from exhaustion. Meanwhile, Harry, reinstated as the opera producer, is worried about Christine's disappearance. Pondering the story of the mysterious Professor, he checks the river where he had last been seen. At that same moment, he hears the echo of Christine's voice emanating from a storm drain and soon finds himself following the voice through one of London's water-filled sewers. The faint sound of the organ playing draws him down a tunnel where the dwarf attacks him with a knife. Harry subdues him and finds himself facing the missing Professor as Christine looks on from a bed (where she'd been sleeping). Harry asks the professor what had happened in his past. In a flashback, the Phantom says that five years before, as a poor and starving composer, he had been forced to sell all of his music, including the opera, to Lord Ambrose for a pitifully small fee with the thought that his being published would bring him recognition. When he discovered that Lord Ambrose was having the music published under his own name, Petrie became enraged and broke into the printers to destroy the plates. While burning the music that had already been printed, Petrie unwittingly started a fire, then accidentally splashed acid on his face and hands in an effort to put it out, thinking it was water. In terrible agony, he ran out, jumped into the river, and was swept by the current into an underground drain, where he was rescued and cared for by the dwarf. The Phantom says that he is dying, but he wishes to see his opera performed by Christine. They both agree to allow him time to complete her voice coaching. Several weeks later, on the eve of a performance of "Saint Joan," the Phantom confronts Lord Ambrose in his office. He rips off The Phantom's mask and runs out screaming into the night after seeing his terrifying face. The Phantom then watches Christine sing from the "haunted" box. Her performance brings him to tears as he hears his music finally presented. Listening enraptured to the music, the dwarf is discovered in the catwalks by a stage-hand, and in the chase, he jumps onto a huge chandelier poised high above the stage over Christine. As the rope begins to break from the weight, the Phantom spots the danger. He rips off his mask, leaps from his box to the stage, and pushes Christine safely from harm. The chandelier impales him before the eyes of the horror-stricken audience. ===== Keri Russell plays Katie Armstrong, an American student in Germany studying criminal psychology. She chooses a notorious subject for her thesis: the cannibal killer Oliver Hartwin (played by Thomas Kretschmann). Oliver dreamed of eating a willing victim, and thanks to the internet, he was able to find a volunteer, a young man named Simon Grombeck (played by Thomas Huber). The story is told in flashbacks as Katie researches these men and their pasts. Events culminate in Katie's discovery of a snuff tape that documents the crime. ===== The film begins with an introduction by Walt Disney and his robot friend Garco, providing a brief overview of the episode. The overview starts with an animated presentation about mankind seeking to understand the world in which he lives, first noticing patterns in the stars, and developing certain beliefs regarding the celestial bodies. Theories from scientists and philosophers are discussed, including Ptolemy's inaccurate, but formerly-accepted geocentrism-related theories, as well as those of Copernicus's accurate and, now, confirmed heliocentric model. Life on other planets is considered, soon focusing on Mars. Ideas from science-fiction authors H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs are brought to life with more colorful animation, and, as done before, science fiction comics of the time are parodied. This segment also features Kimball's comic tone and a cameo appearance by Donald Duck. Later on, the program adopts a serious tone as it profiles each of the planets in the Solar System, explaining what would happen if a human were to live on each of them. The program claims that, whereas most of the planets are either too cold or too hot for life as we know it, life on Mars could almost be normal. This importance becomes the main focus of the rest of the film. Dr. E.C. Slipher then discusses the possibility of life currently on Mars. An extended sequence speculates at what the conditions on Mars might be like given sufficient water: cannibalistic plants, a trilobite-like creature which eats the dust left behind by dust storms, silicon-based lifeforms which rely solely on minerals for nutrition, leaving behind amazing and strange if ephemeral formations, and a slew of predators, including one that has radial symmetry and magnifies the Sun's rays to burn its hapless prey, and another which stuns with ultrasonics. The program wraps up with what a trip to Mars would entail for a space crew and its vessels. Contributor/spacecraft designer Ernst Stuhlinger (accompanied by Wernher von Braun) presents his design and details regarding a unique umbrella-shaped Mars Ship: The top portion would be a revolving outer quarters ring providing artificial gravity for the crew of 20 under 'parasol' coolant tubes. At the other end, a sodium-potassium reactor would provide power to the midsection electric/ion drive. Attached upright would be a chemically-fueled winged tail-lander. The mission shown involves six Mars Ships with top speeds up to that take a 400-day spiral course to Mars. There, a crew would spend 412 days on the surface before returning to Earth. ===== Bradwen has two alternate paths that can be played through in Arthur's Knights: Tales of Chivalry. Prior to choosing which path shall be followed, the game opens with the player in control of a young page (newly a squire) who trots off to converse with a gentleman by the name of Master Foulque, who, it would appear, is a librarian and historiographer. After some discourse with Master Foulque, the player is presented with the choice of deciding between a red book and a white book (determining which story, Celtic or Christian, respectively, of Bradwen shall be told). Both stories take place shortly after the departure of the Romans from Britain. This epoch marks a time in which Christianity has been somewhat imposed upon the native populace of Britain thus majorly extinguishing what in the game is described as "an age of Kings and Queens, Monsters and Magic" (not to mention fairies and otherwise traditionally Celtic and pagan concepts). Controversy erupts when the decampment of the Romans leaves the British tribes in conflict over political power (thus leaving them disunited and therefore vulnerable to their common enemies, the Saxons). The barbaric Saxons pose a particular threat to reestablishing a semblance of order in the land. Bradwen's role in all this is to embark on a series of missions when his half- brother informs him of the necessity for a cure for Cadfanan, their father and king. Ultimately, both Bradwens encounter fairies, dragons, King Arthur, Merlin, and even the Devil during travels through Camelot, the mystical realm of Avalon, and a plethora of other lands. Bradwen also, regardless of the religion to which he cleaves, eventually seek justice against the treacherous actions of his half-brother which develop during gameplay. Throughout the game are interspersed some historical facts about Roman Britain, post-Roman Britain, tidbits on the legend of King Arthur, and several allusions to Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel The Mists of Avalon. ===== A brilliant evil scientist named "The Reverend" has created a powerful theocracy based on the idea of a rapidly approaching apocalypse. He uses his expertise to create four powerful "Horsemen of the Apocalypse", War, Plague, Beast and Death, in order to ensure this comes to pass. His former colleague, Trey Kincaid (voiced by Bruce Willis), is the only man with the know-how to stop the Reverend, but is locked up in jail and must escape in order to save the world. ===== Price plays the titular mad scientist who, with the questionable assistance of his resurrected flunky Igor, builds a gang of female robots who are then dispatched to seduce and rob wealthy men. Avalon and Hickman play the bumbling heroes who attempt to thwart Goldfoot's scheme. The film's climax is an extended chase through the streets of San Francisco. ===== The Enterprise has traveled to the Pentarus system where Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) must mediate a dispute among some miners on the fifth planet. Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) receives word that he has been accepted to Starfleet Academy and, for his final mission, he will accompany Picard on his shuttle trip to Pentarus V. A distress call comes in from Gamilon V, where an unidentified vessel has entered orbit and is giving off lethal doses of radiation. Picard orders Riker to take the Enterprise to resolve that situation while he and Wesley travel in a shuttle sent by the miners, commanded by Captain Dirgo. En route, Dirgo's shuttle malfunctions and they are forced to crash-land on the surface of a harsh, desert-like moon. Though they are unharmed, the shuttle is beyond repair, and its communication systems and food replicators are disabled. Dirgo admits he has no emergency supplies on board, so they are forced to search for shelter and water. With his tricorder, Wesley identifies some caves and a potential source of water some distance away, and the three set out across the desert. Reaching a cave, they find a fountain-like water source, but it is protected by a crystalline force field. Dirgo attempts to use a phaser to destroy the field, but this activates a burst of energy from the fountain which encases the phaser in an impenetrable shell and causes a rock slide; Picard pushes Wesley out of the way but is severely injured in doing so. Meanwhile, the Enterprise has arrived at Gamilon V, finding the unidentified ship is an abandoned garbage scow filled with radioactive waste. Their initial attempt to attach thrusters to the barge to propel it through an asteroid belt into the Gamilon sun remotely fails, and Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) is forced to attempt to tow the barge themselves using the tractor beam, exposing the crew to the lethal radiation. As Wesley continues to analyze the forcefield, Dirgo becomes impatient and attempts to breach the field again, but this time the energy burst encases him as well, killing him. Picard, weak from his injuries, gives Wesley advice about the academy, and tells him he is proud of him. Wesley refuses to give up. Meanwhile, the Enterprise, despite the rising radiation levels on board, which are nearing lethal, manages to get the barge headed into the sun and speeds off to help in the search for the shuttle. Wesley continues to study the fountain, and devises a plan to disable the force field. He fires his phaser at the fountain to attract the energy defense mechanism, but reprograms it using his tricorder to disable the field instead, and is finally able to access the water. Shortly thereafter, the Enterprise locates the wreckage of the mining shuttle, and Picard and Wesley are rescued. As Picard is carried from the cave, he tells Wesley that he will be missed. ===== Someone has been killing women in LA and leaving the bodies drained of blood. The police planned a sting using a female officer, Detective Gwen Taylor (Denise Alessandria Hurd) however the killer was instead intercepted and captured by a group calling itself The Delphi Project. The Delphi Project is a secret government group intent on capturing and studying a live vampire and as it turns out the killer that they are after is actually a thousand year old vampire going by the name Simon Molinar (Jason Carter). During the attempted capture Dr. Hirsch (James Kiberd) is killed by the vampire. A replacement doctor, Dr. Joe McKay (Garett Maggart) takes his place in the group. Out of the entire group Dr. Joe McKay is the first to treat the vampire like a person and not just as something to be studied. The group sets about a series of tests and experiments to study the vampire. As the experiments become crueler Dr. Joe McKay is left to wonder who is the true monster? The vampire or the very people he works for? Unbeknownst to Dr. Mckay is that one of his superiors, Dr. Bassett (Jack Donner) has found out that Dr. McKay is one of the rare few who has the genetic predisposition to being able to be turned into a vampire. Dr. Bassett (without the rest of the team's knowledge) even provides Simon Molinar with a live victim. Dr. Bassett, himself, discarded the body. When the body is found this gains the attention of the local police. The group decides to destroy Simon Molinar once their experiments are finished but Dr. Bassett thinks it might be best to create a new vampire, one that has never killed before, to replace the vampire they intend to destroy. Bassett locked Dr. McKay in a room with the vampire but Simon escaped instead of turning Dr. McKay into a vampire. During his escape Simon ripped the caduceus necklace from Dr. McKay's neck. It's a necklace that Dr. McKay never takes off and wore as a sign of healing and his Hippocratic oath. Simon Molinar stole this as a memento because of his growing fondness for Dr. McKay despite having been his prisoner. ===== San Francisco Assistant District Attorney David Corelli (Caruso) is called to the murder scene of prominent businessman Kyle Medford, found bludgeoned to death in his home by an antique hatchet. Police detectives Bob Hargrove and Petey Vesko find photographs in Medford's safe of Governor Lew Edwards (Crenna) having sex with a prostitute, later identified as Patrice Jacinto. During questioning, Patrice reveals that other women and she were paid by Medford to have sex with wealthy men at his beach house in Pacifica. She also informs them that the most desired prostitute among the clients was a woman known only as "Jade". In a private meeting with Governor Edwards and aide Bill Barrett, Corelli is warned not to make the photographs public. Corelli is then almost killed when his brake line is deliberately cut and his vehicle goes out of control while driving down a steep hill. The detectives find fingerprints on the hatchet belonging to Katrina Gavin, a clinical psychologist and former lover of Corelli's who eventually married his close friend, defense attorney Matt Gavin. When interviewed, Katrina explains that Medford gave her a tour of his antique collection on the day in question, but claims to have nothing to do with his death. At Medford's beach house, Corelli and the detectives find various drugs, alcohol, and sex toys, as well as hidden video cameras. They conclude Medford was recording the sex sessions to blackmail the men. Corelli is shocked to discover Katrina on one of the tapes; the revelation renews the detectives' interest in her as a suspect. Patrice arranges to meet Corelli at a restaurant to discuss Jade's identity, but she is murdered in a hit-and-run attack by an unknown assailant driving a black 1993 Ford Thunderbird. Corelli, witnessing the murder first-hand, chases the assailants' vehicle in vain. The detectives discover the Gavins own a similar Thunderbird, so suspect Katrina of killing Patrice, but when they find the actual vehicle used in the hit-and-run abandoned, someone appears to be trying to frame Katrina. Katrina is again brought in for questioning and this time is shown the sex tape. Matt, in his capacity as her attorney, ends the interrogation before she fully explains her involvement. When confronted at their home, Katrina admits to her husband that she did have sex with the man on the tape, due in part to her knowledge of Matt's many affairs. Katrina visits Corelli at his apartment and tries unsuccessfully to seduce him. She admits having felt sexually liberated by sleeping with several men at the beach house. Meanwhile, the only witness to identify Katrina at the Pacifica beach house, a man named Henderson, is found murdered. Corelli informs the detectives at the crime scene that Katrina could not have killed him because Corelli and she were together at the time. Back at his apartment, Corelli is met by Matt, who holds him at gunpoint and angrily accuses him of having sex with Katrina. He denies it and persuades Matt that his wife's life is in danger. They hurry to the Gavin home, where Det. Hargrove, Pat Callendar and governor's aide Barrett have come to kill Katrina and search for the incriminating photos of the governor. Callendar is shot by Matt, but Barrett manages to escape. At the mean time, Hargrove is trying to rape and kill Katrina, but Corelli and Matt arrive and Hargrove is shot by Matt. Corelli goes to the governor for a guarantee of Katrina's safety by leveraging his possession of the photographs. The governor denies any knowledge of Hargrove or Callendar's actions, but insinuates they were both acting on his behalf. As she gets ready for bed at home, Katrina finds photographs laid out in her bathroom of her having sex at the beach house. Matt admits to Katrina that he killed Medford, certain that Medford eventually would blackmail them both. He then tells Katrina to "introduce me to Jade" the next time they "make love". ===== Three junior high school boys—Brad (Adam LaVorgna), Frank (Michael Patrick Carter) and Kevin (Brian Christopher)—travel from their bedroom suburb of Middletown to the city, bringing money with hopes of seeing a woman naked. They find a hooker named V (Melanie Griffith) who is willing to show her breasts. However, when they decide to head home, they find their bikes have been stolen, leaving them broke and stuck in the city. V speaks with her friend, Cash (Casey Siemaszko), and another hooker, Betty (Anne Heche). Cash has been skimming money that he sends to mob boss Waltzer (Malcolm McDowell), who in turn steals from his own boss, Jerry (Philip Bosco). V notices the boys outside in the rain and offers them a ride back home in Cash's car. After they arrive at Frank's house, V's car suddenly breaks down so she goes inside to use the phone. Tom (Ed Harris), Frank's father, comes home and is surprised to find a woman in the house. Unbeknownst to V, Frank tells Tom that V is a math tutor and that she's giving lessons to Brad. Tom offers to repair her car in a few days when he is free from his science classes at school. With no other option, she accepts Frank's offer to stay in his tree house without Tom's knowledge. Frank begins a close friendship with V, hoping to set her up with his father. He tells her Tom has no problem with her "job," meaning the tutoring ruse, but she thinks he means her prostitution. V learns from television that Cash has been murdered by Waltzer. She phones Betty only to discover that Waltzer is looking for her - Cash told him that she stole the money. She realizes that he is overhearing the conversation and hangs up. With V's car still broken down, she gets Tom's old bike from the garage and rushes to find him. He is on a field trip to the town's wetlands, undeveloped natural land that he is attempting to save from development. He is unable to repair her car any sooner, but she realizes that she is probably safer in Middleton, since Waltzer doesn't know where she is. At school, Frank flunks a biology test about sex education and must give his class an oral presentation. He decides to use V as a mannequin and through a ruse distracts his teacher long enough to draw a relatively accurate female reproductive system on her skin-colored bodysuit. Tom and V go out on a date and both realize they are developing feelings for each other. While walking through town on their date, Tom and V run into Kevin's family. V recognizes Kevin's father, who is a client, but he initially says she has him mixed up with someone else before admitting to remembering her and says she was a dance teacher. Tom is impressed with how busy V is being a tutor and dance teacher; V then realizes that Frank had actually lied about Tom knowing about her prostitution. V explains herself to Tom, and their relationship grows. She reveals that her real name is Eve, which she thought was too biblical so she removed the “e”s. Kevin's father unwittingly calls her home phone number, which he had in his pocket notebook, in an attempt to purchase her services again. He talks to Betty and Waltzer, who happens to be there also, learns from Betty about the trip to Middleton, thus finding out where V is hiding. V is terrified that Waltzer will find her so she decides to leave town but attends a school dance to say goodbye to Frank. Waltzer shows up to spoil their fun. A chase ensues, with Waltzer finally being eliminated. Anxious about her status and afraid to return to her old job, V goes to Waltzer's boss and relates how he has been cheating him. She asks to be "forgotten" by them. The older crime boss succumbs to her charms and he tells her he'll take care of things and that she doesn't need to be afraid anymore, while also allowing her to walk away from prostitution for good. V finds the stolen money in a backpack and uses it to buy the wetlands in Tom's name; it is also revealed that she purchased the ice cream parlor in town, so she can carry on with her new relationship. ===== The series centered around the story of an ex-Marine Lieutenant Colonel named Al Simmons, who fought as a commando and government assassin in covert black ops. He was betrayed and killed by a man whom he believed to be his close friend (the man, later to be revealed as Chapel, burned him alive with a flamethrower during a mission). Upon his death, Simmons vowed revenge on Chapel and hoped that he would one day return to his beloved wife Wanda. Because of his life as an assassin, Simmons' soul goes to Hell. In order to accomplish his vow, he makes a pact with the devil Malebolgia (who was the overlord on the eighth plane of Hell). The pact was a simple one: Simmons would become a soldier in Malebolgia's army (known as a "Hellspawn" or "Spawn" for short) in return for the ability to walk the earth once again in order to see Wanda. However, Simmons was tricked by Malebolgia: his body was not returned to him and he is returned to Earth five years after his death. He had been given a different body which was a festering, pungently cadaverous, maggot-ridden walking corpse that had a massive living red cape attached to it. Because his new body had been rotten for some time and was in an advanced state of decay, his face had become heavily malformed, to the point that he barely appeared human, which led to Simmons donning a mask in order to cover its grotesque appearance. Upon his return to "life", Spawn seeks out Wanda, who had apparently got over the grief of having lost Al and married another man, Al's best friend Terry Fitzgerald with whom she seemingly had a daughter, Cyan. Terry, a respectable man, works as an analyst for a man named Jason Wynn. Wynn is a powerbroker in the CIA and secretly a black-market arms dealer, amongst other things (such as the head of secret government organizations within the NSA and National Security Council ). Wynn is revealed to be the man responsible for the death of Al Simmons due to a disagreement that the two had between each other concerning their "work." Jason's actions would also prove dangerous to the lives of Terry, Wanda and their daughter as well. Realizing that he is no longer the man in Wanda's life, Al swears to protect her and her new family. The series depicts Spawn nesting in the dark alleyways, killing any who invade his new-found territory. Rejecting these actions as unworthy of Spawn's time and power, Malebolgia then dispatches another of his minions (a demonic creature known as the Violator that assumes the form of a short, obese clown) to try to persuade Spawn to commit acts of violence and savagery in the name of Hell. Spawn struggles to fight the lure of evil, as well as seeking to escape being hunted by not only the forces of Hell, but by assailants from Heaven, who have a need to destroy the Hellspawns in order to cripple the forces of Hell so that they do not gain an edge in the escalating war between the two spiritual hosts. As the war intensifies, the line between the forces of good and evil become increasingly blurry. Spawn finds help along the way in the form of a disheveled old man named Cogliostro who was once a Hellspawn that overcame the demonic powers resting within, amongst a number of other characters. In the last episodes of the series, Spawn learns how to shapeshift and, appearing as Terry, makes love to Wanda, impregnating her. It is revealed that there is a prophecy that the child of a Hellspawn will play the deciding factor in Armageddon, and may be the real reason Spawn was allowed to return to Earth. ===== The human population is now 3 million highbred elite and 5 billion morons, and the "average" IQ is 45 (whereas now an IQ score of 100 is average, by definition). Several generations before the onset of the story, the small number of remaining 100-and-higher-IQ technocrats work feverishly to keep the morons alive. The elite have had little success in solving the Problem (also called "Poprob", for 'population problem', in the story) for several reasons: * The morons must be managed or else there will be chaos, resulting in billions of deaths and "five hundred million tons of rotting flesh"; * It is not possible to sterilize all of the morons; * Propaganda against large families is insufficient, because every biological drive is towards fertility (the story predates the development of hormonal contraception). The elite have tried everything rational to solve the population problem but the problem cannot be solved rationally. The solution requires a way of thinking that no longer exists – Barlow's "vicious self-interest" and his knowledge of ancient history. Barlow derives a solution based on his experience in scamming people into buying worthless land and knowledge of lemmings' mass migration into the sea: convince the morons to travel to Venus in spaceships that will kill their passengers out of view of land. The story predates the moon landing, and the safety of space travel is summed up in a description of a rocket that crashed on the moon. Propaganda depicts Venus as a tropical paradise, with "blanket trees", "ham bushes" and "soap roots". In a nationalistic frenzy, every country tries to send as many of their people to Venus as possible to stake their claim. Barlow's help includes using his knowledge of Nazi Propaganda tactics: postcards are sent from the supposedly happy new residents of Venus to relatives left behind, describing a wonderful, easy life, in the same way as fraudulent postcards were sent to relatives of those incinerated in the Nazi death-camps. But Barlow is duped by his erstwhile assistants. Barlow does not realize that the elite despise him as they despise all people from the past for having not solved The Problem earlier. In the end, Barlow is placed on a spaceship to Venus to share the fate of his victims, and realises that murder will out and that crime does not pay just before he dies. ===== When a "simple child" named Bran who can run incredibly fast comes to Bec's demon-besieged rath, she and a small consignment of warriors go with him, including the chief's son, Connla, who is "largely untested" in battle; Goll, an old warrior; Lorcan and Ronan, two teenage twins; Fiachna the blacksmith; and Orna, a female warrior. During the journey, the group is attacked by demons, but luckily manage to hide near some ancient lodestones which protect them with powerful Old Magic. Eventually, Bran leads them to a crannóg, where everyone is dead except a druid, Drust. The druid tells them about a tunnel to the demons' world, and how he aims to destroy it. They go with him. The group finds some horses which help them reach their destination in time, but Fiachna is soon abandoned after his wound becomes life- threatening. Bec manages to force Bran through the closing tunnel at the last moment with the last of her magic, but is trapped as a result. Soon after, Lord Loss appears and tells Bec that when she appeared to absorb power from him several days earlier, Lord Loss had actually intended for that to happen so that she could close the tunnel. This is because Lord Loss is unique among demons, in that instead of wishing to slaughter all the humans in the world, he actually prefers to prolong the suffering for as long as possible. If the tunnel had remained open, countless other demons would have passed through and destroyed all of mankind within a matter of weeks, which would have ruined Lord Loss' "sport". After telling Bec this, Lord Loss reminds her of the geis that he had placed on her, and that he is bound by his word to kill her. Lord Loss sets his familiars upon Bec, and without any magic to defend herself with, she is easily overwhelmed and killed. ===== Commander Sam Keenan (Jean-Claude van Damme), a decorated US Navy SEAL, is sent to the Eastern European nation of Moldavia to become the new security attaché at the US Embassy. When he arrives, Keenan learns that Moldavia is in the middle of a civil war. At the embassy, Keenan meets with Ambassador George Norland (Colin Stinton), who makes Keenan the deputy ambassador. Recently, the US installed a new government in Moldavia, which is led by Moldavia's newly elected president Yuri Amirev (Serban Celea). However, Amirev wants the nation to be run as a democractic republic, but under the command of Anton Tavarov (Velibor Topić), communist insurgents have caused a riot at the presidential palace, threatening the fragile stability of the country. The insurgents are loyal to Alexei Kirilov (Costel Lupea), the former brutal communist dictator of Moldavia. When the palace guards start firing on the insurgents without Amirev's authorization, the insurgents storm the palace, demanding Amirev's head. Keenan volunteers to bring Amirev to the embassy. But events reach critical mass, and the insurgents open fire. Keenan barely makes it back with Amirev, but the fight isn't over yet. Fifty Americans are holed up in the embassy, and Tavarov and his massive army have arrived at the gates, with plans to crash the building and drag Amirev out by any means necessary. To add to Keenan's problems, Norland is killed by a rocket that was launched by one of Tavarov's men. To defend the embassy, Keenan has only 15 Marines, CIA bureaucrat Frank Gaines (William Tapley), limited ammunition, and his martial arts skills to hold Tavarov's army off until American reinforcements arrive. To make matters worse, Keenan's girlfriend, reporter Michelle Whitman (Julie Cox), is one of the hostages. With Tavarov's crew getting in position for attack, a power struggle takes place between Keenan and Gaines; with help hours away, it will be up to Keenan to rescue the hostages. When the supposedly loyal General Borgov (a personal CIA "asset" claimed by Gaines) arrives he turns out to side with the insurgents but Keenan rescues the surviving personnel with help from arriving American military reinforcements. ===== A nuclear war has wiped out most of Earth's population. The film follows a group of survivors who are holed up in a secluded valley and must protect themselves from rising radiation levels, mutants, and in some cases, each other. ===== Redemption and damnation share a bed of hope in a love story between a suicidal psychiatrist and a drug addicted homicidal cop. How far can one fall, and how bad can one become, and still find forgiveness? ===== The film, which takes place in a fantasy setting, opens at a festival featuring Deathstalker and the wizard Nicias. Deathstalker once saved Nicias and the two go from village to village obtaining money by Nicias foretelling the future and showing his magic. During the festival, a hooded woman arrives to see Nicias. She is actually the princess Carissa bringing a magical stone hoping that Nicias has the other one, which when united, will at long last uncover the magical and rich city of Arandor of whom Nicias is the last of the city's descendants. Nicias does not possess the second stone, but knows it is south in Southland which is ruled by the evil sorcerer Troxartes. Troxartes has the second stone and wants the first so he can harness its power and rule more. The festival is attacked by Troxartes's black-clad right-hand man Makut and his horse soldiers looking for the stone. Amid the slaughter and chaos, Nicias teleports away while the princess is saved from capture by Deathstalker and the two escape. She is nonetheless killed by a few of the unknowing soldiers and passes the stone and knowledge on to Deathstalker. He travels to the hot and wooded Southland where he meets the twin sister of Carissa, the feisty Princess Elizena who was sent from the North to marry Troxartes. Makut is searching for Deathstalker now and finds him again so Deathstalker hides in Elizena's tent but is alerted by her after she sees he held her with a twig instead of a knife. He escapes into an impenetrable valley where he is given shelter by two wild women, Marinda and her mother. Marinda has sex with Deathstalker and then lead him to their horses so he can escape since Makut has entered the valley. The mother, outraged at Marinda's absence, leads Makut to the horses, but Deathstalker has escaped. Learning that he is up against Deathstalker, Troxartes uses his power to awaken all the dead foes he defeated to catch the “legend.” Elizena's guards were killed by Makut after he thought they were aiding Deathstalker. She accidentally meets Deathstalker who is camping in the woods. In the morning she leaves and is found by Troxartes who takes her back to his castle as his bride. Deathstalker trails them and infiltrates the castle by night, but is found by Troxartes himself who asks for the stone until Deathstalker is knocked unconscious and the stone retrieved. Troxartes figures out there is actually a third stone needed to harness the power so he puts his mistress to torture Deathstalker for the knowledge, but he escapes and ties her up. Heading for the stones, Nicias unknowingly teleports right near Troxartes in the castle who jovially captures him and intends to put him in his army if his magic cannot find the third stone. In the woods at night, Deathstalker finds Marinda and runs into a few of the undead warriors near a camp fire recognizing Gragas who was killed in a fair fight between Deathstalker earlier. They are forced to do Troxartes's bidding because their souls are kept secure in jars so Deathstalker makes a deal to get the jars if they will help him against Troxartes. He also tells Marinda to go alert the northern band to come help in the fight against the castle. Elizena learns she is just being kept alive until the third stone is found so she leads Deathstalker to where Nicias is being kept. The third stone is accidentally discovered to have been hidden in the castle all along. The northern band arrives and the souls are released by Deathstalker so the undead warriors turn on Troxartes and his band. In the ensuing battle, Makut is killed by an arrow during a duel between Deathstalker. Troxartes kills Marinda and is then killed by Deathstalker during the fight. The three stones are united at last and it reveals the secret city of Arandor and peace is brought to the land. Deathstalker rides off into the sunset for further adventures. ===== 15-year-old Tom is upset after his family move from London to a rural house in Devon, where he misses his friends, and family dynamics are strange. His mother is in the late stages of pregnancy, his father in the home furniture industry. Tom and his 18-year-old sister Jessie are unusually close to each other and everyone helps Mum during her pregnancy. One night, Mum goes into labour and the whole family is driven to the hospital by Dad. The car crashes, but nobody is badly injured and a baby girl is born while Mum is trapped in the car. They all go to the hospital to get stitched up and they see Mum and the baby happy. Later, while coming home from shopping with Mum, Tom complains he doesn't know anybody, but she assures him he will make friends. When they arrive home, Tom enters the house through the backdoor and something catches his attention. Tom confronts Jessie and asks about what he saw: Dad and Jessie, naked in a bathtub together. Jessie acts as if nothing happened, but he is adamant about what he witnessed. The family go out to the pub, and Jessie introduces Tom to her boyfriend, Nick, who drives Jessie and Tom down to the beach. They engage in awkward conversation, and Jessie and Nick disappear, leaving Tom alone by the fire. The parents are furious with them for staying out all night without telling them and Dad has to be restrained by Mum from harming Jessie. Later, Tom tells Jessie that he suspects that her and Dad's behaviour has been ongoing. Jessie neither confirms nor denies this, causing Tom to lash out in anger. Later on, Dad tells them he is going for a run. Full of suspicion and armed with a video camera, Tom follows Dad and Jessie into an old war bunker near the beach. Filming through a hole in the wall, he witnesses Dad sodomizing Jessie against her will. Tom walks off and, devastated, throws the camera into the sea. Tom accuses Jessie of being sick because of her actions with their father. Jessie lets him burn her breast with a lighter to make him feel better, but this satisfies neither and he tells her it must stop. Later she takes Tom on a trip to London to see a girlfriend, Carol, who attempts to seduce him at Jessie's behest, but stops when she walks in on them. One night, Tom is woken up by Mum, who tells him they must urgently go to the hospital because the baby is unwell. At the hospital, Jessie drives Tom home, leaving Dad with Mum and the baby. They see Lucy when they get home, and she offers Jessie comfort if she needs it. Lucy appears to know something we do not. Tom decides later to cycle back to the hospital. When there he sees baby Alice, and when mum comes in and they see she was bleeding in her nappy. He tells Mum never to let Dad near the baby and not to trust him, but leaves before she can respond. When Tom returns home, Dad tells him that Mum called from the hospital and confronts him, saying he's lying, and Tom says he is telling the truth, whereupon Dad attacks him physically, saying that Tom is breaking up the family and that he will put Tom in care. Jessie is crying throughout, arms over her head covering her ears. Dad then leaves to try to go and see Mum. Tom and Jessie lie next to each other in bed and Jessie thanks him for standing up to Dad. Tom and Jessie enter Dad's room after he returns. He continues to deny his behaviour and claims that Tom is making things up because he misses London, is unhappy, and is putting ideas into Jessie's head. Jessie backs Tom up, but is upset by Dad's continued gaslighting. As Dad blusters, Tom realises that he will not change. He stabs Dad in the stomach with a kitchen knife. Dad screams in pain on the floor. Tom and Jessie watch him gasping and bleeding on the floor and then Tom runs from the house to go to the bunker. Jessie follows him there and comforts him silently. Tom asks what they will do now. He walks over and closes the door to the bunker. ===== In New York City, 1934, jazz singer Dot Clark and her shady gangster boyfriend, Louie The Lug ("An Earful of Music"), are introduced. After having an affair with the deceased Professor Edward Wilson, Dot is now technically his common-law wife and heiress to $77 million. She has to go to Egypt to claim the money, and sets off with Louie in hopes of getting the cash. Former assistant to Edward Wilson, Gerald Lane, informs the law offices of Benton, Loring, and Slade of Professor Wilson's death and the fact that Edward's son, Eddie Wilson, Jr, is the rightful heir to the money. Mr. Slade, the lawyer, goes to a barge in Brooklyn where Eddie is living with his adopted father, Pops, an old stevedore, and his three sons, Oscar, Adolph, and Herman, who roughhouse Eddie. However, Eddie is managing to live a nice life nonetheless, with his girlfriend, Nora 'Toots', and his care for all the kids on the barge. He dreams of the day when he will have enough money to live his own life outside of the dirty barge ("When My Ship Comes In"). Moments later, Eddie is informed that he has inherited the $77 million and boards a ship bound for Egypt to claim the money. Aboard the ship is Colonel Henry Larrabee, a gentleman from Virginia who sponsored Eddie, Sr's exploration endeavors and wants a share of the money, as well. Eddie befriends his beautiful niece, Joan, and Dot and Louie realize that they are not the only ones traveling to Egypt. In an elaborate scheme to trick Eddie into signing over the inheritance, Dot disguises herself as Eddie's mother and almost succeeds in duping him, but Louie ruins the plan at the last minute. Meanwhile, Gerald Lane has boarded the ship and he is revealed to be in love with Joan Larrabee. In the ship's bar, the Colonel, Gerald, and Louie realize they are all traveling for the same reason, and Gerald calls Colonel Larrabee a liar. Joan overhears and becomes angry with him, much to Jerry's dismay. Louie tries to get Eddie to hand over the cash by trying to bump him off by pushing him off the ship's deck in a wheelchair. The duo thinks they have succeeded in getting rid of Eddie, but they are foiled again. Eddie tries to help Jerry win back Joan, and suggests they rehearse a number for the ship's concert the next evening. They rehearse ("Your Head On My Shoulder"), but Joan is still frosty toward him. At the ship's concert, Jerry, Eddie, Dot, Joan, and members of the chorus perform a big minstrel show number featuring a specialty tap by the Nicholas Brothers ("Mandy N' Me"). The ship lands in Alexandria, Egypt, and Joan is still angry with Jerry. Eddie, still convinced that Dot is his mother and Louie is his uncle, wants to see a magician performing at the ship's port. When the magician taunts Louie and calls him a coward, Louie gets in the magic basket and ends up getting beaten by Egyptian slaves. Eddie chases a little dog running through the marketplace and lands literally in the lap of the sheikh's daughter, Princess Fanya, who falls instantly in love with Eddie. She forces him to come with her back to the palace, where Eddie meets her father, Sheikh Mulhulla, and her fiancé, Ben Ali, who is extremely jealous. Fanya hyperbolizes the encounter with the dog, saying that Eddie saved her from a lion's attack instead of a puppy. Eddie then is invited to stay at the palace, much to Fanya's delight. However, soon Sheikh Mulhulla learns of the Americans being in Egypt who have come to take the $77 million treasure that he believes is rightfully his. He tells Eddie about this and Eddie begins to worry about his mother and his uncle, along with the others. In a comical scene, the sheikh and Eddie smoke a hookah pipe and the sheikh tells him of the affair he is having with a famous dancer who lives in the village. The harem women try to seduce Eddie, but he is steadfast to remain faithful to Nora 'Toots' ("Okay Toots"). Princess Fanya has a plot to get Eddie to marry her, and she tells her father that Eddie kissed her on the camel when they first met. The sheikh then decrees that Eddie must marry Fanya or die, and has him suspended over a large bowl of soup. Eddie then agrees to marry Fanya, and is kept in a room on a dog collar until the next morning, when Ben Ali comes in with a gun in a jealous rage. Eddie convinces Ben Ali that he does not want to marry Fanya, and Ben Ali is convinced and lets him go. However, Joan, Jerry, the Colonel, Dot, and Louie arrive at the palace and are immediately accosted by the guards. In the tomb, Eddie and the men disguise themselves as the spirits of the sheikh's ancestors and tell him to let the Americans go free. The sheikh is so scared by the prophecies, he agrees to let them go on one condition: Eddie will never be able to see Fanya ever again. He agrees and boards a plane home to New York City, where he uses the inheritance to open a free ice cream factory with Toots, thus realizing their lifelong dream ("Ice Cream Fantasy Finale").Green, Stanley (1999) Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.), pub. Hal Leonard Corporation page 37 ===== The episode opens with a rendition of the now-familiar Blackadder theme, followed by an on-screen narrative text: The action opens with Prince Harry, the King, and the Queen discussing the war with the Spanish. They hope it will soon be over so they can fight the French. The Queen is in high spirits, as it is her birthday and she has been given the county of Shropshire as a present. Prince Edmund, Duke of York is in his chambers with his servants Percy and Baldrick. He is clearly unhappy about the task he has been given, which is to arrange the festivities for both the Queen's birthday and the return of the Scottish hero Dougal McAngus to the court. He refers to his brother Henry as ‘the bastard’. Baldrick points out that if Henry actually was a bastard, Edmund would one day be King. When he finds out that the eunuchs scheduled to appear have cancelled, Edmund decides to have them executed. (‘This is a Royal command performance – there are only two options. Either you do it, or you don't do it. If you do it, you don't get paid. If you don't do it, you get beheaded.’) Later, at a presentation in the great hall, the King gives McAngus all Edmund's lands in Scotland. Edmund is furious, and he, Percy and Baldrick plot to kill McAngus. Percy warns that the King will cut Edmund off if he thinks he has deliberately killed McAngus, so they agree to make it look like an accident. Baldrick suggests putting McAngus's head in the mouth of a cannon and firing it, but Edmund dismisses this as feeble. Looking for the Scot, Edmund overhears him telling the Queen that his father sends her his regards. Edmund invites McAngus to act as the Scotsman in the play "The Death of the Scotsman", to be performed for the Queen's birthday. Later, as Edmund is about to start the play, he discovers that McAngus is drunk. Percy and Baldrick begin the play, and are later joined by Edmund and McAngus. In the play, McAngus insults the Queen, then stabs Edmund with a fake telescopic sword. He is sentenced to be hanged from the gallows. Leaving the stage, Edmund instructs Percy and Baldrick to remove the safety hook from the gallows, and warns them that whatever happens, if the Scotsman lives, they will die. Off-stage, McAngus tells Edmund about hidden love letters from the Queen to McAngus' father, casting doubts on the lineage of Prince Henry. McAngus is back on stage about to be hanged, before Edmund realises he needs him alive to show him the letters. He tries to stop the hanging from off-stage by cutting the noose with a spear, but it fails, so in a last-ditch attempt, he throws a sheet over his head, and enters the stage as the ghost of the Prince. He pleads mercy for the Scotsman, but Percy and Baldrick, mindful of his previous threat, are determined to carry out the execution. A comic fight sequence ensues, which ends with Edmund inadvertently hanging McAngus himself, but then holding him up to stop him choking. A gleeful Edmund is shown the love letters that his mother wrote. He instructs Baldrick to have the court assembled in the morning, where he reveals the content of the letters which are dated November and December 1526. He begins to falter as he realises that this was nine months after Henry's birth, but nine months before his own; it is he who is illegitimate, not Henry. Edmund tries to pretend that McAngus has forged the letters, and challenges him to a duel to the death. Edmund instructs Baldrick to get the fake telescopic sword for McAngus, but Percy gives Edmund the fake instead. There is a big fight, which culminates in Edmund stabbing McAngus with the fake sword. On finding out that Edmund tried to set him up with the fake sword, McAngus is furious and is about to kill Edmund. When the King begs him for clemency, McAngus agrees, but only if Edmund begs for mercy. Later, the King, Queen and Henry discuss the letters, which apparently turned out to be French forgeries. Edmund and McAngus are now supposed to be the best of friends. However, up on the tower, McAngus is peering down the barrel of a large cannon, at Edmund's request. Back in the King's chambers, a loud bang is heard. Edmund rushes in to announce that there has been a ‘terrible accident’. The final shot is of the family coat of arms, inscribed with the motto: Veni Vidi Castratavi Illegitimos (‘I came, I saw, I castrated the bastards’). ===== French Colonel Philippe Leroux and Captain Paul Delmas are fleeing from the King's German Legion toward Sharpe's Light Company. Leroux has extracted the identity of El Mirador, Britain's most important spy in Spain, from a priest he tortured. Leroux kills Delmas and assumes his identity and then allows himself to be captured by Sharpe and his men, knowing that the British would never exchange an imperial colonel. Sharp covets Leroux's sword, a finely crafted, superbly balanced Klingenthal sabre. As Captain Delmas, Leroux gives his parole to Major Joseph Forrest. Whilst he is being escorted back to Wellington's headquarters, he kills his escort, Ensign MacDonald, and escapes on horseback towards Salamanca. Lieutenant Colonel Windham pursues Leroux on horseback, but Leroux kills him. He gains sanctuary in one of the three French-controlled forts outside Salamanca, after Father Curtis protects him from the Salamancan populace. Sharpe confronts Curtis who explains that the Frenchman is in fact Leroux, and that he was protecting the city's population against Leroux's revenge if the city were to be recaptured by the French. Sharpe takes an instant dislike to Curtis, whom he thinks is sympathetic to the French. In Salamanca, Sharpe is introduced to the breathtakingly beautiful Hélène, la Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba, and to Captain Lord Jack Spears. Wellington's army arrives at Salamanca as part of their manoeuvring with Marshal Marmont's French army. Major Michael Hogan is both disturbed and relieved when Sharpe gives him a list Leroux dropped; the list was stolen from Hogan and contains the names of many of Hogan's spies. Many of them have recently been tortured and killed by Leroux. Frustrated at his inability to bring Marmont to battle on his terms, Wellington finally sends two battalions, including the South Essex, against three French battalions in an effort to provoke Marmont, but Marmont does not rise to the bait. Following the battle, Wellington places Sharpe and the Light Company under Hogan's command (as he and his men can identify Leroux) to ensure Leroux does not escape from the French forts. The Sixth Division attempts to storm the forts by surprise, but the French have been tipped off and slaughter the attackers. Sharpe is invited to a party by La Marquesa, which had been planned to celebrate the attack's success, but decides not to attend. Nevertheless Lord Spears later persuades him to go. As he prepares to leave the party, one of the servants takes him to a private garden for a private meeting with La Marquesa. She obliquely claims to be El Mirador, and begs Sharpe to protect her from Leroux. They become lovers (her fat old husband being away suppressing a revolt in Brazil); after a while, she tells him her first name is Helena. After several days, the forts are assaulted again and quickly surrender. Sharpe and his men search the French prisoners several times, but cannot find Leroux. After searching the wounded, Sharpe allows them to be taken to the hospital in Salamanca. After Harper discovers a disemboweled French soldier who does not appear to have a full complement of intestines, Sharpe realises that Leroux has disguised himself as a French soldier with a severe stomach wound. Leaving his jacket behind (he had taken it off due to the heat), Sharpe and Harper race to the hospital, disrupting Leroux's rendezvous with a confederate who has brought a horse for him. Whilst searching the hospital, Harper discovers Leroux and a struggle ensues. Harper ends up being pushed down a staircase and knocked unconscious. Sharpe comes running and engages in a sword duel with Leroux until the blade of Sharpe's sabre is shattered. Before Leroux can kill Sharpe, a sentry comes to Sharpe's aid, and Leroux flees. Both the sentry and Sharpe fire at, but miss Leroux. Leroux shoots Sharpe in the stomach. The Light Company eventually realise that Sharpe and Harper are missing and Major Hogan is alerted. A search of the hospital finds Harper still unconscious, but Sharpe cannot be found amongst the living nor the British or French dead. When his discarded trousers are found, he is believed to have been mistaken for a dead French soldier and already buried in a mass grave. In fact, he has been taken to the death ward run by Sergeant Connolley in the dank basement. Sharpe, unrecognised, drifts in and out of consciousness, but refuses to die from a wound that is almost always fatal. After Hogan rescues Harper from provosts, the pair resume the search. They finally find Sharpe, but he is barely clinging to life. While the army moves on, Harper and Isabella (the peasant girl Harper rescued in the Battle of Badajoz) minister to Sharpe's needs. In the meantime, Hogan has assigned Lord Spears and some men to discreetly guard El Mirador. With time on his hands, Harper buys a sword and spends many hours improving it. Isabella tells him that not only has Sharpe turned the corner and is on the road to full recovery, but La Marquesa is going to have all three of them stay in one of her houses by the river. Sharpe is visited by Lord Spears and suggests that Lord Spears is protecting El Mirador. Sharpe's knowledge of this surprises Spears and makes him uncomfortable but he nevertheless confirms Sharpe's hunch. As Sharpe recuperates, Harper, now recovered and confident of Sharpe's progress, returns to the Light Company. A month later, Hogan sends Sharpe a letter telling him that the French will soon be returning to Salamanca and that he must pack and leave. That evening, Father Curtis returns Sharpe's stolen rifle. Curtis tells Sharpe that one of his correspondents in Paris has discovered that Leroux has a multi-lingual sister named Hélène. Curtis believes that this must be La Marquesa. Hogan does as well, and asks Sharpe to feed her false information that Wellington intends to speedily retreat to Portugal, while remaining with one division as rearguard to fool the French into believing otherwise. Sharpe realises that Curtis is El Mirador, not La Marquesa. Whilst hoping that she is not a French spy, he does deceive her later that evening. Sharpe, still not fully healed, rejoins Wellington's army, riding on a horse that was a gift from La Marquesa. Marmont, suspecting already that Wellington is racing for the border, has these suspicions confirmed by a message from La Marquesa and he sends his army in pursuit, enabling Wellington to spring his trap, and the Battle of Salamanca ensues. The French left is destroyed by a British cavalry charge. Marmont and his deputy are both injured, so General Clausel assumes command. The British Fourth Division (including the South Essex) attack the French centre, but are repulsed by a French counterattack by Clausel's reserves. Sharpe seeing the South Essex being pushed back and realising that they need to stay firm in order to channel the French columns into a killing ground for the Sixth Division, cannot resist joining the battle. He rides to the wavering Light Company. The Company, back under Sharpe's firm hand, stand their ground, and the French column is crushed. The French withdraw under the protection of their still undefeated right, hoping to cross the bridge at Alba de Tormes and thus escape. Wellington is delighted, believing that a Spanish garrison holds the bridge and that the French are trapped. Unbeknownst to him, however, the Spanish garrison has fled, believing that the British have been defeated, and the French retreat proceeds unopposed. Lord Spears conducts a solo charge against the fleeing French and is fatally shot. Sharpe comes to his aid. Spears is dying and he wants Sharpe to tell his sister that he died honourably and he tells Sharpe that he wants to die because he has the Black Lion (syphilis), which results in an ugly death. He tells Sharpe that he knew that Hélène was a French spy and that he had told Hogan this some time ago. Sharpe realises that he is lying and suspects that he is the traitor in the British headquarters who stole Hogan's list. He threatens to kill Spears by stabbing him in the back (which would make it seem like he was killed whilst running away). Spears relents and confesses. He had not sold out Curtis because Leroux already knew. but he did give Leroux the book in which Curtis had written down the details of all the agents in his network. Spears had been hoping that in exchange Leroux would give him a night with his sister, but instead, he gave him back his parole and promised to provide his sister with a dowry when he returned to Paris. Then, at Spears' own request, Sharpe shoots him in the head. He reports to Hogan that Leroux has Curtis's book. Sharpe, Harper and Hogan pursue the retreating French through the night in an effort to intercept Leroux. In the morning, they catch up to him, but he is able to outrun them and gains the protection of one of three French infantry squares. The French infantry subsequently ambush a British/King's German Legion cavalry charge against the French cavalry. Against extremely heavy odds, the enraged cavalry succeed in breaking the squares, although with heavy casualties. Sharpe corners Leroux. Leroux shoots at him, missing Sharpe but killing his horse. Sharpe shoots Leroux, wounding him in the leg and causing him to be thrown from his horse. Leroux refuses to fight, preferring to surrender. Sharpe forces him to fight, threatening to kill him anyway if he does not. In the ensuing sword duel, Sharpe kills Leroux and recovers Leroux's sabre and the coded book. La Marquesa is allowed to leave Salamanca, since it is not in the British interest to create a scandal involving a high-ranking Spanish aristocrat. She encounters Sharpe, and is not particularly upset when she learns that Sharpe killed her brother. Sharpe chooses to keep Harper's present, feeling it is lucky, and throws the Klingenthal into the river. ===== The film opens with a young boy running to meet his grandfather (played by Yune), who lies dying on his bed. The young boy sadly explains that he could not find the medicine required to cure his grandfather's ailment and wonders aloud who will take care of him after his grandfather dies. His dying grandfather attempts to reassure the young boy, and explains that he should go to America. He further explains that when he was younger and working as a merchant marine, he met "the most beautiful girl" in America, and tells the young boy that if he goes there, she will take very good care of him. As the young boy is asking how to find her, his grandfather dies and the film fades to black. When it fades back in, quite some time has passed and the young boy, who is now an adult, has arrived in America and has begun working as a chef, catering to some gangsters in California. The gangsters, who call the man "Bruce" for his resemblance to the famed martial artist, Bruce Lee, are having trouble keeping their "boss of bosses" happy, and are trying to come up with the perfect solution to distributing cocaine to all of their clients throughout the United States. Some previous attempts at moving the drug have resulted in busts, and the boss of bosses is not happy. Through a series of misunderstandings, Bruce makes it into the local newspaper as a hero, having thwarted an attempted robbery at the local market. Bruce's boss, Lil Pete, sees the newspaper and quickly devises a plan putting Bruce in control of moving the cocaine across the country, using Freddy, a stooge associated with the drug lords, as Bruce's limousine chauffeur. He convinces Bruce (who already wants to go to New York City to find the lady his grandfather spoke of) that he should drive to New York, not fly, as flying would rob him of seeing the beautiful countryside. Bruce agrees and the rest of the movie follows an unknowing Bruce delivering what he thinks to be flour to associates of the gangsters across the country, and the interactions he has with the people on this trip. ===== The film deals with the myriad complications arising from Venla's (Minna Haapkylä) desire to have a child. Her longtime boyfriend Antero (Kari-Pekka Toivonen) is reluctant, fearing that fatherhood will imperil his last chance to succeed in his speed skating career and by seeing his friend go through fatherhood. Antero does some extreme things to avoid getting Venla pregnant and she begins to be equally devious in her attempts to conceive. Venla seeks help from her bisexual co-worker at a fertility clinic and the relationship between the two begins to blossom amongst many setbacks. ===== The film is divided into five unrelated segments with the mirror on an antique dressing table serving as the plot device. The first segment is set in a brothel in 16th-century China. A courtesan is murdered and her blood spills onto the mirror on her dressing table. The second segment is set in Shanghai in 1922. Mary, an heiress to a large mansion, receives an antique dressing table as a birthday gift. She notices that there is something strange about the mirror and starts receiving eerie phone calls reminding her about her dark secrets in the past. She had an affair with a professor who already had a family. In order to silence him and take over his mansion, she poisoned him to death. One night, her two servants confront her, tell her that they are actually the professor's daughters, and avenge their father. The third segment is set in Singapore in 1988 during the Ghost Festival. James, a lawyer, has a one-night stand with Lora and tries to get away in the morning but her burly brother, Roman, stops him and forces him to marry Lora. Lora moves into James's house and brings along an antique dressing table that she inherited from her deceased parents. One day, a woman approaches James and offers him a million dollars to defend her son, who has been accused of raping a lady and murdering her boyfriend. Overcome by greed, James ignores his conscience, defends the accused in court, and wins the case. James gets into a car accident later and his face is injured so badly that he has to undergo reconstructive surgery. When the bandages are removed, James is horrified to see that he now looks exactly like the rape victim's deceased boyfriend. The fourth segment is set in Hong Kong in 1999. An old woman and her granddaughter Yu are waiting for the latter's cousin Ming to come home from his overseas studies. When Ming returns, he brings along his girlfriend, Judy, and announces his decision to marry her. Yu becomes very jealous because she is in love with Ming. One day, Ming and Judy purchase an antique dressing table from a shop and bring it home. Yu finds the mirror very weird and starts feeling uneasy. Judy's pet puppy also keeps barking at her. One night, the puppy is brutally killed, and Ming's grandmother goes missing on the following night. Ming's grandmother is eventually found dead with her body dismembered. Yu is blamed for the murder and gets arrested by the police. Later, Ming brings Judy to the mirror and tells her that he knows she murdered his grandmother so that she could inherit his grandmother's fortune. Judy reveals her true colours and tries to kill Ming but misses her step and ends up impaling herself on a pair of scissors stuck to the dressing table. The fifth segment is set in Taiwan in 2000. A woman approaches the antique dressing table and sees her eyeballs falling out from their sockets in her reflection in the mirror. ===== Humanity is at war with a strange alien species known as the Krool. Young soldier Danny Franks is fighting on the planet Ararat, recruited by the renegades known as Bad Company after the destruction of his own platoon. As their name might suggest this is no ordinary group of soldiers; instead they are a collection of freaks and maniacs led by Kano, a Frankenstein's Monster-like character with a secret kept in a little box. ===== Eddie Jilette is a Chicago cop on the vengeance trail as he follows his partner's killers to New Orleans to settle his own personal score. Eddie flees through the Louisiana bayous with Michel Duval, the beautiful Cajun mistress of a murderous crime lord who aims to destroy the Chicago detective before he can avenge his partner's murder. Michel and Eddie fall for each other, although they clash repeatedly while handcuffed together as they attempt to elude the brutal underworld figure and his henchmen. ===== A group of journalists are investigating a highly secret document when they uncover a sensational story: that before the Second World War, in 1938, the first rocket was made in the USSR and Soviet scientists were planning to send an orbiter to the Moon and back. The evidence is convincing; it is clear that in this case, Soviet crewed lunar program cosmonauts were first. The movie follows the selection and training of a small group of cosmonauts. The one who shines above the others (similar to the clear front- runners in the early historical Soviet space program) is Captain Ivan Sergeyevich Kharlamov (possibly a reference to the real-life cosmonaut Valentin Varlamov). He is helped into a space suit and loaded into the capsule, and the rocket lifts off for the Moon—but contact with it is soon lost. Most of the remainder of the film seems to follow the search for information about what happened next, as the 1930s space program appears to have dissolved immediately after, with no reason given (but presumably as a part of Stalin's purges). It is implied that Kharlamov returned to Earth, but with no fanfare and apparently no assistance from the space program. A number of men are shown as suspected of being Kharlamov—the NKVD seems to be conducting a criminal investigation of the program and it is implied that those involved, including Kharlamov himself, are in hiding. It seems that the capsule returned to Earth and landed in Chile, and that Kharlamov journeyed to the Russian Far East by way of Polynesia and China, yet feared capture on his return. His wife apparently covered for him when interrogated as to his whereabouts. Kharlamov is later found on the Mongolian steppes following the Battles of Khalkhin Gol, having suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. After undergoing psychiatric treatment in a sanitorium in Chita, he disappears. His wife later remarries. The very end of the movie shows the only footage of the mission itself after launch, explaining it as a film which was found at the landing site in Chile and is currently in the possession of the Antofagasta Natural museum. First there is a brief clip showing Kharlamov piloting the vehicle, presumably on final approach to the Moon. Following that is an equally brief panorama of a lunar landscape with the capsule or lander (it's unclear whether this was a direct ascent Moon landing) resting on the surface, apparently taken by Kharlamov during lunar EVA. Both scenes are shown as stills on the movie's cover. Then there is a short clip of the other cosmonauts walking through a hangar with the 1930s space program director, and the credits roll. ===== Thelma Jordon shows up late one night in the office of the district attorney to report a series of attempted burglaries at her Aunt Vera's home. The district attorney is out but she meets the assistant district attorney, Cleve Marshall, a married man, who would rather get drunk than go home. He asks her to join him for a drink and she agrees. Before Cleve can stop himself, he and Thelma are involved in a love affair. But Thelma is a mysterious woman, and Cleve can't help wondering if she is hiding something. When her rich aunt is found shot to death, Thelma calls Cleve rather than the police, and he helps her cover up evidence that may incriminate her, but he believes her story that an intruder killed the aunt. When the district attorney arrests Thelma as the prime suspect, Cleve is in a unique position to help her due to his job. He arranges to prosecute the case and persuades the jury that a "reasonable doubt" exists due to evidence of an elusive "Mr X" (which he believes is Thelma's estranged husband). Thelma is acquitted. Her past, however, has begun to catch up with her. Tony, her husband, materialises again. She tells him she has successfully manipulated Cleve. She does not love him but he loves her. Their conversation reveals that it was Tony who conceived the scheme for Thelma to commit the murder and inherit Vera's jewels and money. Cleve comes to the house and Thelma acknowledges that there is a relationship with Tony. Tony hits Cleve over the head and knocks him out so the two can escape. Unable to deal with her guilty conscience, Thelma causes a car accident that results in her accomplice's death and her own fatal injury. As she lays dying, she confesses the truth to the district attorney. However, she does not incriminate Cleve, saying she cannot reveal his name because she loves him. The district attorney tells Cleve that he will be disbarred for his actions, and he knows he will also get divorced, but he walks away a free man. ===== Two years after the events of the first film, Nick Persons (Ice Cube) has married Suzanne (Nia Long) and moved her children, Kevin (Philip Daniel Bolden), and Lindsey (Aleisha Allen) into his apartment, as well as purchasing a 2007 Cadillac Escalade after he accidentally burnt up his Lincoln Navigator SUV. He has also sold his sports memorabilia store to his friend, Marty. The family has also bought a Berger Picard pet dog and named it Coco. Kevin and Lindsey have both matured since the previous film. While getting ready for an interview with Magic Johnson to launch a sports magazine, Suzanne tells Nick that she is pregnant and they later find out that they will be having twins. Needing more space, Suzanne and Nick go check out a house in the suburbs. They meet Chuck Mitchell Jr. (John C. McGinley), a local real estate agent/contractor, and after some talking, Nick decides to buy the house. The family then packs up their things and moves into the house, with Lindsey and Kevin (mostly the former) being against the move. However, as it turns out, Nick failed to get the house inspected first, and they soon find a mold infestation. While trying to resolve the mold issue, Chuck discovers even more problems with the house, and Nick becomes angry with him as he almost destroys it trying to fix them all. Meanwhile, Lindsey sneaks out to go to a party with Chuck’s teenage employees, and when Nick finds out, he grounds her. Nick finally decides to fire Chuck, which causes all those working on the house to quit out of loyalty to Chuck, and Suzanne to take the kids and move into the guest house. After taking some time to think, Nick decides to fix the house on his own and also to apologize to Chuck, especially when he was told that his wife, a famous country singer, died a few years ago. Chuck responds by bringing his friends back to help. When Suzanne goes into labor, with the hospital half-an-hour away, Nick, Kevin, and Lindsey have to deliver the babies. Chuck tries to get there, but his truck breaks down and he is forced to power walk down to the house. While she's still in labor, Nick gets a call from Magic Johnson. After Suzanne gives birth to identical twin boys, the movie ends six months later with a big BBQ in their backyard, at which Nick debuts his new magazine titled Are We Done Yet?, based on his experience building the house. ===== Peter P. Peters (Fred Astaire), an American ballet dancer billed as "Petrov", dances for a ballet company in Paris owned by the bumbling Jeffrey Baird (Edward Everett Horton). Peters secretly wants to blend classical ballet with modern jazz dancing, and when he sees a photo of famous tap dancer Linda Keene (Ginger Rogers), he falls in love with her. He contrives to meet her, but she is less than impressed. They meet again on an ocean liner traveling back to New York, and Linda warms to Petrov. Unknown to them, a plot is launched as a publicity stunt "proving" that they are actually married. Outraged, Linda becomes engaged to the bumbling Jim Montgomery (William Brisbane), much to the chagrin of both Peters and Arthur Miller (Jerome Cowan), her manager, who secretly launches more fake publicity. Peters and Keene, unable to squelch the rumor, decide to actually marry and then immediately get divorced. Linda begins to fall in love with her husband, but then discovers him with another woman, Lady Denise Tarrington (Ketti Gallian), and leaves before he can explain. Later, when she comes to his new show to personally serve him divorce papers, she sees him dancing with dozens of women, all wearing masks with her face on them: Peters has decided that if he cannot dance with Linda, he will dance with images of Linda. Seeing that he truly loves her, she happily joins him onstage. ===== In an Italian neighborhood of Greenwich Village, cousins Charlie (Rourke), a maître d'hôtel with aspirations of someday owning his own restaurant, and Paulie (Roberts), a schemer who works as a waiter, have expensive tastes but not much money. Paulie gets caught skimming checks, and he and Charlie are both fired. Now out of work and in debt, Charlie must find another way to pay his alimony, support his pregnant girlfriend Diane (Hannah), and try to buy a restaurant. Paulie comes to Charlie with a "can't-miss" robbery, involving a large amount of cash in the safe of a local business. Charlie reluctantly agrees to participate, and they manage to crack the safe with help from an accomplice, Barney (McMillan), a clock repairman and locksmith. But things go sour, resulting in the accidental death of police officer Walter "Bunky" Ritter, who had been secretly taping "Bed Bug" Eddie Grant (Young). Charlie soon learns that the money they stole belongs to Eddie. The mob figures out that Paulie is involved, and not even his Uncle Pete, part of Eddie's crew, can help him. Eddie's henchmen cut off Paulie's left thumb as punishment. Diane leaves Charlie and takes his money to support their unborn child, while Paulie is forced to work as a waiter for Eddie. He gives the mob Barney's name but initially refuses to identify Charlie as the third man involved. However, under pressure, he is forced to rat on his cousin. Barney leaves town and Charlie mails him his cut of the loot. And when Charlie makes $20,000 on a horse, things begin to look up. Charlie prepares for a showdown with Eddie, armed with a copy of the tape that the police officer made. But at the last moment, Paulie puts lye in Eddie's coffee. Then he and Charlie casually walk away from Greenwich Village. ===== Mike Pillsbury is a teenage boy who believes that he is an alien and does not belong on Earth. Mike is injured during a football game and sees an alien as part of a hallucination. Mike wonders if football is the right sport for him, but his father, a former football player, insists he stick with the sport. Mike is surprised when Katelyn Sandman, a popular girl at school, requests his help decorating the school for an upcoming Halloween dance party. Mike's foe, Scott Schriebner, who is a player on Mike's football team and a friend of Katelyn, sabotages the light and music equipment during the Halloween party. Mike, upset about the party, leaves and uses a satellite dish to send a message to outer space asking to be rescued. Lightning subsequently destroys the satellite dish. The next day, an alien dog named Barnabus appears, with the ability to speak through a translating device. Barnabus explains that because of Mike, the stargate door has been opened. Barnabus tells Mike that he represents a galactic organization specializing in disaster relief and rights violations, and that he has arrived to answer Mike's plea to be taken off the planet. Barnabus explains that time is limited, as other aliens with ulterior motives are traveling through the stargate to find Mike. Mike, who believes he is hallucinating, later meets The Bom, an alien lawyer insistent on having Mike sue Earth for millions of galactic credits for pain and suffering due to the planet's substandard living conditions. During a telephone conversation with Katelyn, Mike is disgusted by The Bom's way of consuming food, leading Katelyn to believe that Mike is distracted and not listening to her. The Bom angrily leaves after Mike refuses to sue. Mike's friend Nick believes that Mike is going crazy after being told about the aliens. When Barnabus is informed of The Bom's visit, he tells Mike that he opened a can of worms by sending his message, as it signaled to the universe that Earth has advanced to a certain technological level. Because of this, Barnabus says Earth is no longer eligible for intergalactic protection for primitive life. Mike accepts Barnabus' offer to take him to a place where he can be alone, but first tries to make amends with Katelyn. However, the Loafer Alien arrives and prevents Mike from meeting with Katelyn, who believes he has rudely ignored her after insisting that they talk. The alien proposes becoming Mike's agent, representing him throughout the galaxy and eventually having him star in a weekly television show about his life as an immigrant. Mike declines the offer. Nick is stunned when multiple aliens arrive with various offers for Mike. Katelyn visits Mike's house and becomes aware of the aliens. Mike prepares to make a deal with one of the aliens to be taken off the planet, but the aliens retreat as a Thoad – a dangerous alien that enjoys capturing rare specimens – approaches. Nick's young brother Jay unexpectedly arrives and is sucked into the stargate by the Thoad, and taken to the alien's home planet. Barnabus says the Thoad will continue capturing specimens until he finds the perfect one. The children ask Scott to act as bait for the Thoad in order to get through the stargate to the Thoad planet, where the Thoad is safe from intergalactic authorities. Scott is initially skeptical about the children's alien claims, but they convince him that he is the perfect specimen for the job. The stargate opens to pull Scott in, briefly allowing Barnabus and the other children to go through it as well. Barnabus and the three children end up in a cave where the Thoad keeps his zoo of captured species from other planets. Among the specimens is an alien identical to the ones Mike described in his stories, although he is not sure how he could have knowledge of such a creature. The Thoad, in his human form, confronts Barnabus and the children. The Thoad transforms into his frog-like alien form, but is then temporarily contained within a cage. Mike uses the Thoad's key to release the captured specimens, including Scott and Jay. Barnabus and the children return to Earth, but the stargate stays open long enough for the Thoad to follow them. Barnabus contacts the intergalactic police to have the Thoad arrested. At a football game, Barnabus informs Mike that his transmission has been deemed accidental and that Earth is classified again as a protected planet. Though Barnabas offers to take Mike with him, Mike accepts that Earth is his home and says farewell to his friend. ===== In 12th-century China, during Mongol rule, childhood sweethearts Jinha and Sullie are separated but vow to reunite. Orphan Jinha begins training in the Bichun martial arts and discovers his father was a swordsman murdered by the Mongol army. Meanwhile, Sullie's father, a Mongol general, arranges for her to marry a Mongol noble. Believing Jinha to be dead, Sullie marries the noble. Recovering from near-death, Jinha takes on the persona of bandit Jahalang, and begins an anti-Mongol crusade with the help of his army of warriors. Finally Jin-ha and Sullie are re-united, when Jinha's bandit warriors infiltrate Sullie's family manor. ===== A long time ago, Demonyx of the Dark Dimension attempted to invade the Light Dimension. After a long battle, the hero of the Light Dimension, Dragonlord, sealed Demonyx up by the power of the Mandara Talisman, at which time Demonyx prophesied that he would be back upon the appearance of the Red Evil Star. Years later, an ominous red star appeared in the sky. Just then, five shooting lights came down toward the ground. Rick Stalker was brought up by Kung Fu master Gen Lao-Tsu, and is alone in the mountains as usual brushing up on his Kung Fu skills when he comes upon a weeping angel missing her robe. He explores the mountain's caves and ends up encountering a gargoyle who is really a Tusk Soldier in disguise guarding the robe, which is embedded in a rock. Upon the return of her robe, the angel shows Rick a secret passage down the ravine, where he finds a mysterious orb. Rick goes back to tell Gen the whole story. Gen apprises him that this orb is the Orb of Courage, and that Rick should cross the ocean to Gen's mother land China, where his fate is waiting for him. Rick goes to China and enters the Shorin temple, the head temple of Kung-Fu, where he spars with Fusetsu, Ensetsu, and Rakan in three separate chambers. When Ensetsu is defeated by Rick, he gives him the Mirror of Mercury, stating that Rick may be the fighter for whom they have been waiting. In the final chamber, Rakan tells Rick that the Orb of Courage is part of the Mandara Talisman, which was used to seal up Demonyx a long time ago, and that Rick will have to locate all the broken pieces of the Talisman to seal him up again. While sparring with Rick, Rakan teaches him how to awaken his true power and transform into a Flying Warrior capable of utilizing sacred mirrors to block mystic spells and arcane swords to cast them. Upon defeating Rakan, Rick obtains the Sword of Vijaya. The line to GTG's biological weapon research laboratory in Peru was disconnected when the office was covered with a mysterious black fog, which Rakan believes must have something to do with the Dark Dimension. Rakan exhorts Rick to enter in the tournament in Hong Kong that the president of GTG has decided to hold with the intent of deciding on the investigation party. Wandering around in Hong Kong, Rick learns that there is a phantom blocking the entrance to the coliseum who can only be banished with the help of a bracelet that can be bought at Shunran's store for coin that can be obtained by fighting Jiangshi and fire-raining ghouls. But after Rick pays Shunran, she admits to not having it and instead tells him the password that will convince a certain dragon statue to grant it to an honest man. Rick ventures beyond the waterfall in search of the stone dragon, and finds it in a cave inhabited by a gargoyle who is really a Tusk Soldier in disguise guarding the Sword of Kirik. The dragon grants Rick the bracelet, and tells him that he will obtain the Orb of Wisdom from the phantom when he defeats him. Rick goes back and ventures through another cave guarded by a gargoyle who turns is really a Tusk Soldier in disguise and finds and defeats the phantom, gets the Orb, and enters the tournament. He fights Litron the martial artist, Thornram the kickboxer, Shiro the karate fighter, The Mad Ape the wrestler, and Slugger Sam the boxer. Shiro and Slugger Sam are in fact Tusk soldiers, each guarding a dragma. Rick, Mary Lynn, and Hayato Go are declared the winners of the tournament, and thus the members of the investigation party. Once the triad is in airspace over Peru, one of Rick's orbs begins to flash, informing him that his traveling companions are Flying Warriors too. He places the Sword of Vijaya on their foreheads, then the three transform and jump out the plane. They fight their way to the jungle village, where they stumble upon the sole survivor of the first investigation party, Greg Cummings, who tells them that the demon Narga has been revived in the ruins at the entrance to the laboratory and joins their party, turning out to be a flying warrior himself. Pepe, who lives in a hut, tells them that they need to find a stone tablet in the ruins and place it in the statue of Narga so that the entrance to the laboratory can open behind the waterfall. The other villagers inform them that Narga cannot be defeated without the Sword of Kan and the Mirror of Venus, and that Maradora, a thief, is trapped in the ruins. The party fights through more jungle, where they pass a bird who claims to be perched on the Tree of Spirits. Within the ruins, the party finds a talking jar upstairs that turns out to be Maradora, upon whom the spirits cast a spell for stealing their treasures. After bringing him back to the Tree, Rick reminds him of the spell that he needs to cast to turn back into a human. In this way, Rick obtains the Sword of Kan. The party finds the stone tablet deep within the ruins and brings it to the statue of Narga upstairs, which slides over, revealing the Mirror of Venus. They go back to the waterfall, and fight Narga himself at the entrance to the laboratory. Only Rick's Fire Tornado, which the Sword of Kan affords him, is capable of bringing Narga back from hiding in the Dark Field. Defeating Narga, they go on into the laboratory, where they encounter several Tusk Soldiers and the dead body of the director of GTG. Dargon appears and forces Rick to participate in a second martial arts tournament, with more Tusk Soldiers participating, and Dargon himself defending the title. After the tournament, the Moonlight Warriors invite the Flying Warriors to battle them in the Dark Dimension, where they have revived Demonyx. At Peking Restaurant in New York's Chinatown, the Flying Warriors meet the Shadow Cult, who are determined to access and root out the Moonlight Warriors, and pick up its young leader, Jimmy Cutler Jr., who turns out to be the fifth Flying Warrior. Jimmy informs the rest of the party that they will need to go deep within a decaying subway station in order to find the portal to the Dark Dimension. They find the relief key deep within the abandoned subway, and use it to open up the portal to the dark dimension. They fight the Moonlight Warriors, Selenos, Lunatos, Seiros, and Zakros, for deeper access. Because they have through fighting obtained the orbs of Courage, Wisdom, Justice, and Love, as well as the five dragma of the Mandara Talisman, along the way, they are able to fight Demonyx; Jimmy Cutler Jr.'s Meteor Shower is able to force Demonyx to reveal himself; the five Flying Warriors combine to become Dragonlord, and seal Demonyx away until next time; then they head to New York. ===== A reputable judge uncovers a citywide crime syndicate, and is kidnapped. The judge was a friend of Jack's father, so the cop is obligated to send a few hundred men to their graves in order to make things right. Before long, all hell breaks loose, so Jack and his K-9 cohort Shadow must take on a powerful mob in the fight of their lives to break the city’s spiral of betrayal and corruption. In the end, the judge is murdered and although Jack gets the killer, goons of a high-ranking Russian crime lord named Blanchov get the judge's files. Jack's girlfriend Ruby is murdered by Blanchov and although Jack never retrieves the files (they were likely Hennesey's files from the first game), he goes after Blanchov for revenge. Jack kills Blanchov, but gets no satisfaction out of it knowing that Blanchov is just a highly placed puppet that can easily be replaced. Having lost Ruby, Jack has nothing to really live for anymore. Also he claims that who has him Dead to Rights as they got the files and he ended up with nothing. ===== “Ben, you don’t have to be anything or do anything for me. Not ballons, not roses, not phone calls. Nothing” Anna couldn’t bare to see Ben go but she knew it was right for her. She did only have her heart shattered and then stepped on all by Ben. Anna didn’t know what to do, she had to change from staring into Ben’s beautiful eyes to looking at Adams blue star tattoo. Adam was at the wedding with Anna, Ben, Cammie, Dee and Sam. Adam fell in love with Anna at first sight but Anna was with Ben. Cammie, Dee, and Sam were “best friends” but never seemed to tell each other anything about their personal lives and their plans. Cammie who is queen bee with her gorgeous strawberry blonde hair and lovely body shape, couldn’t quite win Ben back, Ben wanted Anna. When Ben and Anna see each other on the boardwalk, Anna is with Adam, Ben is with his cousin who he pretends is his girlfriend to make Anna jealous. But Ben felt like a loser with a broken heart. Anna is able to score another internship but its in the afternoon after school which means she will still have to go to senior year. Susan, Anna’s sister is fresh out of rehab and sober. But we will see how long that lasts. Susan is Susan. Sam and Anna become partners for a school project and head out to the V’s to do some filming. Anna calls up Ben saying she is no longer seeing Adam, except she calls from the Hotel Phone. So Ben heads up to the V’s to try and win Anna back. But it doesn’t happen. Anna is assigned to be Brock Franklin, a writer from New Yorks, friend at the Party. When Anna loses Brock she finds Susan intoxicated with Cammie, and Anna made sure Cammie knew about Susan. Sam saved the day and gave Anna and Susan a ride home without making a big deal. And on Annas way out she finds her boss, Margaret, with Brock who also seems to have a drinking problem. When Anna is to return to work on Monday, she has to face Margaret. Not to mention Cammies dad is the head of the company Annas internship is with, Apex. When Anna is shocked that she still has the job, it means that Margaret is dead to Anna meaning they are not to talk to each other or interact with each other. Sam offers a small getaway to Santa Barbara. When Anna goes for a small run on the beach Ben catches up to her to tell her the truth about what really happened that night. Anna forgives Ben and they redo that night. Category:American young adult novels Category:2004 American novels ===== The novel begins with Ben and Anna in bed at the Montecinto Inn. However, they interrupted by a call from Anna's father who says that Susan is going to back to rehab and wants to say goodbye. Anna considers their farewell to be intimate and is surprised when Ben tags along though she does not voice her displeasure. After Susan boards the plane to her next rehab, Anna must face the consequences of the Steinberg party. Margaret informs Anna that her behavior (abandoning a client in favor of rushing a drunk Susan home) was unacceptable and is about to fire her when Clark Sheppard intervenes. He takes Anna as his intern and gives her the assignment of covering the latest hit TV show Hermosa Beach. Anna meets the young but charming co-executive producer Danny Bluestone who actually dreams of writing the Great American Novel and is appalled by Ben's increasing jealous attitude towards him and Jonathan Percy's driver, Django, who has always been friendly to her. Anna is also worried that Ben is dropping his studies for her and tries to get him to go back to Princeton. Their relationship must come to another end when Ben agrees he must go back to Princeton to finish school and not worry about his family so much. Meanwhile, Cammie feels increasingly deserted by her friends: Dee is enamored with her new boyfriend, Stevie, while Sam seems to be showing interest in Adam Flood. To further her dismay, her step-mother announces that her daughter, Mia, will be moving in. Cammie initially hates Mia, a secretive fourteen-year-old Valley girl, but takes her out shopping in order to not feel alone. After finding out that Sam is no longer interested in Adam, Cammie kisses him at a party but is surprised at the chemistry between them. She not so subtly follows Adam to a Beck concert and the two are invited to a rave by a rapper, Mo Bad. Cammie and Adam kiss again but are interrupted by Dee who nonchalantly mentions she invited Mia along with her as well. Cammie's protective instincts kick in and the three go find Mia at the party and take her home. Cammie reveals to Adam that even though she doesn't like Mia, Mia reminds her a lot of how she acted after her mom died. Cammie also mentions that she wished she had a big sister to keep her from making stupid choices which is what she is going to try to do for Mia. However, the next day, Cammie becomes frustrated at Mia's self- destructive attitude and decides she can't be Mia's rescuer. Meanwhile, Adam tells Cammie that they should slow down their relationship because he still has feelings for Anna. Enraged, Cammie plots to sabotage Anna, who is somewhat enjoying her internship, despite the unfamiliar terms and erratic actors. Soon, it all comes crashing down when Clark accused Anna of leaking sensitive information to the press. He fires her and forbids anyone from work associating with her. Anna tries to explain to Danny her side of the story but he sadly tells her that he can't been seen with her or else his career will go down the drain. Sam makes Anna realize the true culprit and the two plot a plan for justice. In the meantime, Cammie organizes and throws her sweet 18th birthday party on her own (since Sam and Dee have been too busy to help) and is horrified when her credit and debit cards are denied by the party planner. Even worse, her BMW is towed and when she returns home, Clark reveals that he knows Cammie was the true culprit behind the leaked information and is going to be punished for so, thanks to Mia who collaborated with Sam and Anna to clear Anna's name. In the morning, Adam shows up to comfort Cammie and the two go on a quiet date to the park while Clark half-heartedly apologizes to Anna for the mistake and offers her job back. Anna politely declines and then surprises Danny at the office. He leaves work early for her and the two go on a date. Category:2004 American novels Category:American young adult novels Category:Little, Brown and Company books ===== In the sixth volume of the series fitting seems that Proust's past actions conclude with a fair resolution. The captive is now the fugitive. Like in previous volumes, envy and distrusts eventually reveals unsuspected and unwanted revelations that lead the Narrator to reconcile himself with his melancholy. But unfortunately happiness still running away for him, and the marriage of his once good friends face him against his own misery which he tries to cover with indifference ===== At the beginning of the novel, Anna is at the beach with Danny, the producer she met while interning for Clark Sheppard on Hermosa Beach, learning to surf but can't seem to get it. The two end up having a conversation about one-night stands. Dan claims Anna isn't the type to have one but Anna claims that she would and that she doesn't think casual sex is bad even though she has only had sex with Ben, who has returned to Princeton. Her relationship with him is not certain between both of them but Anna thinks that them two have broken up or at least, are on a break. Once Anna returns home she finds her mother and father on the couch in her father's house in Los Angeles having a drink. She finds this shocking because since the divorce, her parents couldn't stand to be in the same room. Her father explains that her sister Susan is coming out of rehab and that her doctor suggested that they meet her as a whole family. Sam is also having her own family problems as her new stepmother Poppy has taken over the whole house to prepare for Sam's soon to be sister, Ruby Hummingbird. To Sam's further dismay, Dee has become fast friends with Poppy and even moves in to help with the baby preparations, causing Sam to feel ignored. She joins Anna at Las Casitas, not caring that the whole Sharpe family is supposed to appear on The Tonight Show together. Meanwhile, Cammie and Adam's relationship is growing, but they have not had sex yet which Cammie finds strange. She tries to seduce him on the beach but Adam refuses and Cammie realizes he is a virgin, finding it sweet. Still, she doesn't want people to think she has lost her reputation as a vixen and so Cammie tells everyone she and Adam are having amazing sex, unbeknownst to him. Cammie and Adam do attempt to have sex throughout the course of the book but they are always interrupted. Eventually, she and Adam agree to wait until the time is right. The two take shelter in a seemingly empty mansion as a thunderstorm begins while Kai and Eduardo realize the girls are missing. Eduardo calls Jackson Sharpe, who cancels the Jay Leno appearance to go to Mexico to search for Sam. A search party begins and in the morning, Sam and Anna are discovered by the guards of the owner who owns the place. The two explain their story and are rescued by Jackson and his helicopter. Anna is a little jealous and hurt that her own father didn't come also. Sam is confused when Eduardo acts coldly to her after they return to Las Casitas but shrugs it off as they are now going their separate ways. However, back in Beverly Hills, Sam throws a party with her friends who all eagerly demand to know the details of the rescue and Eduardo shows up to apologize for mistreating Sam and asks her out on another date. Also, Anna's parents once again part separate ways and she is relieved. With her head clear, Anna is finally able to surf properly, much to her delight. Category:2005 American novels Category:American young adult novels Category:Little, Brown and Company books ===== The A-List crew, consisting of Sam, Anna, Dee, Parker, Adam, and Cammie decide to forgo the Spring Break school sponsored trip to Washington D.C. in favor of heading over to Las Vegas instead. Anna misses Ben, who is away at school, and she impulsively invites him to join her and their friends in Vegas too. She also mentions the trip to her best friend from New York, Cyn Baltres, who is impressed with the way Anna has reinvented herself. Parker Pinelli is worried because he is secretly poor and doesn't have enough money to cover the expenses for their luxurious get away but refuses to confide in any of his friends, fearing they'll kick him off the A-list if they knew the truth. He tries to gamble but is unsuccessful as the Las Vegas laws forbid minors from collecting any winnings so he hooks up with a series of wealthier and older women to cover his costs. No one in the group notices and figure Parker is just a lady killer and decide to kick off their break with a "tacky showgirl outfit contest". The girls eagerly participate although Cammie sneaks away to an undisclosed location which causes Adam to worry that she is cheating on him. At dinner, the group is joined by none other by Cyn and her boyfriend Scott Spencer, a handsome intellectual Anna secretly had a crush on before coming to L.A. The crew decides to visit a hypnotist, although Dee bows out in favor of trying to help the sinners of Las Vegas reform. Dee's friends are a little bit worried for her as this goes beyond her normal interests in New Age or spiritual fads. Dee has Ruby Hummingbird, Sam's new half sister, on the mind and she frequently calls Poppy in a worry, claiming that she and Ruby Hummingbird have a spiritual connection. Dee begins to hear voices and believes it is Ruby Hummingbird trying to contact her. Meanwhile, at the hypnotist, Sam is the only one of her friends who doesn't get hypnotized and she watches in shock as everyone's secrets are revealed: Adam admits that sometimes he finds other girls attractive, Cammie admits that she feels Adam can be boring sometimes, and Anna admits her secret crush on Scott. None of them remember what they said and eagerly buy a recording of the show. Sam tries to convince the others not to watch but fails and now everyone is angry with everyone: Adam and Cammie begin to argue about their relationship and Cyn refuses to speak to Anna. However, all is forgotten when Dee suffers a mental breakdown and the crew rush to the hospital to see her. Dee is fine, although she has elected to spend some time at Ojai Mental Hospital. Relieved that Dee is fine although saddened she won't be at BHH anymore, the group returns to their hotel. Scott takes Anna aside and tells her it wouldn't work out between them and Ana realizes she only liked the idea of him and agrees, although still extremely embarrassed. She makes up with Cyn who tells her that she isn't mad because Anna was secretly lusting for her boyfriend—she was mad that Anna never confided her crush in the first place. Cyn also tells Anna that she and Scott are about to break up, if Anna wants to make a play for him but Anna declines. Meanwhile, Sam finds Parker at the bar and finds out he is poor. She promises not to tell and is impressed with the way he refuses her offer to cover his expenses. Adam and Cammie make up and Cammie admits where she had been sneaking off to—to the house of a platonic family friend who lives in Las Vegas. Said friend invites the crew to his for a party. At the end, before they go back to Beverly Hills, Ben shows up and Anna stays behind with him. They talk about their relationship and Ben confesses that he's seeing someone at school, Blythe, but it is not serious. In the end, Anna and Ben decide to get back together. Category:2005 American novels Category:Little, Brown and Company books Category:American young adult novels Category:Novels set in the Las Vegas Valley ===== Todd is a galactic explorer who, while in the Andromeda sector, discovered a starship and downloaded part of the captain's log. The log contains information on Slime World, a world teeming with disgusting life forms and the presence of valuable slime gems. ===== Pippin IV explores the life of Pippin Héristal, an amateur astronomer in 1950s France, who is suddenly proclaimed the King of France. Unknowingly appointed to give the Communists a monarchy to revolt against, Pippin is chosen because he was descended from the famous king Charlemagne. Unhappy with his lack of privacy, alteration of family life, uncomfortable housings at the Palace of Versailles and his lack of power as a constitutional monarch, the protagonist spends a portion of the novel dressing up as a commoner, often riding a motorscooter, to avoid the constrained life of a king. Pippin eventually receives his wish of dethronement after the people of France enact the rebellion Pippin's kingship was destined to receive. He returns to his home in Paris to find that nothing has really changed. ===== This video game was based on a Viking Child called Brian who must enter the Halls of Valhalla and do battle against the evil god Loki and his minions. ===== The film shows a fictional week in the life of Chuck Barris as the host and creator of The Gong Show, through a series of outrageous competitors, stressful situations, a nervous breakdown (which compels him to run away and hide in the desert) and other comic hijinks in his life and work on the TV show. Among the highlights included a group of men dressed as a Roman Catholic priest and three nuns lip-synching Tom Lehrer's song "The Vatican Rag", a man blowing out a candle with flatulence, and the uncensored version of Jaye P. Morgan's infamous breast-baring incident. ===== The player controls Lieutenant Shao Kai, a former naval officer of the Northern League fleet who was betrayed and left for dead by his brother, Admiral Shao Lung. Kai is rescued by a band of sea raiders known as the Shadow Clan, and joins them after proving himself worthy to their leader, Ped Zeng. He will bide his time with them awaiting his chance for revenge against his brother. Here he meets a formidable young woman who advises Ped and becomes the love interest. The Shadow Clan spends most of its time preying on the third faction in the game, the Jade Kingdom, who are primarily a mercantile power led by Lord Sri Brana. All are now in the path of Admiral Shao Lung's ambitions to create the Iron Empire. Lung has developed a monstrous warship named the Dragon and a powerful magic amulet to defeat anyone and anything in his way. ===== Dr. Alfred Morris (Zucco) is curious about the effects of an ancient nerve gas, used by the Mayans during rituals of human dissection to appease their gods. He takes medical student Ted Allison (David Bruce) under his wing to assist him with his experiments in using the gas on modern animals. However, despite Ted's enthusiasm for the success of their effort to revive Morris's dead monkey Choco (who was earlier exposed to the gas and died) by using a fluid from the heart of another creature, Ted also has on his mind his girlfriend Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers), of whom Morris has also become enamored. Later, on the night of the duo's first experiment, Ted brings Isabel to Morris's house, where Morris notices Isabel's discomfort about her relationship with Ted. He confers with Isabel, saying that she does indeed need a man more involved with her love of music, secretly meaning himself. Isabel, however, is afraid of hurting Ted's feelings and getting him to understand what she wants, but Morris promises to take care of the situation himself. Unbeknownst to Isabel, Morris's evil plan involves destroying Ted by exposing him to the lethal Mayan gas the next day, and in effect, making him a mindless ghoul who, like Choco, must continually rely on the fluid of human hearts to survive (obtained by performing cardioectomies on freshly dead persons). This sets Ted and Morris on a grave- robbing spree through several towns where Isabel is also performing on her tour. Morris tries to get Ted to return home, but Ted is committed to being with Isabel whenever possible, whenever he is not in his unknowing ghoulish state. But, when Ted does become a ghoul again, Morris once more uses him to try to kill off the one person Isabel truly seems to love—Eric Iverson (Turhan Bey), her partner and pianist. Although his attempt is unsuccessful, Ted is able to obtain another heart, keeping himself alive. Eventually the police, aided by ace reporter "Scoop" McClure (Robert Armstrong), realize that the mysterious "ghoul"-style killings are on the same route of Isabel's tour. McClure tries to set a trap in Scranton, the last city of Isabel's tour, by making it seem to the public that he is someone else who has recently died, and, by waiting in a coffin for the ghoul, nearly captures Ted and Morris once they arrive to perform another cardioectomy. However, Morris distracts McClure as Ted comes into view and kills him. With Isabel back home, the police attempt to question her about why the killings were made in the same cities she performed in, but even though she claims to know nothing, she thinks for a moment how Ted and Dr. Morris are the only people associated with her that also have a knowledge of how to perform cardioectomies. She later performs for her home crowd, and Morris, in a last attempt to get Isabel for himself, sends Ted to kill "First Eric, then myself," as he constantly repeats under his spell. However, before Ted becomes a ghoul, he is able to write a letter to Isabel that explains what happened to him and who did all of the killings. Plus, he exposes Morris to the gas just before he reverts to his ghoul state, and leaves to fulfill Morris's final bidding. Upon entering the stage where Isabel is, he is promptly dispatched by detectives, just as he is about to shoot Eric, who read the note to Isabel that Ted left in his hands. She and Eric hold each other, knowing that Ted always intended the best for them, and that Morris was behind all of the trouble with which Ted and many others were involved. Morris, meanwhile, being drained of nearly all life by the gas, almost succeeds in getting fluid from another heart for himself, but fatally collapses by the grave he is digging up. In the end, words that Ted said earlier to Morris are repeated: "It's all over, Doctor. There's nothing left of it now but you, and me, and... death!" ===== Three disparate travelers, a disillusioned preacher (William Shatner), an unsuccessful prospector (Howard Da Silva), and a larcenous, cynical con man (Edward G. Robinson), meet at a decrepit railroad station in the 1870s Southwest United States. The prospector and the preacher were witnesses at the rape and murder trial of the notorious bandit Juan Carrasco (Paul Newman). The bandit duped an aristocratic Southerner, Colonel Wakefield (Laurence Harvey), into believing he knew the location of a lost Aztec treasure. The greedy "gentleman" allowed himself to be tied up while Carasco assaulted his wife Nina (Claire Bloom). These events lead to the stabbing of the husband and Carrasco was tried, convicted, and condemned for the crimes. Everyone's account on the witness stand differed dramatically. Carrasco claimed that Wakefield was tied up with ropes while Nina was assaulted, after which he killed the colonel in a duel. The newlywed wife contends that she was the one who killed her husband because he accused her of leading on Carrasco and causing the rape. The dead man "testifies" through a third witness, an old Indian shaman (Paul Fix), who said that neither of those accounts was true. The shaman insists that the colonel used a jeweled dagger to commit suicide after the incident. However, there was a fourth witness, the prospector, one with a completely new view of what actually took place. But can his version be trusted? ===== Struggling sculptor Marcel De Lange (Martin Kosleck) is depressed about events in his life, and decides to commit suicide. Just as he's about to kill himself, he sees a madman, known as "The Creeper" (Rondo Hatton), in the process of drowning, and saves him. Taking the disfigured man into his care, he makes him the subject of his next sculpture and calls it his best creation. When critics denigrate Marcel's work, he has the Creeper start killing them. Marcel becomes obsessed with Joan, a beautiful female reporter who believes the deaths are related. When Marcel invites her over and she sees Marcel's sculpture of The Creeper, she suspects that Marcel knows the killer. Later, Marcel decides that Joan knows too much and commands The Creeper to kill her. The Creeper is reluctant to do, however, when he discovers that Marcel plans to turn him over to the police. The Creeper kills Marcel, and is about to kill Joan when he is shot by the police. =====