From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

=====

Teenager Grace MacLean (Scarlett Johansson) and her best friend Judith (Kate Bosworth) go out early one winter's morning to ride their horses, Pilgrim and Gulliver. As they ride up an icy slope, Gulliver slips and hits Pilgrim. Both horses fall, dragging the girls onto a road and being hit by a tractor-trailer truck. Judith and Gulliver are killed, while Grace and Pilgrim are both severely injured. Grace, left with a partially amputated right leg, is bitter and withdrawn after the accident. Meanwhile, Pilgrim is traumatized and uncontrollable to the extent that it is suggested he be put down. Grace's mother, Annie (Kristin Scott Thomas), a strong-minded and workaholic magazine editor, refuses to allow Pilgrim to be put down, sensing that somehow Grace's recovery is linked with Pilgrim's. Desperate for a way to heal both Grace and Pilgrim, Annie tracks down a "horse whisperer", Tom Booker (Robert Redford), in the remote Montana mountains. Tom agrees to help, but only if Grace also takes part in the process. Grace reluctantly agrees, and she and Annie go to stay at the Booker ranch where Tom lives with his brother and his brother's family. As Pilgrim and Grace slowly overcome their trauma, Annie and Tom begin to develop a mutual attraction. However, they are both reluctant to act on these feelings – Annie is married and Tom had his heart broken before, when his wife left him because she belonged to the city, not the ranch. Tom also asks Grace to tell him about what happened with her and Pilgrim in order to find out what Pilgrim is thinking. At first, Grace is reluctant, but eventually gathers up her courage, and tearfully tells him about the accident. The status quo between Annie and Tom is broken when Robert MacLean (Sam Neill), Grace's father and Annie's husband, unexpectedly shows up at the ranch. Annie is increasingly torn by her feelings for Tom and her love for her family. Soon, with Tom's help, Grace finally takes the last step to heal herself and Pilgrim – riding Pilgrim again. As the MacLeans get ready to leave the Booker ranch, Robert tells Annie that he knew he was in love with her more than she loved him, and that if he could be a better father, husband or lawyer then it didn't matter, he did it all for the love he had for her. He felt that he didn't need more, he knows she is not sure how she feels about him, and now he wants her to make a choice, and not to come home until she is sure what she wants and that she loves him. Although Annie wishes she could stay with Tom on the ranch, she also knows that she belongs to the city, just like Tom's wife. Annie departs, driving away from the ranch, while Tom watches her go from the top of a hill. 

=====

In 1974, John Adams Gates tells his grandson, Benjamin Franklin Gates, a story in which Charles Carroll of Carrollton passed on a secret to their ancestor, Thomas Gates, in 1832 of a fabled treasure taken from ancient empires throughout history that was discovered by the Knights Templar and later protected by the Freemasons. The treasure would eventually be hidden in America by the Founding Fathers. The clue leading to the treasure is the phrase "The secret lies with Charlotte." While Ben is convinced by the story, his skeptical father, Patrick, dismisses it as nonsense. Thirty years later, Ben has grown to become a historian, cryptologist, and treasure hunter, and leads an expedition with Ian Howe and with Ben’s colleague, Riley Poole, a computer expert, to find the Charlotte', a ship lost in the Arctic, which holds the first clue to finding the treasure. Inside the ship they find a meerschaum pipe, which has a clue in the form of a riddle, implying that the next clue is on the Declaration of Independence. When Ian suggests they steal it, Ben opposes, causing a fight to ensue, resulting in a massive fire fueled by gunpowder, and the group splits in two. Ian and his men escape the ship while Ben and Riley take cover just before the ship explodes. Ben and Riley return to Washington, DC, and report the potential theft of the Declaration to Homeland Security, the FBI, and Dr. Abigail Chase of the National Archives, but all dismiss their claim. Ben decides to steal the document himself from the Archives' preservation room during a gala event. Obtaining Abigail's fingerprints, Ben successfully steals the Declaration but is spotted by Ian's group just as they break in to steal it. Ben briefly hides in the gift shop but has to pay for the Declaration when the clerk mistakes it for a souvenir copy; with not enough cash, Ben pays with a credit card. Abigail, suspecting something is amiss, pursues Ben and takes back the document. Ian kidnaps her, but Ben and Riley rescue Abigail, tricking Ian by leaving behind a souvenir copy of the Declaration. FBI Agent Sadusky begins tracking Ben down, using Ben's credit card information. Unable to return to Ben’s lab, the trio go to Patrick's house to look at the Silence Dogood letters written by Benjamin Franklin and owned by Patrick. Patrick again tries to convince Ben that the treasure is a myth, which Ben dismisses. The trio then study the back of the Declaration and, with the help of lemon juice and heat from a hair dryer, discover an Ottendorf cipher written in invisible ink. Ben realizes the cypher refers to the Silence Dogood letters, but Patrick tells them he has donated them to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Arriving in Philadelphia, and paying a schoolboy to acquire the letters' key words, Ben, Riley, and Abigail interpret a clue pointing to the bell tower of Independence Hall, where the Liberty Bell once resided. Ian and his men intercept and question the schoolboy and decipher the clue. Ben uses the time on the clock depicted on the back of the $100 bill and locates the point on the exterior of the bell house cast by the steeple’s shadow, where he finds a hidden cache containing a pair of glasses with multiple colored lenses invented by Benjamin Franklin. He and Abigail use the glasses to inspect the back of the Declaration, revealing a clue referencing the location of Trinity Church in New York City. The group is chased by Ian's associates. Ben is arrested by the FBI, and Abigail and Riley lose the Declaration to Ian. However, Abigail convinces Ian to help them rescue Ben in exchange for the next clue. Ian agrees, arranging a meeting on the flightdeck of the USS Intrepid, where they help Ben escape the FBI’s custody. Ian returns the Declaration and asks for the next clue, but when Ben remains coy, Ian reveals he has kidnapped Patrick as a hostage. They go inside Trinity Church (along with Patrick, Abigail, and Riley), where they sit and study the back of the Declaration of Independence by using the different lenses, whose next clue leads the party to an underground passage behind and beneath a tomb in the basement. The passage appears to lead to a dead end, lit by a lone lantern. Patrick claims it is a reference to the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, pointing Ian to the Old North Church in Boston. Ian and his team leave Ben, Patrick, Abigail, and Riley trapped to die under the church, and head for Boston. Patrick reveals that his clue was a fake, and the group discovers a small, hidden treasure room, but it appears looted. After a heart-to-heart between Ben and Patrick, Ben finds notches that the meerschaum pipe and stem fit into, and he opens a large chamber containing the treasure and a secondary exit tunnel. Ben meets with Sadusky and figures him to be a modern Freemason by the signet on his ring, and willingly gives him the Declaration and the treasure's location. In exchange, Ben eventually receives clemency and credit for discovery for him and his team. Ian and his men are later arrested in Boston when Ben tips off the FBI. Later, Ben and Abigail have started a relationship. Riley is upset that Ben turned down the 10% finder's fee for the treasure to accept a smaller amount of 1%, which still has netted them all significant wealth. In his Ferrari, Riley drives away from Ben and Abigail's newly bought house. Abigail gives Ben a treasure map, and when Ben asks her where the map leads, Abigail suggestively replies, "You'll figure it out." 

=====

Child psychologist Samuel Faulkner has an ideal romance with ballet teacher Rebecca Taylor. Rebecca is thinking about marriage and children. Samuel is against the idea of marriage as he is happy with how things are between them. This all changes when Rebecca declares she is pregnant, and when questioned by Samuel about her birth control she replies that birth control is only 97% effective. Samuel's fears mount due to his encounters with overbearing couple Marty and Gail Dwyer and their three young unruly daughters, as well as the confusing advice he gets from Sean, his perpetually single artist friend and Gail's brother. Samuel is confused and unsure about what to do. Feeling neglected, Rebecca leaves him and moves in with Marty and Gail. Samuel tries to contact her but she does not respond. When a girl makes a move on Samuel, he declines, saying he's not ready to move on yet. When he sees an ultrasound of his soon-to-be-born son, he decides that it is time to take responsibility before it is too late. He sells his Porsche 911, buys a family SUV, and gets back together with Rebecca. They then get married and have their baby boy together. 

=====

First Chinese Baptist Church at 15 Waverly Pl, San Francisco The Joy Luck Club consists of sixteen interlocking stories about the lives of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their four American-born daughters. In 1949, the four mothers meet at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco and agree to continue to meet to play mah jong. They call their mah jong group the Joy Luck Club. The stories told in this novel revolve around the Joy Luck Club women and their daughters. Structurally, the novel is divided into four major sections, with two sections focusing on the stories of the mothers and two sections on the stories of the daughters. 

=====

Throughout the novel the narrator and time period change, and the reader relies on the chapters' headings to establish the date and the source of the chapter. Some of the narration comes in the form of the fictional newsletter called "The Weems Weekly"; other narrations come from the Threadgoodes' house in Birmingham, and omniscient narrations reveal still more. The framing story, set in the mid-1980s, depicts Evelyn Couch, who goes weekly with her husband to visit his mother in a nursing home. On one visit, Evelyn befriends Ninny Threadgoode, another resident of the same home, who tells Evelyn stories of her youth in Whistle Stop in the 1920s. Between subsequent visits, Evelyn assumes the protagonists of these stories as role models. According to Ninny, she was an orphan raised by the Threadgoodes, and eventually married one of their sons; but the principal character throughout her story is the youngest daughter, Idgie (Imogene) Threadgoode: an unrepentant tomboy, became reclusive after her brother, Buddy, was killed on the railway. Ruth Jamison comes to live with the family while teaching at the Vacation Bible School. Idgie gradually becomes enamored of her and is saddened when Ruth leaves Whistle Stop to marry Frank Bennett. Frank turns out to be a violent, abusive man who often beats Ruth. She remains faithful to Frank until her mother's death. Subsequently, Ruth sends Idgie a message, and Idgie, along with several others, rescue her. Intimidated by Big George, the family's handyman and café cook, Frank does not resist. With money from her father, Idgie establishes the Whistle Stop Cafe, with Sipsey (George's adoptive mother) and her daughter-in- law Onzell as cooks, and becomes secondary guardian to Ruth's son, Buddy Jr. (known as 'Stump' after losing an arm in an accident). The café quickly became known to hobos all over the U.S. during the Great Depression as a welcome place to find a meal. The most recurrent is 'Smokey Lonesome' Phillips, who secretly loves Ruth. When Ruth dies of cancer, Idgie is heartbroken. After the railroad yard closes, the cafe (and ultimately the town) ceases operation. Several years later, Idgie and Big George are arrested for Frank Bennett's murder; but the case is dismissed when the local minister, repaying Idgie for helping his son, testifies (falsely) that she and Big George were at a three- day revival when Frank Bennett went missing. Bennett's body was never found, but it is later revealed that Sipsey killed him when he attempted to claim his and Ruth's son. His remains were barbecued by George and fed to the detectives investigating Frank's disappearance. Stump recounts the stories of his guardians to his daughter and granddaughter; Big George's sons, Jasper and Artis [sic], have their own careers: Jasper as a Sleeping Car Porter, and Artis as a gambler. Inspired by these stories, Evelyn starts work outside the home, selling Mary Kay Cosmetics and, at Mrs. Threadgoode's urging, is treated for negative symptoms of menopause. She also confronts various long-held fears. Evelyn becomes happier. While on vacation, she receives a letter from Mrs. Hartman, Mrs. Threadgoode's neighbor, that Mrs. Threadgoode has died and left various trinkets for Evelyn. The novel's conclusion reveals that Idgie and her brother Julian, after Whistle Stop became depopulated, operated a roadside food-stand. 

=====

In 1998, Los Angeles has become immensely crime-ridden and decadent, ultimately being directly governed and patrolled by the recently created United States Police Force. Two years later, on August 23, 2000, a massive earthquake strikes the city, the San Fernando Valley floods, and the Los Angeles area turns into an island from Malibu to Anaheim. A theocratic presidential candidate declares Los Angeles to be sinful and punished by God. When he is elected president for life, the capital is relocated to his hometown in Lynchburg, Virginia, he also declares that anyone not conforming to the new "Moral America" laws that he creates, which ban such things as tobacco, alcoholic beverages, recreational drugs, red meat, firearms, profanity, atheism, non Christian religions, and extramarital sex will be stripped of their citizenship and deported to Los Angeles Island unless they repent and choose death by electrocution. A containment wall is built around the island, armed guards and watchtowers are posted, and those sent to the island are exiled permanently. In 2013, Cuervo Jones, a Shining Path Peruvian Revolutionary, seduces the president's daughter, Utopia, via a holographic system and brainwashes her into stealing her father's remote control to the "Sword of Damocles" super weapon, a series of satellites capable of rendering all electronic devices anywhere on the planet useless. The president intends to use the system to destroy US enemies' ability to function and eventually dominate the world. While traveling aboard Air Force Three, Utopia leaves the plane in an escape pod and lands on Los Angeles Island to join with Cuervo. With the satellites under his control, Cuervo promises to take back the United States with the assistance of an allied invasion force of third world nations that are standing by to attack. Cuervo claims that if the president tries to stop him, he will "pull the plug" on the country and black out the capital. Cuervo also knows the secret world code that can knock out power for the entire planet. Snake Plissken is captured for another series of crimes and is scheduled to be exiled to the island. Upon his arrival for deportation, Snake meets the president and is offered the mission of retrieving the weapon. The president says he will give him a full pardon if he is successful. The president indicates he does not care if Utopia is returned or not, declaring her a traitor. To ensure his compliance, Snake is infected with the man-made Plutoxin 7 virus that will kill him within 10 hours; if he completes the mission, he will receive the cure. Snake is given an assault rifle, a personal holographic projector, a thermal-camouflage overcoat, and a countdown clock for how long he has to live. He sneaks into the city using a one-man submarine that he loses when the platform it landed on crumbles, causing the sub to sink. Making his way across the island, Snake meets "Map to the Stars" Eddie, a swindler who sells interactive tours of Los Angeles. At various times, Snake receives assistance from Pipeline, a surfing enthusiast; Taslima, a woman deported to the island for her Muslim faith; and Hershe Las Palmas (formerly Carjack Malone), a transgender woman and past criminal associate of Snake. Snake defeats Cuervo at his staging area of the Happy Kingdom by the Sea in Anaheim and takes the remote control. Snake and Eddie leave the island with Utopia and some other Cuervo resistors in a helicopter. Cuervo is shot from the helicopter by Eddie, but manages to fire a rocket launcher at the chopper before dying. Eddie jumps out of the helicopter and lands on an awning. The rocket hits the chopper and kills everyone inside, including Hershe, except for Snake and Utopia, who jump out before it crashes into a mountain. When the president's men reach the crash site, Commander Malloy believes that Snake is trying to trick the president by giving him the wrong remote and proceeds to find another one on Utopia. After checking the disc inside, Commander Malloy announces that they will take the one that Utopia unknowingly had in her possession. The president then has his men take Utopia to the electric chair despite her pleas for forgiveness. Snake remains alive even after his countdown clock reaches zero, and learns that Plutoxin 7 is only a potent influenza virus whose effects wear off within hours of infection. The president tries to use the satellites to stop a Cuban invasion force threatening Florida. Activating the remote, the president hears only Eddie's "Map to the Stars" intro over "I Love L.A." The president orders Snake's execution, but Snake previously activated his hologram projector, and the Snake who gets shot is an illusion. Snake activates the real control device, entering the world code and ending all technological activity on the planet, against pleas to stop. At the deportation center, Utopia expresses her delight that Snake shut down the Earth and thus saved her. Snake lights a cigarette and blows out the match used to light it, uttering, "Welcome to the human race." 

=====

Ten damned souls have died and descended into Hell. This modern-day Hell is based on the real world of today's deviants. The characters are the physical manifestations of their mental illnesses or the evil hidden within their mortal selves. Each character has been a murderer, usually after their said illness/evil inner self. Marukka, the Goddess of Secrets, is bored of her usual routine and decides that it would be entertaining to pit all of the characters against one another in a fighting tournament with the prize being reincarnation. Each character is battling for nothing more than self-preservation and the hope of being reborn. 

=====

Katar Hol was a young police officer on the planet Thanagar, and a child of a privileged family. But his homeworld had the policy to conquer and mine other worlds for their resources to maintain its high standard of living, and Hol realized that this was wrong. He rebelled against the system, and was sent into exile. However, 10 years later, he escaped and got the help of Shayera Thal, a young officer from a lower class of society, to uncover and defeat the renegade police captain Byth. As a result, Hol was reinstated in the Wingmen Force and given a new partner, Thal. 

=====



=====

Bond begins to cross the China–Russia border into a Russian radar base, which is intercepting messages delicate in subject. Using a laser designator, Bond targets the dish and a British jet flies over, dropping an Air to Surface missile. A helicopter arrives, and Bond kills the occupants, and recovers a key. He uses the key to unlock a large gate, and makes his escape on skis. Bond reaches the end of the run - a sheer cliff drop. Bond continues on, and opens his Union Jack parachute. Bond later lands in an Arms Bazaar. After taking photographs of military hardware, a British naval ship launches a BGM-109 Tomahawk to eliminate all potential threats and hardware. Bond realizes there are nuclear weapons at the Bazaar on a MIG jet (in reality, the jet was a L-39 Albatros). After an intense firefight between Bond and Russian terrorists, he hijacks the jet and returns to MI6. Bond is sent to investigate a man called Elliot Carver during a party in Hamburg, Germany after a British warship sank in the South China Sea, with all hands going down. Carver media published the full story before MI6 received a full report, raising MI6's suspicions. During the party Bond meets his former lover, Paris, now Carver's wife, who slaps him. Carver arrives, and offers a "tour of the facilities". Bond follows, but is knocked out by a henchman. He wakes up in a room with a large 2-way mirror. He uses his laser-cufflinks to escape, then he destroys the central computer, allowing him to make his escape. He then makes his way to the press, and engages in a firefight between Carver's guards. He recovers Henry Gupta's GPS scrambler, which was used to lure the British Navy into Chinese waters to try and spark an international incident. As the existing Chinese government is not receptive to giving Carver Media Group Network exclusive broadcast rights in China, Carver plans to start a war to eliminate the present government and replace it with politicians more supportive to his plans. Bond then escapes to the "Hotel Atlantic", where Paris is being held prisoner. He arrives, and heads to the bar where he asks to see Paris; resulting in a shootout between Bond and the guards, who were working for Carver. Bond uses the elevator to get to Paris' apartment, where he meets Kaufman. Kaufman tries to kill Bond by using spinning razor discs and an AK-47. Bond kills Kaufman and helps Paris escape. They make it to the underground garage, where Bond drives away in his BMW 7 Series. MI6 has found the headquarters of Henry Gupta near the foothills of the Swiss Alps. The convoy of terrorist cars and trucks is heading to Henry's alpine hideout for an important meeting. Bond is sent to stop the convoy. Along the way Bond meets Q, who gives him the BMW to stop the Convoy. Bond successfully destroys the convoy with the BMW and drives away. Bond is then sent to a ski ridge in Hokkaido, Japan, to track down and kill chemical expert Satoshi Isagura, who is thought to be working for Elliot Carver after a nerve gas attack at Yokohama. The Carver Media was also the first to report the story. Bond kills Isagura and is sent to Saigon. Bond steals a data disk from Carver Media Tower in Saigon but is captured. Bond manages to escape with the data disk. The next night, Carver bribes the Saigon Military Police to kill Bond on sight, so MI6 pulls Bond out as the mission would be compromised were Bond to be seen or killed. Bond gives Wai Lin the data disk, and Wai Lin engages the Saigon Military Police in a gun battle with the Police setting roadblocks and using fast firing chain guns. She makes it back to her lab to find the location of Carter's stealth boat, hidden in Hạ Long Bay. On the stealth boat, Bond uses the boat's comm-link to give MI6 its position. Wai Lin is kidnapped but is later freed by Bond after he kills Carver's right-hand man, Stamper. Wai Lin stops the engine while Bond shoots and kills Carver and stops the stolen nuclear missile from destroying Beijing. Bond and Wai Lin escapes the stealth boat before it self-destructs. 

=====

The last in his Vietnam War trilogy that began with The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Sticks and Bones, Saltzman, Simon. "Review. Streamers ", curtainup.com, November 6, 2008 it focuses on the interactions and personal conflicts of a group of soldiers preparing to ship out to fight in the Southeast Asian conflict in 1965. Among them are middle class African American Roger, upper class Manhattanite Richie, who is struggling with his sexual orientation, conservative Wisconsin country boy Billy, and fearful loose cannon Carlyle, a streetwise Black man. In charge of their barracks are abrasive alcoholic Sgt. Cokes, who already has served overseas, and aggressive Sgt. Rooney, who is anxious to get into combat. 

=====

Fluke is a mutt puppy (a wrong colored Golden Retriever, played by dog actor Buddy, voiced by Sam Gifaldi), who has flashing memories and dreams of having lived a human life. After being taken to a pound and eventually escaping, he is raised by an elderly homeless woman named Bella (Collin Wilcox Paxton), who gives him the name Fluke, stating that he is a "fluke by nature, Fluke by name." Fluke supports Bella by helping her earn money from passing strangers impressed with Fluke's ability to beat Bella's shell game. After Bella dies of an illness due to poor conditions, Fluke meets a street-wise dog named Rumbo (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) who takes him to see a man named Bert (Bill Cobbs) who feeds Fluke and Rumbo. Fluke matures into an adult dog (now voiced by Matthew Modine) and eventually realizes that he was once a man named Thomas P. Johnson (also portrayed by Matthew Modine), who died in a car crash. Fluke is then abducted by a man named Sylvester (Ron Perlman) to be used in makeup experiments at a cosmetics company. During his captivity, Rumbo comes to the rescue, but is shot by Sylvester as he and Fluke escape. A dying Rumbo tells Fluke that the black-and-white snapshot of a man in a sailor suit on Bert's wall was him and Bert was his brother and that he wishes to smell the sea again, suggesting that he died in the line of duty. After Rumbo's death, Fluke seeks out his surviving wife Carol (Nancy Travis) and son Brian (Max Pomeranc) and reunites with them by becoming their new family dog. Though Carol, implied to be afraid of dogs, is apprehensive about adopting Fluke, she caves in seeing how Brian has quickly bonded with Fluke. During his life as a dog, Fluke gets to know his family better and bitterly realizes, much to his regret, that he had been a distant workaholic. As more memories return, Fluke suspects that his human death was caused by his former business partner Jeff Newman (Eric Stoltz). Enraged by this and the fact that Jeff is now dating Carol, Fluke viciously attacks him when he visits the house, and ends up getting put outside. Jeff calls for Animal Control against the protests of Brian, and so Fluke is forced to run from the premises. The next night, Brian goes missing while looking for Fluke and Carol implores Jeff to help, so Jeff drives back to their house. Fluke, who had been hiding in the backseat of Jeff's car while the latter was at work, comes close to killing Jeff by causing him to get into a car accident like his own. Fluke then has another flashback and realizes that Jeff wasn't responsible for his death. Instead, Fluke had caused his own death when he recklessly drove on the wrong side of the road just to argue with Jeff one night and swerved off to avoid hitting an oncoming truck. Jeff later tried to save him but failed. An injured Jeff, implied to have realized Fluke's true identity by bearing no ill will, tells Fluke to go find Brian before the latter catches hypothermia from the falling snow. Regretful over his actions, Fluke barks for a passing driver to help Jeff before running off. On a hunch, Fluke goes to the graveyard where he had been buried and finds Brian there, who had been locked in by an unaware groundskeeper. Fluke huddles with Brian to keep him warm. Carol, having come to the same conclusion from one Brian's drawings of his father, uses her car to break open the cemetery gates and picks up Brian. Brian tells Carol that he heard Fluke tell him in a vision that Fluke had to leave them. Carol tries to coax Fluke to come home with them. Instead, Fluke digs away at the snow in front of his tombstone to show Carol who he really is by uncovering the word "forever" at the bottom, a phrase he often said to her as a human. Carol is left speechless, and lets Fluke leave without objection. With a heavy heart, Fluke departs and entrusts his family to Jeff for their happiness. He monologues that he had to leave because he finally accepted that he can no longer be the family man he should have been, and that he should just cherish the life he has now, which he had not done back then. Far away and sometime later, Fluke is resting under a tree on a farm by himself. To his surprise and happiness, he is reunited with Rumbo, now reincarnated as a squirrel. Rumbo tells Fluke about life as a squirrel and about reincarnation. 

=====

In Scotland, 1713, Robert Roy MacGregor is the Chief of Clan MacGregor. Although providing the Lowland gentry with protection against cattle rustling, he barely manages to feed his people. So hoping to alleviate their and his poverty, MacGregor borrows £1,000 from James Graham, Marquess of Montrose in order to establish himself as a cattle raiser and trader. Anglicized aristocrat Archibald Cunningham has been sent to stay with Montrose. It is implied that they are blood related, and also that Cunningham urgently left England to flee legal troubles. Montrose makes money off Cunningham by making wagers on sword contests that Cunningham's haughty manner and effeminate bearing bring upon himself. However, Cunningham is supremely skilled with a sword. Cunningham learns about MacGregor's loan from Montrose's factor Killearn, and murders MacGregor's retainer, Alan MacDonald, to steal the money. MacGregor requests time from Montrose to find MacDonald and the money. Montrose offers to waive the debt if MacGregor will testify falsely that Montrose's rival John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll is a Jacobite. MacGregor refuses and Montrose vows to imprison him in the tolbooth until the debt is repaid. MacGregor flees, briefly taking Cunningham hostage. Montrose seizes MacGregor's land to cover the debt, declaring him an outlaw and orders Cunningham to bring him in "broken, but not dead". With MacGregor in hiding, redcoats slaughter MacGregor's cattle, burn his croft, and Cunningham rapes his wife Mary. Mary understands that Cunningham's intent is to flush her husband out of hiding and makes his brother Alasdair, who arrives too late to save her, swear to conceal knowledge of the rape from him. Unaware of the assault on his wife, but the damage to his property being evident, MacGregor refuses to permit his outraged clan to wage war on Montrose. Instead, he decrees, "The tenderest part of the Marquess is his purse. We'll hurt him there. Thieve his cattle, steal his rents." Betty, a maidservant at Montrose's estate, has become pregnant with Cunningham's child. When Killearn tells Montrose, Betty is dismissed from service and rejected by Cunningham. Betty seeks refuge with the MacGregors, revealing that she had overheard Killearn and Cunningham plot to steal the money. Betty subsequently hangs herself, later found by Mary and Alasdair. To build a case against Cunningham, MacGregor abducts Killearn and imprisons him. Mary promises Killearn that he will be spared if he testifies against Cunningham, but Killearn taunts her with her rape. Realizing that Mary is pregnant, he threatens to tell MacGregor that Cunningham may be the father if she does not release him. Enraged, Mary draws a sgian dubh and stabs Killearn in the neck. Alasdair finishes him off and then drowns him in the loch. Montrose tells Cunningham that he suspects who really stole the money but that he doesn't care. Complaining that the ongoing thefts of his cattle and rents will impoverish him and mystified by the disappearance of Killearn, he orders Cunningham to pursue MacGregor to prevent further humiliation. Cunningham and the redcoats burn the Clan's crofts. MacGregor refuses to take the bait, but Alasdair attempts to snipe Cunningham and hits a redcoat, revealing their hiding place. The redcoats shoot both Alasdair and another Clan member, Coll. Alasdair finally tells MacGregor about Mary's rape. Taken prisoner, MacGregor accuses Cunningham of murder, robbery and rape. Cunningham confirms the charges, and beats and tortures Rob multiple times. The following morning, Montrose, despite hearing MacGregor confirm his suspicions as to who stole his money, orders MacGregor to be hanged from a nearby bridge. MacGregor loops the rope binding his hands around Cunningham's throat and then jumps off the bridge. To save Cunningham, Montrose orders the rope cut, freeing MacGregor. MacGregor is chased downstream by the redcoats, but he evades them by hiding inside the rotting corpse of a cow. Cunningham survives his strangulation. Mary gains an audience with the Duke of Argyll and exposes Montrose's plan to frame him. Moved by MacGregor's integrity, he grants the family asylum at Glen Shira. MacGregor arrives, at first upset by Mary's unwillingness to inform him of her rape or her pregnancy but later willing to raise the child as his own, instructing her to name it Robert if it's a boy and Mary if it's a girl. The Duke, though skeptical of MacGregor's likelihood of survival, arranges a duel between MacGregor and Cunningham, wagering Montrose that if MacGregor lives, his debt will be forgiven and that if he dies, the Duke will pay his debt. Montrose agrees and Cunningham and MacGregor vow that no quarter will be asked or given. Rob is injuried from the previous beating Archibald gave him when he was his captive. Armed with a rapier, Cunningham skillfully attacks and repeatedly wounds MacGregor, who appears to swiftly exhaust himself swinging a heavy broadsword. MacGregor seems defeated, but at the vital moment Cunningham hesitates. As Montrose signals Cunningham to finish off his opponent, MacGregor grabs and holds on to his enemy's sword-point with his left hand. As Cunningham struggles to free his blade, MacGregor rises and delivers a fatal strike. Now free of debts and with his honor intact, he returns home to his wife and children. 

=====

The series centers on the fictitious personal life of President George W. Bush, played by Timothy Bottoms. Carrie Quinn Dolin played Laura Bush, and Kurt Fuller played Karl Rove. Episodes dealt (with deliberate heavy handedness) with the topics of abortion, gun control, the war on drugs, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the death penalty. Every episode ended with George saying "One of these days, Laura, I'm gonna punch you in the face!", a parody of Jackie Gleason's line from The Honeymooners, "One of these days, Alice... Bang, zoom! Right to the moon!" The show was more of a spoof of the banality of television sitcoms in general, rather than a cutting political satire. As The A.V. Club put it: 

=====

A year after Otto Octavius' sacrifice, Peter Parker plans to propose to Mary Jane Watson, who has just made her Broadway musical debut. A meteorite lands at Central Park, and an extraterrestrial symbiote follows Peter to his apartment by latching on to his motorbike after he and Mary Jane leave there after stargazing. Harry Osborn, seeking vengeance for his father's death and having taken the performance-enhancing gas, attacks Peter with his father's Green Goblin technology, but the battle ends in a stalemate with Harry crashing down and having amnesia, losing his memory of Peter as Spider-Man. Meanwhile, police pursue escaped convict Flint Marko, who visits his wife and sick daughter before fleeing again. Falling into an experimental particle accelerator that fuses his body with the surrounding sand, he transforms into the Sandman, who can control sand and reform his body with it. During a festival honoring Spider-Man for saving Gwen Stacy's life, Peter kisses her, infuriating Mary Jane. Meanwhile, Marko robs an armored truck, easily defeats Peter and flees. NYPD Captain George Stacy, Gwen's father, informs Peter and his Aunt May that Marko was uncle Ben's true killer; the deceased Dennis Carradine was Marko's accomplice. At his apartment, while Peter sleeps in his Spider-Man suit to wait for Marko, the symbiote assimilates the suit; Peter later awakens atop a building, discovering that his costume has changed to black and his powers are enhanced; however, the symbiote brings out his dark side. Peter locates and battles Marko in a subway tunnel. Discovering that water is Marko's weakness, he opens a pipe, releasing water that reduces Marko to mud and washes him away. Peter's changed personality alienates Mary Jane, who is struggling in her career after having been fired from her show. She shares a tender moment with Harry, but leaves afterward in regret. Harry recovers from his amnesia, urged by a hallucination of his father and coerces Mary Jane into breaking up with Peter. After Mary Jane tells Peter she loves "somebody else," Harry meets with Peter and claims to be that person. Peter confronts Harry over this and spitefully tells him that his father never loved him. Another battle ensues, with Harry throwing a pumpkin bomb at Peter, who deflects it back, disfiguring Harry's face. At the Daily Bugle, Peter exposes rival photographer Eddie Brock, whose fake photos depict Spider-Man as a criminal. Publisher J. Jonah Jameson fires Brock and hires Peter to be a staff photographer. Later, Peter brings Gwen to a jazz club, where Mary Jane now works before Gwen forgives and leaves. After assaulting the bouncers and accidentally hitting Mary Jane, Peter finally realizes that the symbiote is corrupting him. Retreating to a church's bell tower, upon realizing high-pitched sounds weakens the creature, Peter removes the symbiote, where it bonds with Brock, transforming him into Venom. Brock locates Marko, who survived being washed away, and convinces him to join forces to defeat Peter. Brock kidnaps Mary Jane and holds her hostage from a web high at a construction site, while Marko keeps the police at bay. After Harry refuses to help Peter, he finally learns the truth about his father's death from his butler. While Peter battles Brock and Marko, Harry arrives to help him with his Green Goblin technology and saves Mary Jane. Brock attempts to impale Peter with Harry's glider, but Harry jumps in and is impaled himself. Peter, remembering the symbiote's weakness, assembles a perimeter of metal pipes to create a sonic attack, weakening it and allowing Peter to separate Brock from the symbiote. He activates a pumpkin bomb from Harry's glider and throws it at the symbiote. However, Brock, who became addicted to its influence, attempts to save it, and ends up vaporized along with the symbiote. Afterward, Marko explains that Ben's death was an accident that has haunted Marko ever since; Peter forgives Marko, allowing him to escape. Harry and Peter reconcile before Harry subsequently dies from his injuries. Sometime later, Peter and Mary Jane reconcile and share a dance. 

=====

The novel takes place around the planets Yellowstone and Resurgam, in two story lines which converge near the climax of the novel. 

=====

Alternate poster and title for the film The Fifty First State In 1971, a policeman catches Elmo McElroy, a recent college graduate with a degree, smoking marijuana. Due to his arrest and conviction, he is unable to find work as a pharmacologist. In the present day, a drug lord called "the Lizard" calls a meeting of his colleagues, hoping to sell a new substance invented by Elmo. The meeting goes badly when Elmo, in a bid to escape from the Lizard's control, blows up the building, killing everyone but the Lizard. Infuriated, the Lizard contacts Dakota, a contract killer, who previously killed the only witness in a case against the Lizard. Dakota initially refuses the hit, but accepts when the Lizard offers to clear her gambling debts and give her a $250,000 bonus. Felix DeSouza (based on a local tattooist), a local "fixer" in Liverpool has been sent by Leopold Durant, head of a local criminal organisation, to collect Elmo from Manchester airport, in exchange for two tickets to a sold-out football match between Liverpool and Manchester United. On route to the airport Felix enters a pub full of Manchester United supporters and goads them before letting off a rocket flare inside; the United fans give chase but his friends rescue him in their car. Elmo lands in Manchester, is collected by Felix and is taken to the meeting with Durant in Liverpool. At the meeting, Elmo pitches POS 51, a synthetic drug that can be produced with minimal facilities and is 51 times as potent as other drugs. A second opinion from Pudsey, Durant's chemist, confirms Elmo's claims, and Durant gives him over a million dollars in bonds. Since it is $18 million short of the agreed payment, Elmo begins to leave. In a room across the street, Dakota is about to take a shot at Elmo's head when the Lizard calls cancelling the hit; not wanting to kill Elmo until he has the formula. Instead of killing Elmo, she is to kill anyone who meets with him. She switches rifles to an automatic weapon and kills everyone but Elmo and Felix, who is shot in the buttocks. As Elmo and Felix leave the hotel, a gang of skinheads who want the drug surround them. Elmo protects them with a golf club. Detective Virgil Kane and his partner Arthur arrive on the scene and give chase. They are soon lured into a game of chicken by Elmo, who escapes. Kane and Arthur return to the crime scene and Kane demands 50% of Durant's deal with McElroy. A miscommunication leads to Durant's death. Felix contacts a gun dealing club owner and drug distributor named Iki, promising him the formula for £20 million. As Elmo and Felix acquire the ingredients necessary for the drug's manufacture, all of which are over-the-counter products, the now-armed skinheads capture them. Elmo is unfazed, as the skinheads claim they have a lab, though it turns out to be a broken-into animal testing facility. Elmo makes two batches of the drug; one blue and one red. He claims that the red pill is the stronger version, and after he takes one, the skinheads try it. While they are partying, waiting for the effect of the drug, in the next room Elmo spits out his red pill. He tells Felix it is a powerful laxative; Elmo and Felix leave after throwing rolls of toilet paper to the incapacitated skinheads. At Iki's rave club, Elmo initiates his deal and delivers the drug to the waiting crowd. Kane and the police interrupt the deal and arrest Felix. When Dakota appears, she reveals that her real name is Dawn and that she and Felix were romantically involved. She captures Elmo and leaves with him via the roof. Elmo overpowers her, suspending her over the edge of the roof. Having no choice, she strikes a deal with him and they evade Kane. Meanwhile, Kane blackmails Felix during a police interrogation and forces himself into the deal with Iki, which Felix sets up for him. Felix, Elmo and Dawn meet Iki in a private viewing box at the football match at Anfield. This time, the deal is interrupted by the Lizard, who shoots Iki dead and demands the formula to POS 51. The Lizard celebrates with a drink, as Elmo reveals that the drug is a placebo and POS stands for Power of Suggestion. Kane interrupts them as Elmo's cocktail, an explosive ingested by the Lizard, takes effect, killing the Lizard and showering everyone in blood. Kane is knocked unconscious and arrested by Arthur, while the main three exit unscathed. Dawn and Felix give their relationship another chance, and Elmo purchases a castle once owned by the man who owned his ancestors. 

=====

In 1966 London, the Second Doctor and Jamie watch helplessly as the TARDIS is loaded onto a lorry and driven away from Gatwick Airport. The trail leads them to an antique shop run by Edward Waterfield, who sells Victorian-style antiques that curiously seem as though they were still new. Waterfield is being coerced by the Daleks, who appear in a secret room of his shop through a time machine, and exterminate his mutinous employee Kennedy. Investigating the store, the Doctor and Jamie succumb to a booby trap that gasses them, and are dragged into the time machine by Waterfield. They wake up to find that they have been transported to 1866, and are in the house of Theodore Maxtible, Waterfield's partner. The two had been trying to invent a time machine using mirrors and static electricity, when the Daleks emerged from their time cabinet. The Daleks then took Waterfield's daughter, Victoria Waterfield, hostage and forced Waterfield to travel a century forward in time to lure the Doctor into a trap by stealing the TARDIS. Waterfield is obviously fearful for his daughter's safety and his own, but Maxtible seems to be cooperating with the Daleks for his own reasons. The Daleks threaten to destroy the TARDIS unless the Doctor helps them by conducting an experiment to isolate the "Human Factor", the unique qualities of human beings that have allowed them to consistently resist and defeat the Daleks. Once the Doctor has isolated the Human Factor, he will implant it into three Daleks, who will then become the precursors of a race of "super" Daleks, with the best qualities of humans and Daleks. To that end the Daleks want the Doctor to test Jamie by sending him to rescue Victoria, who is being kept in the house. The Doctor is strangely cooperative with the Daleks, manipulating Jamie into the rescue mission but not telling him of the nature of the test. Jamie manages to rescue Victoria, but she is taken prisoner again and transported through the time cabinet. The Doctor, observing how Jamie accomplished the rescue, distils the Human Factor, but continues to harbour suspicions that there is more to the experiment than just this. Once the Human Factor is implanted in the three Daleks, they become completely human in personality and seem almost childlike, although the Doctor says their mentalities will mature quickly. This was the Doctor's intent all along: that the human factor would lead to "human" Daleks that would be friendly to humanity. He christens the three Alpha, Beta and Omega, but they soon return through the time cabinet to Skaro, the Daleks' home planet. Meanwhile, Waterfield has discovered that Maxtible has betrayed them all to the Daleks, hoping that he will be able to learn the alchemical secret of transmuting base metals into gold. However, Maxtible, who has travelled to Skaro through the mirror cabinet, is discovering just how ruthless the Daleks are and how empty their promises can be; he is tortured for his failure to bring the Doctor to them. Jamie, Waterfield and the Doctor are locked out of the time cabinet, but manage to use the Daleks' own short-range time machine to make the journey to Skaro before a Dalek bomb destroys Maxtible's house. The trio find their way into the Dalek city and are brought before the imposing Dalek Emperor, who reveals the true reason behind the experiments and the capture of the TARDIS: by isolating the human factor, the Doctor has succeeded in isolating the "Dalek Factor" as well. The Daleks will use the "Dalek Factor"—the qualities that make the Daleks relentless killing machines—to reconvert the "human" Daleks. In addition, the Emperor wants the Doctor to use the TARDIS to spread the Dalek Factor throughout human history, turning all humanity into Daleks. The Doctor knows that the Emperor realises that he would die before complying with this order, and so is concerned about why the Emperor seems so confident. Maxtible is tricked into walking through an archway that infuses him with the Dalek Factor, mentally turning him into a Dalek. He hypnotises the Doctor and lures him through the arch as well, apparently converting him. However, the Doctor is feigning his conversion and secretly plants a device on the arch while the Daleks hunt for the three "human" Daleks. As one still remains to be found, the Doctor suggests that all the Daleks be put through the conversion arch so that the "human" Dalek will once again be infused with the Dalek Factor. As the first batch of Daleks go through the arch, the Doctor frees the others. The arch did not work on the Doctor because it was calibrated for humans, and he is not one. The Doctor has also substituted the Human Factor for the Dalek Factor on the arch, so the Daleks that go through will become "human" and rebel against the Emperor. The Emperor calls out his Black Daleks as the rebellion spreads and the City falls into chaos. Waterfield throws himself in front of a Black Dalek blast meant for the Doctor; the Doctor promises that Victoria will be taken care of, and Waterfield dies content. The Emperor is attacked by the "human" Daleks. While the Doctor and his companions escape, Maxtible rushes back into the exploding city, screaming of the everlasting glory of the Dalek race. The Doctor tells Jamie that they will be taking the now-orphaned Victoria along on their travels. Jamie, Victoria and the Doctor watch the Dalek City in flames from the top of a hill as the civil war continues. The Doctor pronounces this the end of the Daleks – the final end. However a pulsating light is seen coming from the Emperor, indicating that the Dalek is still alive. 

=====

The series revolves around two stepbrothers, Drake Parker and Josh Nichols, who live in San Diego, California with Drake's biological mother and younger sister Megan; and Josh's biological father. Drake is a popular musician idolized by his schoolmates. Josh is a well-read student, but is clumsy and has trouble with his social life and dating. The two boys are often involved in comedic escapades and challenges while also handling an array of teenage problems. 

=====

The story begins before the wolf-dog hybrid is born, with two men and their sled dog team on a journey to deliver the coffin of Lord Alfred to a remote town named Fort McGurry in the higher area of the Yukon Territory. The men, Bill and Henry, are stalked by a large pack of starving wolves over the course of several days. Finally, after all of their dogs and Bill have been eaten, four more teams find Henry escaping from the wolves; the wolf pack scatters when they hear the large group of people coming. The story then follows the pack, which has been robbed of its last prey. When the pack finally brings down a moose, the famine is ended; they eventually split up, and the story now follows a she-wolf and her mate, One Eye. One Eye claimed her after defeating and killing a younger rival. The she- wolf gives birth to a litter of five cubs by the Mackenzie River, and all but one die from hunger. One Eye is killed by a lynx while trying to rob her den for food for the she-wolf and her cub; his mate later discovers his remains near the lynx's den. The surviving cub and the she-wolf are left to fend for themselves. Shortly afterward, the she-wolf kills all the lynx's kittens to feed her cub, prompting the lynx to track her down, and a vicious fight breaks out. The she-wolf eventually kills the lynx but suffers severe injury; the lynx carcass is devoured over a period of seven days as the she-wolf recovers from her injuries. One day, the cub comes across five indigenous people, and the she-wolf comes to his rescue. One man, Grey Beaver, recognizes the she- wolf as his brother's wolfdog, Kiche, who left during a famine. Grey Beaver's brother is dead, and so he takes Kiche and her cub and christens the cub "White Fang". White Fang has a harsh life in the native camp; the current puppy pack, seeing him as a wolf, immediately attacks him. The Indians save him, but the pups never accept him, and the leader, Lip-Lip, singles him out for persecution. White Fang grows to become a savage, callous, morose, solitary, and deadly fighter, "the enemy of his kind". It is at this time that White Fang is separated from his mother, who is sold off to another Indian camp by Three Eagles. He realizes how hard life in the wild is when he runs away from camp, and earns the respect of Grey Beaver when he saves his son Mit-Sah from a group of boys seeking revenge. When a famine occurs, he runs away into the woods and encounters his mother Kiche, only for her to chase him away, for she has a new litter of cubs and has forgotten him. He also encounters Lip-Lip, whom he fights and kills before returning to the camp. When White Fang is five years old, he is taken to Fort Yukon, so that Grey Beaver can trade with the gold-hunters. There, when Grey Beaver is drunk, White Fang is bought by an evil dog-fighter named "Beauty" Smith. White Fang defeats all opponents pitted against him, including several wolves and a lynx, until a bulldog called Cherokee is brought in to fight him. Cherokee has the upper hand in the fight when he grips the skin and fur of White Fang's neck and begins to throttle him. White Fang nearly suffocates, but is rescued when a rich, young gold hunter, Weedon Scott, stops the fight, and forcefully buys White Fang from Beauty Smith. Scott attempts to tame White Fang, and after a long, patient effort, he succeeds. When Scott attempts to return to California alone, White Fang pursues him, and Scott decides to take the dog with him back home. In Sierra Vista, White Fang must adjust to the laws of the estate. At the end of the book, an escaped convict, Jim Hall, tries to kill Scott's father, Judge Scott, for sentencing him to prison for a crime he did not commit, not knowing that Hall was "railroaded". White Fang kills Hall and is nearly killed himself, but survives. As a result, the women of Scott's estate name him "The Blessed Wolf". The story ends with White Fang relaxing in the sun with the puppies he has fathered with the sheep-dog Collie. 

=====

Hank Grotowski, a widower, and his son, Sonny, are correctional officers in a prison in Georgia. They reside with Hank's father, Buck, a bigoted retired correctional officer whose wife (Hank's mother) died by suicide. Sonny is friends with the Cooper brothers, Willie and Darryl, who are black. At the behest of Buck, Hank frightens off the brothers with a shotgun and is later confronted by their father Ryrus. Hank, the prison's deputy warden, will oversee the execution of convicted murderer Lawrence Musgrove. Musgrove, a talented amateur artist, draws a sketch of Sonny. Sonny is a shy and gentle person, and is as kind to Musgrove as his duties permit. Sonny has a brief sexual encounter with a prostitute in a motel then tries to ask her on a dinner date, but she leaves. The night before the execution, Hank tells Sonny that a "monster's ball" is held by the corrections officers, a get-together of those who will participate in the execution. The proceedings prove too much for Sonny, who, as he is leading Lawrence to the electric chair, vomits, and then collapses. Following the execution, Hank confronts Sonny in the prison's bathroom and slaps him for being so "soft" and for "ruining a man's last walk". After Hank attacks Sonny in his bed and orders him to leave the house, Sonny grabs a revolver from under his pillow and holds his father at gunpoint. The confrontation ends in their living room with Hank sitting on the carpet, and Sonny in Buck's customary chair. Sonny asks his father if he hates him. After his father calmly confirms that he does, and always has, Sonny responds, "Well, I always loved you," and shoots himself in the chest, dying. Hank buries Sonny in the back garden with an abbreviated funeral because, as Buck comments, "He was weak." Hank subsequently resigns as deputy warden, burns his uniform in the backyard, and locks the door of Sonny's room. He purchases a local gas station in an attempt to provide a diversion in his retirement. The Coopers offer condolences to Hank, who asks which one is Willie and which one is "Harry" (mistaking Darryl's name) and is corrected politely. During the years of Lawrence's imprisonment leading up to his execution, his wife, Leticia, has been struggling while raising their son, Tyrell, who has inherited his father's artistic talent. She abusively berates the boy regarding his obesity. Along with her domestic problems, Leticia struggles financially, with an eviction notice on her house from her landlord Bob Ortiz. In desperate need of money, Leticia takes a job at a diner frequented by Hank. Due to lack of maintenance (which Lawrence had suggested) the car breaks down, so Leticia and Tyrell begin walking back and forth from home to the diner. One rainy night, Leticia (having stolen an umbrella) and Tyrell are walking down a soaked highway. Hank happens to be driving along and sees Tyrell lying bloody on the ground and Leticia calling for help. After some hesitation, Hank stops, and being told Tyrell was struck by a car, he drives them to a hospital, where Tyrell is pronounced dead. At the suggestion of the authorities at the hospital, Hank drives Leticia home. A few days later, Hank gives Leticia another ride home from the diner. They begin talking in the car about their common losses, and she invites him in. Hank finds out that Leticia is Lawrence's widow, though he does not tell her that he participated in her husband's execution. They drown their grief with alcohol and have sex. Hank takes Sonny's old truck to Ryrus' auto shop and they discuss fixing it up as Ryrus' daughter Maggie plays nearby, with Hank mentioning he wanted to sell the truck, and asking if Ryrus' boys could wax it. He then offers to give the truck to Leticia, who reluctantly accepts after initial protests of discomfort. Leticia stops by Hank's home with a present for him, but he is not there. She meets Buck, who insults her and implies that Hank is only involved with her because he enjoys sex with black women. Leticia, affected by the remarks, refuses to interact with Hank. After Hank is made aware of Buck's actions, he forces his father out of the house and into a nursing home. He then renames the gas station "Leticia's", saying it is his girlfriend's name when asked. Leticia is evicted from her home and Hank invites her to move in with him. She later discovers Hank's involvement in her husband's death when she finds the drawings of Sonny and Hank done by Lawrence as he awaited execution. She is upset, but is still there waiting for him when he returns from town with ice cream. The film ends with the two of them eating ice cream together on the back porch, content with each other. 

=====

The film is set against the strict social hierarchy of an American public high school in suburban Los Angeles. Blue-collar mechanic and aspiring artist Keith Nelson (Eric Stoltz) and his tomboyish friend Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), who has been subjected to rumors that she is a lesbian, aspire to improve their social standing. Keith is an aspiring artist, but his blue-collar father is obsessed with sending him to college, as he would be the first in their family to go to college. Keith finds himself enamored with Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson), the most popular and attractive girl in school. She is dating Hardy Jenns (Craig Sheffer), a self-absorbed boy from a wealthy neighborhood who thinks Keith is beneath him. He treats Amanda as his "property" and is seen fooling around with another girl. Hearing that Amanda will be in detention, Keith gets himself in trouble in order to spend time with her. Unbeknownst to him, Amanda has sweet-talked her way out of detention, and he is stuck with the school misfits. When Amanda breaks up with Hardy outside their school, Keith seizes the opportunity to ask her out. Taking it as a chance to prove to Hardy that she does not need him, Amanda accepts. Meanwhile, seeing her best friend with Amanda makes Watts realize her feelings for him are much deeper. She even enlists the help of another boy in an attempt to make Keith jealous, but Keith barely notices. With Watts' help, Keith sets about trying to plan the perfect date to prove he is worthy of Amanda. Watts tells Keith that Amanda will appreciate a good kisser, and shows Keith how to kiss. Keith is oblivious to Watts' attraction to him. He later uses his college fund, with Watts in tow, and selects a pair of earrings for Amanda. When Keith's father discovers that the college fund has been emptied, he is livid, but Keith ultimately convinces his father to respect his right to make his own decisions. Meanwhile, Hardy plots trouble for Keith by inviting him and Amanda to a party after their date. Hardy jealously plans to have Keith beaten up. Keith finds out about the plot, believing Amanda to be part of it, but goes ahead with the date anyway, spending the rest of his college money on an expensive dinner and roping in Watts (as chauffeur) to help make the date special. At Hardy's party, the timely arrival of other "misfits" saves Keith from taking a beating. Suddenly fearing for his safety, Hardy tries to talk his way out of his predicament. Amused, Keith tells Hardy he is "over," after which Amanda slaps Hardy's face. Amanda suddenly realizes that Keith and Watts have feelings for one another and realizes that, instead of her earlier selfishness, she wants to do the "right" thing. She returns the earrings that Keith gave to her and urges him to go after Watts. Keith, realizing that he is in love with his best friend, bids Amanda goodbye with a kiss on the cheek. Keith catches up to Watts and they kiss, whereupon Keith confesses to Watts that he had no idea how she really felt about him. Keith then gives the earrings to a delighted Watts. Watts asks Keith how they look, and he replies, "You look good wearing my future." 

=====

A poacher (Danny Trejo) hides from an unknown creature in his boat. While it breaks through the boat and attempts to catch the poacher, he commits suicide by shooting himself to prevent the beast from killing him. Meanwhile, while shooting a documentary about a long-lost indigenous tribe known as the Shirishamas on the Amazon River, director Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez) and members of her crew including cameraman and childhood friend Danny Rich (Ice Cube), production manager Denise Kalberg (Kari Wuhrer), Denise's boyfriend and sound engineer Gary Dixon (Owen Wilson), narrator Warren Westridge (Jonathan Hyde), anthropologist Professor Steven Cale (Eric Stoltz), and boat skipper Mateo (Vincent Castellanos) come across stranded Paraguayan snake hunter Paul Serone (Jon Voight) and help him, believing he knows how to find the tribe they are searching for. Most of the crew are uncomfortable around Serone, and Cale clashes with him several times in regards to Shirishama lore. Later, while trying to free the boat's propeller from a rope, Cale is stung in the throat by a wasp inside his scuba regulator, which swells up his throat and leaves him unconscious. Serone performs an emergency cricothyrotomy, seemingly saving Cale's life. With that, Serone takes over as commander and captain of the boat and the crew. They are then forced to help him achieve his true goal: hunting down and capturing a giant record-breaking green anaconda he had been tracking. Later, Mateo gets lost and is the first victim to be killed by the anaconda, which coils around him before it snaps his neck near the boat where the poacher had been killed. A photograph in an old newspaper reveals that Mateo, Serone, and the unnamed poacher were actually working together as a hunting pair to catch animals, including snakes. The others try to find him while Gary works alongside Serone, who promises if they help him find the anaconda, he will help them get out alive. Later that night, the anaconda appears and attacks the boat crew. When Serone attempts to capture the snake alive, it coils around Gary and begins to crush him. Terri attempts to save Gary by shooting the anaconda, but Serone knocks the gun out of her hands, allowing the snake to kill and devour Gary. Denise mourns the loss of her boyfriend. The survivors overcome Serone and tie him up for punishment. The next day, the boat becomes stuck at a waterfall, requiring Terri, Danny, and Westridge to enter the water to winch it loose. Denise confronts Serone and attempts to kill him in revenge for Gary's death, but he strangles her to death with his legs before dumping her corpse into the river. When the anaconda returns, Westridge distracts the snake enough for Terri and Danny to return to the boat while he ascends the waterfall. Danny and the freed Serone battle, as Westridge is coiled by the anaconda. Before it can kill him, the tree supporting the anaconda breaks, sending the group into the water and waking up Cale in the process. With Westridge killed by the anaconda in the fall, the snake attacks Danny and coils itself around him, only for Terri to shoot it in the head. An enraged Serone attacks Terri, only to be stabbed with a tranquilizer dart by Cale, who soon loses consciousness again. Danny punches the drugged Serone, knocking him into the river. However, Terri and Danny are soon captured when Serone catches up to them. He dumps a bucket of monkey blood on them and uses them as bait in an attempt to capture a second, much larger anaconda. The snake soon appears where it begins to coil itself around Terri and Danny and slowly suffocates them. They are caught in a net by Serone, but the snake breaks free. Serone himself tries to flee up a ladder, but the anaconda slinks up after him and brings it down. In time the beast uncoils itself, Serone tries again to flee only for Danny to raise his own net over him, giving the anaconda an opportunity to coil itself around Serone before suffocating him to death. As they are cutting their bonds Terri and Danny watch as the anaconda swallows Serone's body whole. Terri retreats to a building and finds a nest full of newborn anacondas, but the snake arrives and after it regurgitates Serone's still twitching corpse, which seems to wink at Terri, it chases her up a smoke stack. Danny traps the anaconda by pinning its tail to the ground with a pickaxe and ignites a fire below the smoke shack which burns the snake. An explosion triggers which sends the burning anaconda flying out of the building and it plunges into the water, causing the snake to sink. As Terri and Danny recuperate on a nearby dock, the anaconda appears one final time. Danny slams a splitting axe into the snake's head, finally killing it. Afterwards, Terri and Danny reunite with Cale, who begins to revive on the boat. As the three remaining survivors float downriver, they suddenly locate the natives for whom they were previously searching. They realize that Serone was right and resume filming their documentary. 

=====

New York taxi cab driver Oliver Greening (Robert Pastorelli) aspires to be a performer on Broadway and, despite delivering an outstanding audition for a role in a musical based on A Tale of Two Cities, he loses out to veteran performer Tony Sable (Alan Campbell), simply for the fact Tony is considered to be a more bankable option, as Oliver's reputation as an actor is non-existent. Later that night, Annabel (Mara Wilson), Oliver's young daughter, fails to convince her elder brother Charlie (Francis Capra) that fairies exist, and after the two fall asleep, Annabel awakens to find Murray (Martin Short), a male fairy godmother, offering her one wish, which she uses for her father, asking for Murray to use his magic to secure him a role in the play. Hortence (Ruby Dee), the head of all fairy godmothers, is holding the annual meeting of the North American Fairy Godmothers Association (NAFGA). Due to Hortence's rule, all the fairy godmothers must check in their wands before the meeting. Claudia (Kathleen Turner), a former fairy godmother turned evil witch, has shown up at the meeting uninvited and intends to steal all the wands. She gives Hortence's receptionist, Rena (Teri Garr) a witch's apple that puts her to sleep, casts a spell on Hortence turning the head fairy paper-thin and binding her mouth with bricks, and locks all the fairy godmothers downstairs on her way to stealing the wands. Murray, however, arrives at the meeting late and never checks his wand, leaving it as the only wand Claudia doesn't have. Annabel realizes that Murray has left his magic wand behind and decides to return it to him, but Charlie breaks it. Murray and Annabel disappear to Nebraska, by way of a misconstrued spell cast by him to get out quickly. After he tries and fails to turn a selfish motel owner they meet there into a rabbit (turning him instead into a giant rabbi), the two end up back in Central Park. Because of Annabel's disappearing in an unexplained way, the school closes early. Charlie finds them. Annabel begs Murray to try to grant her wish now that they are close to her father, but due to yet another mishap by him, Oliver is turned into a statue. To fix the problem, the three of them go to NAFGA and ask for the help of Hortence, who is still under the effects of Claudia's spell. While Murray, Charlie and Rena (who has awoken from Claudia's sleeping spell) fix Murray's wand, Hortence tells Annabel of Claudia's plot and explains that the awry spell must be lifted before midnight, or Oliver will be doomed to remain a statue forever. Claudia, meanwhile, has been looking through the wands, searching for hers. After going through, she realizes it is missing and now belongs to Murray, and she is determined to obtain it. Annabel and Murray head to the theater and see Tony Sable, the selfish and conceited actor who is auditioning for Oliver's part. Knowing this could ruin her father's chance of being in the show, she asks Murray to sabotage the audition any way he can. First he tries to make it rain on the stage but it is dismissed as a simple technical problem and the audition continues. Then she asks him to give Sable a frog in his throat to impair his singing. He takes this wish too literally, and frogs start hopping out of Sable's mouth, shocking the cast and crew. Annabel and Murray celebrate, but Sable gets the part since Oliver has not shown up. Boots (Amanda Plummer), Claudia's terrier turned lackey who has been looking for Murray, finds them. Murray mentions the story of Brer Rabbit to Annabel and together they beg her not to take them to Claudia's lair so that she will. Claudia catches them, and demands them to tell her where her wand is. When Murray tries to persuade Annabel not to tell her, as punishment, Claudia changes her and Murray into ballerinas and makes them dance uncontrollably until Annabel agrees to tell her. However, Annabel is able to keep Claudia distracted until Charlie can return with the wand, Murray winning Boots' allegiance long enough to convince her to give him the wand. Claudia attempts to attack him, but Murray is able to trick her into firing a spell that draws her into a mirror, which is subsequently shattered. Murray, Charlie, and Annabel return to Central Park and restore Oliver just in time. He is given the part of Sable's understudy thanks to a producer who enjoyed his audition. In order to finally grant Annabel's wish, Murray appears backstage and causes Sable to slip on a bucket, and twist his ankle. The resultant temper tantrum gets him fired and Oliver, his understudy, is cast in his place. Charlie and Annabel watch the show with Murray and the other fairy godmothers including Hortence, who is now free from Claudia's spell. 

=====

The zombie infestation has spread all over the world, reducing the world into desolation with civilization collapsing. In 2019, 16 years after the events of the fourth game, a paramilitary force led by retired AMS agent Thomas Rogan infiltrates the EFI Research Facility, a research center formerly owned by Dr. Roy Curien located in an unnamed place in Europe or North America, to investigate what led to the world's collapse. During the mission, his entire team is killed, until he and his second-in-command, Captain Dan Taylor are left. When they manage to find their answer in a giant laboratory, Death, a gigantic mutant who serves as the facility's security guard, kills Taylor and injures Rogan. While fighting to stay alive, Rogan is approached by an unidentified figure in a semi-corporate attire who offers help. Contact with him is lost. Two weeks later, on October 31, Rogan's daughter, Lisa, accompanied by his former partner, semi-retired agent "G", arrives at the facility to rescue him. While navigating through the facility, they fend off against hordes of undead creatures, before they encounter Death, whom they fight twice. Later, they fight a deformed sloth, The Fool, and a mutated tendrilous plant named The Sun. Along the way, Lisa muses to "G" how she has to live in the shadows of her well-known father and that she is often the subject of his comparison. Throughout the game, flashbacks reveal Curien's motivation in his obsession of studying matters of life and death that resulted in him triggering the Curien Mansion's outbreak back in 1998; he was desperate in searching for a cure to treat his son, Daniel, who is suffering from a terminal illness. His increasingly unethical methods led him to believe he would be able to change the world for a better future by developing the mutation. After more fights, Lisa and "G" reunite with Rogan. They are met by the same figure who approached Rogan in the prologue, revealed to be Daniel Curien, who laments his father's experiments that destroyed the world. After Rogan reveals on how Daniel tended to him, G gets Rogan to safety, while Daniel and Lisa form an alliance to destroy an electrokinetic entity known as the Wheel of Fate. When they reach the giant laboratory, Daniel reveals that the Wheel of Fate is actually his father's body, which underwent a 19-year resurrection process following his death by The Magician, adding that he hacked the program used in its creation some time prior to Lisa and G's arrival, in order to prevent it from being released and destroying the world, saying that the future belongs to the people who are still alive and fighting. The two fight and manage to defeat the Wheel of Fate, which explodes. 

=====

In 1651, Love became involved in a plot to restore Charles II as the king of England. In the plot, the Presbyterians sent Colonel Silius Titus to France to deliver letters to Henrietta Maria, the mother of Charles II; Colonel Ashworth brought the replies to Love's house in London. On 18 December 1650, Love's wife obtained an official pass to travel to Amsterdam. During this period, Love also received letters from Scottish Presbyterians who were sympathetic to Charles II. Love also hosted discussions in his home how to raise money for firearms from the English Presbyterians. On 7 May 1651, Love and other prominent Presbyterians were arrested and confined in Liverpool. Bremer-Webster, p. 7. On 14 May 1651, Love was ordered to be arrested on charges of high treason and was confined to the Tower of London. In late June and 5 July, he was tried before the high court of justice. Love was defended by Matthew Hale; presiding at the trial was Richard Keble. On 16 July, Love was convicted of treason and sentenced to death. Robert Hammond wrote to Oliver Cromwell asking for leniency for Love. Love received first a one-month reprieve and then a one-week reprieve. On 16 August, Love wrote his final appeal for leniency to the English parliament. In this appeal, he admitted guilt to virtually all of his charges. However, the English courts wanted to make an example of Love to quash any further trouble from the Presbyterians. 

=====

Frannie Avery, an introverted writer and English teacher in New York City, meets one of her students, Cornelius, at a local pub to talk about their coursework. Cornelius propounds a theory that John Wayne Gacy may not have been guilty of his murderous crimes, later suggesting that 'desire' was responsible. During the meeting, she heads to the bathroom in the basement. In the darkened basement hallway, she witnesses a woman performing oral sex on a man. Stunned, she momentarily observes the scene but, due to the lack of light, is only able to discern a 3 of spades tattoo on the man's wrist. Periodically as she travels the subway, Frannie reads posters of poetic quotations in the carriages, which seem to have bearing on her own life story. Several days later, Detective Giovanni Malloy questions Frannie as he investigates the gruesome murder of a young woman, whose severed limb was found in Frannie's garden. They flirt despite the grisly nature of their introduction, and meet at the same bar later. Frannie is alternately thrilled and frightened by the detective's sexual aggressiveness, even as she grows more disillusioned with the sexist attitudes and crude behavior of other men, including the detective's partner, Richard Rodriguez. Even as Malloy defends his partner, who can no longer carry a gun because he threatened his wife after she destroyed one of his awards when she caught him "having sex with a fat chick," he promises he will do anything Frannie wants except hit her. After questioning his 3 of spades tattoo, which he says identifies him as a member of a secret club, she sheepishly leaves the bar abruptly. On a dark street, she is assaulted by a masked stranger while walking home. The stranger takes her bag, including her wallet. During her escape, she runs into the path of a taxi, which hits her, knocks her down, and causes superficial injuries. Upon arriving at her apartment, she phones Malloy, asking him to come over. After a while, the two have passionate sex and she is taken aback by his sexual prowess. She tells him her mother's romanticised story of how she became engaged to her father after he proposed to her while ice-skating. She realises a charm is missing from her bracelet and Malloy suggests it probably fell off during the West Broadway attack. The next day, Frannie confides about the sexual encounter to her free-spirited half-sister, Pauline, who lives above a strip club. After Malloy tells Frannie that she and the first victim were in the same bar the night of the murder, and that she might have seen the murderer, she begins to suspect that Malloy may actually be the killer, especially after a second victim is found dismembered in a washing machine at a school laundry. Later, she accompanies Malloy to a woodsy spot along a river, where he scares her by shooting at garbage bags floating on the surface, then tells her she should learn how to shoot. She surprises herself by taking aim and shooting well. Meanwhile, Cornelius has been taken in for police questioning on suspicion of the murders, due to his handing in a term paper on serial killers illustrated in blood. Upon returning to her apartment, Frannie is confronted by her former boyfriend, John, with whom she has ended a relationship and who has told her he has been having panic attacks. Later, Cornelius comes to the apartment, displaying a bruised eye, which he blames on police interrogators. While there, he attempts to rape her -- an attack that is interrupted by Detective Rodriguez, who states that he was sent by Malloy to check on her. Cornelius swiftly leaves. She goes to Pauline's apartment, which she finds unlocked and in disarray. In the bathroom, which is covered in blood, she finds Pauline's severed head in a plastic bag in the sink. Traumatized, Frannie is briefly questioned by Malloy at the police station and then is driven home by a female uniformed police officer. After entering the apartment, she gets drunk. Malloy shows up later and reveals that the killer's 'signature' is leaving a ring on the finger of his victims. They begin to flirt and she handcuffs him to a pipe before making love to him. After sex, Frannie discovers that he had a key to Pauline's apartment. She searches for the handcuff keys in his jacket and finds the missing charm. He claims he found it at the scene of her assault and planned to return it to her but she is suspicious. She finally confronts Malloy about his tattoo, as well as her suspicion that he is a serial killer, responsible for the string of murders. She flees the apartment, leaving Malloy handcuffed. She has Malloy's jacket in hand and is met by Rodriguez outside. He tells her they need to talk and persuades her to get into his unmarked police car. As the two discuss what has transpired, Rodriguez drives Frannie to the Little Red Lighthouse below the George Washington Bridge, commenting that he likes to go fishing there. She tells him that the location reminds her of a book she teaches, To the Lighthouse. While the two talk, Frannie notices Rodriguez has the same 3 of spades tattoo on his wrist as Malloy. Rodriguez claims that he and Malloy got identical tattoos after their first big bust together. Realizing it is actually Rodriguez — not Malloy — who is the killer, Frannie fears she is to be his next victim. Rodriquez realises Frannie knows he is the killer, but holds out a ring on the end of his knife, saying 'Will you marry me?" Donning Malloy's jacket, which contains his gun, Frannie holds Rodriguez at gunpoint before shooting him once. He attempts to strangle her, but she manages to fire the gun again, killing him. She walks, bloodied, back to her apartment and lies down with the exhausted Malloy, who is still cuffed to the pipe where she left him. 

=====

Recently resurrected by Death in order to wipe out half of the population of the universe, the Titan Thanos discovers the true nature of the six Infinity Gems after gazing into Death's Infinity Well. Convincing Death that possession of the gems will aid him tremendously in his quest, he gains her permission to seek them out from the cosmic entities that currently possess them. In Part One of the Thanos Quest, Thanos first travels to the Nexus of Reality where the "concept being" known as the In-Betweener is being imprisoned by Lord Chaos and Master Order; after freeing him from the sphere in which he is being incarcerated, Thanos forcibly takes the Soul Gem from the In-Betweener, whose powers are useless at the heart of the realm of Chaos and Order. Thanos next seeks out the Champion of the Universe on a planet called Tamarata, where he has been testing his combat prowess against the planet's numerous armies. Challenging him to single combat, Thanos tricks the Champion into destroying the planet and stranding himself in space. He then offers the Champion transportation to the nearest planet in exchange for the Champion's Power Gem, to which the Champion agrees, believing that the gem has never functioned, but not realizing that he has tapped into its power reserves subconsciously. Thanos upholds his part of the bargain, but jettisons the Champion into the unnamed planet's atmosphere, leaving him to plummet to the planet's surface. His reasoning is that he had never promised the Champion a "soft landing." Thanos's next target is the Gardener, who has been in possession of the Time Gem and has used its powers to create a garden of unparalleled beauty. After a short and seemingly peaceful discussion, the Gardener attempts to use the power of his gem to strangle Thanos in various items of vegetation; using the Power Gem, Thanos breaks free and turns the Gardener's creations against him before taking the gem. In Part Two, Thanos contacts the Collector, with whom he has apparently had an amicable past and who has been monitoring his activities since Thanos's encounter with the Champion. Thanos informs the Collector that he will soon be coming into possession of a treasure so rare that the Collector will gladly part with his gem in trade for it. Thanos then seeks out the Runner, who has been using the Space Gem in order to make himself the fastest being in existence. After the Runner destroys Thanos's craft, Thanos reveals to him that he has discovered the true nature of the Infinity Gems; that they are, in fact, the physical remnants of a godlike being that existed before the creation of our universe, and who committed a form of cosmic suicide out of loneliness. He then uses the Time gem taken from the Gardener to turn the Runner first into an extremely old and decrepit man, and then into an infant. With the infant Runner in hand, he teleports back to the Collector's ship and proceeds to trade the Runner for the Collector's gem, which Thanos demonstrates to the astonished Collector has the ability to control reality. The Collector begs Thanos to leave, which he does... but only after allowing the Runner to revert to his normal age and form to take out his anger on the Collector. Thanos's final target is the Grandmaster, a consummate games-man. With the final gem, the Mind Gem, imprisoned in a random teleportation device that will only deactivate with his death, he informs Thanos that he cannot have the gem until he bests him in a game of his choosing. The two then compete in a virtual reality combat game, which Thanos seems to win until it is shown that the Grandmaster had sabotaged Thanos's weaponry. However, Thanos then reveals that the body with which the Grandmaster had been competing was merely a robotic clone of Thanos; its destruction being inconsequential, the real Thanos proceeds to destroy the gaming equipment, killing the Grandmaster and freeing the Mind Gem. Thanos returns to Death's sanctum with the six Infinity Gems in his possession, boasting of his achievement and his new-found status as Death's equal. Death congratulates his accomplishment, though still speaks to him through her various minions. When Thanos demands that Death address him personally as her mate, she points out to him, again through her minions, with his newly achieved status of omnipotence, Thanos is not her equal, but her superior, and that it would therefore not be fitting for her to address him directly. Thanos destroys the minion in a fit of anger and stalks from Death's throne room, trying to comprehend his miscalculation, and finally wondering, while shedding a tear, how becoming a god could prove such a hollow victory.The Thanos Quest #1 - 2 (Sep. - Oct. 1990) 

=====

When hero Adam Warlock takes possession of the artifact known as the Infinity Gauntlet, he expels the good and evil aspects of his being to become a totally logical being, who can therefore use the Gauntlet wisely. This act recreates his "evil" persona and old foe the Magus, who desires universal conquest and revenge against Warlock and the Titan Thanos. (Meanwhile, the effectively emotionless Adam is brought before a "jury" of the cosmic powers and voluntarily surrenders his godhood once he is found to be "guilty" of being unworthy.) The Magus collects five cosmic containment units (another name for the Cosmic Cubes), and with the power gained incapacitates the cosmic entity Eternity; creates an interdimensional realm and an army of doppelgängers—evil "mirror" images of Earth's superheroes. After investigating the energy of the containment units, Thanos discovers the Magus and retreats to warn Warlock. Galactus and several of Earth's heroes also investigate and then attempt to revive Eternity, as the entity will be required to petition the Living Tribunal, who has decreed that the Infinity Gems can no longer be used in unison in the Earth-616 universe. The rationale is that if the Gauntlet can be reactivated, then the Magus can be removed from existence. The Magus sends the doppelgängers to Earth to distract the heroes, and the evil version of Mister Fantastic detonates a gamma bomb when the heroes assemble at Four Freedoms Plaza. However, the Invisible Woman contains the blast while Thunder God Thor directs the radiation into space, and a surprise attack by the Magus and the doppelgänger of Thanos has the heroes believing the two characters are now allied. The story climaxes at the Magus' base: a group of heroes free those who were replaced by doppelgängers; cosmic adventurer Quasar arrives with the Ultimate Nullifier (with Thanos goading Quasar to use it against the Magus knowing that Quasar would also be destroyed) and villains Kang the Conqueror and Doctor Doom appear, hoping to harness the source of the powerful energies detected. Warlock and the still inactive Gauntlet are captured by the Magus, and both attacked by Doom and Kang. Warlock is defeated and the Magus is severely weakened in the battle and attempts to use the containment units but discovers they have been stolen. Doom betrays and stops Kang, and then demands the Gauntlet from the Magus. Eternity, however, has just been revived and has requested the Gauntlet be reactivated, which the Living Tribunal agrees to. An apparently omnipotent Magus easily defeats Doom and dissolves Quasar, who arrives with the Ultimate Nullifier. Thanos defeats his doppelgänger and distracts the Magus, allowing Warlock to grapple with the villain for the Gauntlet. Warlock releases from the Gauntlet a being that is a composite of the entity Eternity and his twin, Infinity. The being incapacitates the Magus, allowing Warlock to absorb the Magus into the Soul Gem. The experience places Warlock in a coma. Thanos reveals to the assembled heroes that the Magus was tricked and never gained omnipotence as the Reality Gem on the Gauntlet—which Thanos is revealed to be the secret guardian of—was a convincing fake. The heroes return to Earth and the final page of the last issue reveals that the containment units have been stolen by Warlock's "good" persona, the Goddess. In addition to these developments, Eternity—who is apparently 'deputized' by the Living Tribunal to make such a decree—thereafter declares that the Gems on the Gauntlet will never be able to be used again as a single unit, no matter what future crisis befalls the universe.Infinity War #1 - 6 (July - Nov. 1992) 

=====



=====

When hero Adam Warlock takes possession of the artifact the Infinity Gauntlet, he expels the good and evil aspects of his being to become a totally logical being, who can therefore use the Gauntlet wisely. This act not only freed the incarnation of his evil aspects, Warlock's old foe the Magus, but also created an incarnation of his good aspects, the Goddess. During the events of the Infinity War, the Goddess steals the five cosmic containment units (also known as Cosmic Cubes) collected by the Magus. She eventually collects a total of thirty, and uses these to form a "Cosmic Egg" capable of fulfilling wishes. Using the Egg to create a planet called Paradise Omega, the Goddess kidnaps and brainwashes many of Earth's superheroes to act as her army. The heroes chosen are susceptible, as they are either especially religious, mystically inclined, or have had a near-death experience. The characters, led by the heroine Moondragon, are told to defend the Goddess while she meditates on how to rid the universe of all evil. Heroes Mister Fantastic, the android Vision, and Iron Man investigate the disappearance of their allies and find Paradise Omega. They retreat when attacked by the brainwashed heroes, and contact Professor X, leader of the X-Men, who attempts to speak with Moondragon via telepathy. This results in a telepathic attack that leaves Professor X in a coma. The Titan Thanos is seen as a threat by the Goddess, and is her first target to be attacked, but is inexplicably saved by his enemy Adam Warlock. The Devil, Mephisto, offers his knowledge of the Goddess to Thanos and Warlock in exchange for one of the cosmic containment units, to which they agree. Armed with Mephisto's information, Warlock and Thanos plan to defeat the Goddess. Thanos gathers the heroes of Earth and the Silver Surfer, who, while initially serving the Goddess, has shaken off her control. The Surfer destroys Paradise Omega's defences, enabling the heroes to land and battle their friends in what becomes a battle to the death. Thanos, boosting his own telepathic powers with those of the comatose Professor X, attacks the Goddess at the moment she activates her plan. Rationalizing that evil will continue to exist while sentient life exists, the Goddess uses the Egg to rewrite existence so that the universe is completely without sentient life. This, however, proves to be an illusion created by Warlock moments before the Goddess acted to trick her, thus exposing her true goal to her army and depriving her of their loyalty - and the will needed to override the containment unit's safeguards against universal destruction. Caught off-guard, the Goddess is attacked simultaneously by Thanos, Warlock, and Professor X, the three striking her on the spiritual plane as the units cannot affect the soul, and she is absorbed into the Soul Gem. The heroes return to Earth, with their battle undone by the Cosmic Egg, before Thanos ordered it to destroy itself, to ensure that its power could never be used by another. Thanos takes a cosmic containment unit for Mephisto and then destroys Paradise Omega. Mephisto receives his payment but realizes the unit is non-functional, as he failed to specify that the artifact must work.Infinity Crusade #1 - 6 (June - Nov. 1993) 

=====

The series centers on the Thanosi, five failed genetic experiments by the Titan Thanos, with each being a clone of his DNA and modelled on other beings, including the characters Professor X; Doctor Strange; Gladiator; Iron Man and Galactus. Obsessed with nihilism and a desire to end the universe, the five Thanosi – called X; Mystic; Warrior; Armor and Omega – attempt to kill the original Thanos by creating a black hole in space. X then impersonates Thanos and directs character Pip the Troll to kidnap a recovering Adam Warlock on an alien planet. X requires information from Warlock, who previously made contact with an entity called the Anchor of Reality. By killing this being and preventing it from locating a successor, the Thanosi clones will therefore end the universe. The female mercenary Gamora locates the real Thanos, and with the aid of Warlock and heroes Doctor Strange; Spider-Man; Captain Marvel and Moondragon the Titan neutralizes four of the five clones. Omega arrives on Earth to kill the successor to the Anchor of Reality and to destroy the Earth, and is teleported with the heroes to a barren planet where they battle. Thanos transports the heroes back to Earth, and then has a fleet of alien mercenaries destroy the planet, killing the final clone. A human girl called Atleza is able to become the new Anchor of Reality unchallenged, ending the threat. 

=====

In 1821, Don Diego de la Vega, a Spanish-born California nobleman, fights against soldiers in the Mexican War of Independence as Zorro, a mysterious masked swordsman who defends the Mexican peasants and commoners of Las Californias. Don Rafael Montero, the corrupt governor of the region, learns of De La Vega's alter ego and attempts to arrest him. De la Vega's wife Esperanza, whom Montero was in love with, is killed during the ensuing scuffle. Montero imprisons de La Vega and takes his infant daughter, Elena, as his own before returning to Spain. Twenty years later, Montero returns to California as a civilian, alongside Elena who has grown into a beautiful woman and resembles her late mother. Montero's reappearance motivates de La Vega to escape from prison. He encounters a thief named Alejandro Murietta, who, as a child, saved Zorro's life during his last fight. De la Vega decides that fate has brought them together, and agrees to make Alejandro his protégé, grooming him to be the new Zorro. Alejandro agrees to undergo de La Vega's training regimen in Zorro's secret cave underneath the ruins of his family estate in order to be able to take revenge on Captain Harrison Love, Montero's right- hand man, who was responsible for killing Alejandro's brother, Joaquin. While still being trained, Alejandro steals a black stallion resembling Zorro's steed Tornado from the local garrison. De La Vega scolds Alejandro, claiming that Zorro was a servant of the people, not a thief and adventurer. He challenges Alejandro to gain Montero's trust instead. Alejandro poses as a visiting nobleman named Don Alejandro del Castillo y García, with de la Vega as his servant, and attends a party at Montero's hacienda. At the party, he gains Elena's admiration and enough of Montero's trust to be invited to a secret meeting where several other noblemen are present. Montero hints at a plan to retake California for the Dons and proclaim it as an independent republic by buying it from General Santa Anna, who needs money for the upcoming Mexican–American War. Montero takes Alejandro and the noblemen to a secret gold mine known as "El Dorado," where peasants and prisoners are used for slave labor. Montero plans to buy California from Santa Anna using gold mined from Santa Anna's own land. De la Vega uses this opportunity to become closer to Elena, though he identifies himself as "Bernardo" the servant, learning that Montero told Elena that her mother died in childbirth. While walking in a market, Elena meets the woman who was her nanny who tells Elena her parents' real identity. De la Vega sends Alejandro, now officially wearing the mantle of Zorro, to steal Montero's map leading to the gold mine. Zorro duels Montero, Love, and their guards at the hacienda. When Zorro escapes, Elena attempts to retrieve Montero's map from the swordsman, but he seduces her, leading to a passionate kiss before he flees. Terrified of Santa Anna's retribution if he discovers that he is being paid with his own gold, Montero, at Love's urging, decides to destroy the mine and kill the workers. De la Vega tells Alejandro to release the workers on his own so that de La Vega can reclaim Elena. Alejandro sets off, feeling betrayed by Diego's vendetta. De la Vega corners Montero at the hacienda and reveals his identity, but Montero captures him by threatening to shoot him in front of Elena. As he is taken away, de la Vega tells Elena the name of the flowers, romneya, that she recognized upon her arrival in California, convincing her that he is her father. She releases de la Vega from his cell and they proceed to the mine, where Alejandro and de la Vega respectively defeat and slay Love and Montero, avenging both Joaquin and Esperanza. Elena and Alejandro free the workers before the explosives go off, and then find the mortally wounded de la Vega. He makes peace with Alejandro and Elena and gives his blessings for Alejandro to marry his daughter before dying. Some time later, Alejandro and Elena are married, and Alejandro tells stories to their infant son, Joaquin, whom he named after his brother, of his grandfather's heroic deeds and legacy as Zorro. 

=====

In Ireland in 1892, Joseph Donnelly's father dies, but comes back to life for a few moments to tell Joseph to not give up his dream of owning his own land someday. His family home is burned down by his landlord Daniel Christie's men because of unpaid rent. Joseph tries killing Daniel, but he injures himself in the process and is nursed back to health by Nora Christie and her daughter, Shannon, intending to hang him. Joseph meets Shannon, who plans to run away from home and travel to America, as there is land being given away for free there. She offers to take Joseph with her as her servant, because a woman can't travel alone without being questioned. But he refuses so he can duel Christie's foreman, Stephen Chase, who set fire to the Donnelly home. Christie meets Joseph before the duel and tells him that he had nothing do with Joseph's family's eviction because the land is managed by Chase. The duel begins, but Shannon rescues Joseph. Together on a ship bound for America, Shannon meets Mr. McGuire, who tells her and Joseph about free land being given away in Oklahoma, but they have to travel a thousand miles and race it like everyone else. Shannon divulges that her collection of silver spoons will cover all expenses to get them to Oklahoma, and McGuire offers to help her find a shop to sell them to once they arrive. Upon arriving, McGuire is shot, and Shannon's spoons fall out of his clothing which are stolen by passersby. Joseph rescues her but not the spoons. Soon they are introduced to Mike Kelly, a Boston ward boss, and an Irish immigrant himself. Kelly finds Joseph and Shannon jobs and a room to rent in a brothel, which they must share. To avoid scandal, Joseph says that Shannon is his sister. As they share the room, Joseph and Shannon become attracted to each other. Joseph becomes a regular in bare-knuckle boxing matches at Boss Kelly's club to make extra cash. Back in Ireland, the Christies' house is burned down by angry tenants in the Irish Land War, so they emigrate to America. Joseph discovers that Shannon has gone to Kelly's club to dance burlesque. The Irish men surrounding the couple beg him to fight for $200, which would get them to Oklahoma. Joseph agrees and is winning until he notices one of his backers groping Shannon. Joseph pushes through the crowd to free her, but is pushed back into the ring where his foot accidentally "toes" the line, and he is defeated by a sucker punch. In retaliation for the hundreds of dollars Joseph has cost Kelly and his friends, Joseph is thrown out of the club. Joseph returns to their room in the brothel to find Kelly and his thugs taking the money he and Shannon saved, and Joseph and Shannon are thrown out into the streets, homeless. Cold and famished, the pair stay in a seemingly abandoned and luxurious house. The owners of the house return and chase them away, shooting Shannon in the back. Joseph, knowing the Christies are looking for her in Boston, brings Shannon to the home where they're staying. Deciding Shannon will be better cared for by them, Joseph leaves, despite his obvious feelings for her. Joseph heads west to the Ozarks, and finds work laying train track. He sees a wagon train out the door of his boxcar. Knowing it is headed for the Oklahoma land rush, Joseph abandons the railroad and joins the wagon train, arriving in time for the Land Run of 1893. Joseph finds Shannon, Chase, and the Christies already in Oklahoma. Chase, having seen Joseph talking to Shannon, threatens to kill him if he goes near Shannon again. Joseph buys a horse for the land rush, but it dies in a few hours, and is forced to ride an unruly horse he manages to tame. He discovers that Chase has cheated by illegally inspecting the territory before the race, and is headed for the extremely desirable land he found. Joseph quickly outpaces everybody and catches up with Shannon and Chase. Joseph is ready to plant his claim flag, but Chase rushes on horseback at Joseph. A fight breaks out, with Joseph falling and crushed by the horse. Shannon runs to his side and rejects Chase when he questions her actions. Joseph professes his love for Shannon and dies in her arms, but like his father, comes back to life fully revived when Shannon reciprocates Joseph's love. They both drive the land stake into the ground and claim their prize land together. 

=====

Mobster Carmine Ricca (Richard Devon) drives away from court in his limousine after being acquitted of a mass murder on a legal technicality. However, while his limousine is on an isolated road, Ricca and his three associates are pulled over by an SFPD motorcycle cop and murdered. Inspector Harry Callahan (Eastwood) visits the crime scene alongside his partner Earlington "Early" Smith (Perry), despite the fact that the two of them are supposed to be on stakeout duty. Callahan trades barbs with their superior, Lieutenant Neil Briggs (Holbrook). After he and Early stumble upon and foil an attempt to hijack an airliner, Callahan meets rookie cops Phil Sweet (Matheson), John Davis (Soul), Alan "Red" Astrachan (Niven), and Mike Grimes (Urich) while practicing at an indoor firing range. Callahan learns from Sweet that he (and though not directly stated it is presumed the others as well) is an ex- Airborne Ranger and Special Forces veteran after loaning his gun to the rookie, being very impressed by the rookies' marksmanship. Sometime after, a motorcycle cop slaughters a mobster's pool party using a satchel charge and a submachine gun. As Callahan and Early deal with an attempted armed robbery of a store, a pimp (Popwell) murders a prostitute (Avery) who was withholding money from him. The next day, the pimp is killed off by a patrolman he attempted to bribe. While investigating the scene, Callahan deduces what occurred and realizes that the culprit is a cop. He assumes it to be his old friend Charlie McCoy (Ryan), who has become despondent and suicidal after leaving his wife, Carol (White). Later, the motorcycle cop murders drug kingpin Lou Guzman (Pellow) using a Colt Python equipped with a silencer. However, Guzman is under surveillance and Callahan's old partner, Frank DiGiorgio (Mitchum), sees McCoy dump his motorcycle outside Guzman's apartment just before the murders. The motorcycle cop, revealed to be Davis, encounters McCoy in the parking garage and kills him to eliminate a potential witness. Harry learns of McCoy's death while presenting his suspicions to Briggs. At an annual shooting competition, a puzzled DiGiorgio tells Callahan that Davis was the first officer to arrive after the murders of Guzman and McCoy. Callahan borrows Davis' Colt and purposely embeds a slug in a range wall. He later retrieves the slug to have ballistics confirm it to match the bullets from the Guzman murder. Callahan begins to suspect that a secret death squad within the SFPD is responsible for the killings. Briggs ignores his suspicions and insists that mob killer Frank Palancio (Giorgio) is behind the deaths. Callahan persuades Briggs to loan him Davis and Sweet as back up for a raid on Palancio's office. However, Palancio and his gang are tipped off via a phone call. When the cops arrive, Sweet attempts to enforce authority but is killed by Palancio, resulting in a shootout between the police and Palancio's men. Palancio attempts to escape but Callahan jumps on the hood of his car, causing a crash. A search of Palancio's office turns up nothing and only raises Callahan's suspicions further, but an infuriated Briggs puts him under suspension. After returning home, Callahan finds Davis, Astrachan and Grimes waiting for him in his garage, presenting him with a veiled ultimatum to join their organization; Callahan refuses. While checking his mailbox, Callahan discovers a bomb left by the vigilantes and manages to defuse it, but a second bomb kills Early as Callahan phones to warn him. Callahan calls Briggs and shows him the bomb, only to learn that Briggs is the leader of the death squad. Briggs cites the traditions of frontier justice and summary executions, expressing disappointment for Callahan's refusal to join forces. At gunpoint, Briggs orders Callahan to drive to an undisclosed location while being followed by Grimes. Callahan distracts Briggs by sideswiping a bus and knocks him unconscious. Grimes gives chase and shoots out the car's rear windshield before Callahan runs him over. Davis and Astrachan appear, causing Callahan to flee onto an old aircraft carrier in a shipbreaker's yard. As they stalk Callahan through the darkened ship, Astrachan wastes his ammunition and Callahan beats him to death. Callahan runs onto the top deck and starts up Astrachan's motorcycle, leading Davis in a series of jumps between ships before the two run out of deck space. Callahan skids to a stop while Davis falls to his death in San Francisco Bay. Callahan makes his way back to the car, which Briggs commandeers at gunpoint. Briggs states his intent to frame Callahan for the murders rather than kill him. As Callahan backs away from the car, he surreptitiously activates the timer on the mailbox bomb and tosses it in the back seat. Briggs is driving off when the bomb detonates, killing him, after which Callahan proclaims, "A man's got to know his limitations." 

=====

In "The Temple", the narrator is on his honeymoon and mysteriously anxious despite being "deliriously happy" during his and his wife's outing. The story "In the Park" has two friends from childhood meet after many years and then part once more. "Cramp" has a man about a kilometer from shore on the verge of drowning barely survive, only to have no one notice he's been gone. "The Accident" portrays a cyclist being hit by a bus and the pedestrians' momentary reaction to the event. In the title story, a man sees a fiberglass fishing rod in a store window and is reminded of the times he went fishing and hunting with his grandfather. "In an Instant" traces the lives of three people on a typical day. Category:2004 short story collections Category:Works by Gao Xingjian 

=====

Abby Barnes (Janeane Garofalo) is a veterinarian and host of a radio show called The Truth About Cats and Dogs. Photographer Brian (Ben Chaplin) calls into her show for advice, and unexpectedly sends her a gift and calls her at work to ask her out; she agrees to meet. Her insecurity about her appearance leads her to lie to him over the phone and describe herself with the physical features of her neighbor Noelle (Uma Thurman). She stands him up. After intervening in an argument between Noelle and her abusive boyfriend Roy (James McCaffrey), the two women become friends. Brian shows up unexpectedly at Abby's work at the same time as Noelle, and Abby convinces her to pretend she is Abby. Abby adopts the persona of Donna, friend to Noelle (posing as Abby) and the two begin spending time with Brian together. They invent a story that Abby uses a different voice on the radio than in real life. He is physically attracted to Noelle, but notices that "Abby" has a distinctly different (and decidedly less intellectual) personality in person than on the radio and phone. When he calls the real Abby to ask her out again, he asks her to use her "real voice" and the two spend nearly twelve hours on the phone getting to know one another. The two women decide to tell Brian the truth by way of Noelle showing up at his home while Abby is live on the radio, but when Noelle arrives, she is entranced by the many kind things he says about her personality and intelligence (even though he is actually talking about Abby.) She fails to tell him the truth, which nearly causes a rift between the women, but ultimately Noelle realizes that flattery about someone else may feel good in the moment but isn't authentic. She takes a two week modeling gig out of town in order to put space between herself and Brian. Noelle returns and tells Brian to make a list of the things he loves about Abby, and to meet at the real Abby's apartment that night. He does, and reads the list to the real Abby. The first few things on the list are about Noelle's appearance, but then the list evolves into more important things about Abby that Brian has truly fallen in love with. He professes his love through the bathroom door thinking the "real Abby" is bathing inside, but gets no response. He then notices flyers for a charity event Abby is attending, complete with her photo, and realizes the truth. Abby later approaches Brian at his bar, apologizing for her deceit and explains what really happened. Although initially dismissive, he eventually meets with Abby again and admits he has fallen for her and was only attracted to Noelle because of their deception. He suggests they start again, and Abby happily agrees. 

=====

The film once again centers on the Brooklyn Cigar Store and manager Auggie (Harvey Keitel), although most of the other characters are different. The store owner's frustrated wife Dot (Roseanne) is one of them, and one of the plotlines follows her attempts to seduce Auggie. Madonna, Michael J. Fox, Lily Tomlin, and Lou Reed (as himself) also put in appearances. 

=====

There is a Mirror World that exists in the skies of Dream Land. It is a world where any wish reflected in the mirror will come true, and in it lay the Amazing Mirror. However, one day it copied the mind of a mysterious figure called Dark Mind and created a reflected world of evil. Meta Knight noticed this and flew up to save the Mirror World. Meanwhile, while Kirby was taking a walk, Dark Meta Knight appeared instantly and sliced Kirby into four Kirbys, each with a different color. Dark Meta Knight retreated and the four Kirbys chased after him on a Warp Star and entered the Mirror World. The two Meta Knights fought in the Mirror World until the real Meta Knight was defeated. He was knocked into the Amazing Mirror, which Dark Meta Knight then cut into eight fragments (which are then scattered across the Mirror World). Kirby must find the eight fragments of the broken mirror to save Meta Knight and the Mirror World from Dark Mind. 

=====

A Senate Armed Services Committee interviews a candidate for the position of Secretary of the Navy. Senator Lillian DeHaven from Texas criticizes the Navy for not being gender-neutral. Behind the curtains, a deal is struck: If women compare favorably with men in a series of test cases, the military will integrate women fully into all occupations of the Navy. The first test is the training course of the U.S. Navy Combined Reconnaissance Team (similar to U.S. Navy SEAL BUD/S). Senator DeHaven selects topographical analyst Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil, because she is physically more feminine than the other candidates. To make the grade, O'Neil must survive a grueling selection program in which almost sixty percent of candidates wash out, most before the fourth week, with the third week being particularly intensive ("hell week"). The enigmatic Command Master Chief John James Urgayle runs the training program that involves 20-hour days of tasks designed to wear down recruits' physical and mental strength, including pushing giant ship fenders up beach dunes, working through obstacle courses, and hauling landing rafts. Given a thirty-second time allowance in an obstacle course, O'Neil demands to be held to the same standards as the male trainees. The master chief observes O'Neil helping the other candidates by allowing them to climb on her back to make it over the wall obstacle course. Eight weeks into the program, during SERE training, the Master Chief ties her to a chair with her hands behind her back, grabs hold of her and slams her through the door, then picking her up off the floor he repeatedly dunks her head in ice cold water in front of the other crew members. O'Neil retaliates, and is successful in causing him some injury, despite her immobilized arms. In so doing, she acquires respect from him, as well as from the other trainees. Navy leaders, confident that a woman would quickly drop out, become concerned. The media learn of O'Neil's involvement, and she becomes a sensation known as "G.I. Jane." Soon, she must contend with trumped up charges that she is a lesbian, and is fraternizing with women. O'Neil is told that she will be given a desk job during the investigation and, if cleared, will need to repeat her training. She decides to "ring out" (ringing a bell three times, signaling her voluntary withdrawal from the program) rather than accept a desk job. It is later revealed that the photo evidence of O'Neil's alleged fraternization came from Senator DeHaven's office. DeHaven never intended for O'Neil to succeed; she used O'Neil as a bargaining chip to prevent military base closings in her home state of Texas. O'Neil threatens to expose DeHaven, who then has the charges voided and O'Neil restored to the program. The final phase of training, an operational readiness exercise, is interrupted by an emergency that requires the CRT trainees' support. The situation involves a reconnaissance satellite powered by weapons- grade plutonium that fell into the Libyan desert. A team of U.S. Army Rangers is dispatched to retrieve the plutonium, but their evacuation plan fails, and the trainees are sent to assist the Rangers. The Master Chief's shooting of a Libyan soldier to protect O'Neil leads to a confrontation with a Libyan patrol. During the mission, O'Neil, using her experience as a topographical analyst, realizes when she sees the team's map that the Master Chief is not going to use the route the others believe he will in regrouping with the others. She also displays a definitive ability in leadership and strategy while rescuing the injured Master Chief, whom she and McCool pull out of an explosives-laden "kill zone." With helicopter gunships delivering the final assault to the defenders, the rescue mission is a success. Upon their return, all those who participated in the mission are accepted to the CRT. Urgayle gives O'Neil his Navy Cross and a book of poetry containing a short poem, "Self-pity", by D. H. Lawrence, as acknowledgment of her accomplishment and in gratitude for rescuing him. 

=====

In the fictional small town of Blaine, Missouri, a handful of residents prepare to put on a community theater production led by eccentric director Corky St. Clair (Christopher Guest). The show, a musical chronicling the town's history titled Red, White and Blaine, is to be performed as part of the town's 150th- anniversary celebration. Cast in the leads are Ron and Sheila Albertson (Fred Willard and Catherine O'Hara), a pair of married travel agents who are also regular amateur performers; Libby Mae Brown (Parker Posey), a perky Dairy Queen employee; Clifford Wooley (Lewis Arquette), a "long time Blaineian" and retired taxidermist who is Red, White and Blaines narrator; Johnny Savage (Matt Keeslar), a handsome and oblivious mechanic, who Corky goes out of his way to get into the play; and Dr. Allan Pearl (Eugene Levy), a tragically square dentist determined to discover his inner entertainer. High school teacher Lloyd Miller (Bob Balaban) is the show's increasingly frustrated musical director. Corky has used connections from his "Off-Off-Off-Off- Broadway" past to invite Mort Guffman, a Broadway producer, to critique Red, White and Blaine. Corky leads the cast to believe that a positive review from Guffman could mean their show might go all the way to Broadway. The program itself is designed to musically retell the history of Blaine, whose founding father was a buffoon incapable of distinguishing the geography of middle Missouri from the Pacific coastline. The viewer also learns why the town obtusely refers to itself as "the stool capital of the United States." The music is a series of poorly performed songs such as "Nothing Ever Happens on Mars" a reference to the town's supposed visit by a UFO, and "Stool Boom". (The DVD contains "This Bulging River" and "Nothing Ever Happens in Blaine", which were edited from the cinema release.) Central to the film are Corky's stereotypically gay mannerisms. He supposedly has a wife called Bonnie, whom no one in Blaine has ever met or seen. He uses her to explain his habit of shopping for women's clothing and shoes. When Johnny is forced by his suspicious father (Brian Doyle Murray) to quit the show, Corky takes over his roles, which were clearly intended for a young, masculine actor, playing a lusty young frontiersman, a heartbroken soldier, and a little boy wearing a beanie and shorts. Corky never sheds his dainty demeanor, bowl haircut, lisp, or earring in spite of his historical roles, and his face is pasted with an overkill of stage rouge and eyeliner. Corky is also faced with creating his magic on a shoestring budget, at one point quitting the show after storming out of a meeting with the City Council, which turns down his request for $100,000 to finance the production. But the distraught cast and persuasive city fathers convince Corky to return. At the show's performance, Guffman's seat is seen to be empty, much to the dismay of the cast. Corky reassures them that Broadway producers always arrive a bit late for the show, and sure enough a man (Paul Benedict) soon takes Guffman's reserved seat. The show is well received by the audience, whereupon Corky invites the assumed Guffman backstage to talk to the actors. The man is actually Roy Loomis, who has come to Blaine to witness the birth of his niece's baby, but he does enjoy the show. Corky then reads a telegram stating that Guffman's plane was grounded by snowstorms in New York City, meaning that, like the "Godot" being spoofed, the real Guffman himself is destined never to arrive. An epilogue shows the fates of the cast: Libby Mae is now living and working at the Dairy Queen in Sipes, Alabama, where she moved after her father was paroled. Allan and the Albertsons have pursued their dreams of being entertainers, Ron and Sheila traveling to Los Angeles, California, to work as extras, and Allan now performing for elderly Jews in Miami, Florida, retirement communities. Corky has returned to New York City, where he has opened a Hollywood-themed novelty shop, which includes such items as Brat Pack bobblehead dolls, My Dinner with Andre action figures, and The Remains of the Day lunch boxes. 

=====

On a desert road in New Mexico, The Collector pursues drifter Frank Brayker. The vehicles crash and Brayker flees. Local drunk Uncle Willy takes him to a decommissioned church converted into a boarding house, where he rents a room and observes the residents: owner Irene, prostitute Cordelia, postal clerk Wally, and a convict on work release named Jeryline. A misogynistic cook named Roach arrives and informs the group about a theft attempt on his employer's car, unaware it was Brayker, and a suspicious Irene calls the sheriff. Sheriff Tupper and his deputy Bob encounter The Collector at the crash site, who convinces them that Brayker is a dangerous thief. At the boarding house, Tupper and Bob learn that Brayker is in possession of an important artifact and that he is carrying false ID. Tupper also gets word from his base that both cars were stolen and he arrests Brayker as well as The Collector. The Collector kills Tupper by punching through his skull. Driven outside by the key-like artifact Brayker possesses, The Collector draws his own blood on the sand and produces a team of demonic creatures. Brayker uses blood from the artifact to protect the building and tells the group they must wait out the night. Unable to get in, The Collector uses psychic powers to seduce and possess Cordelia. Cordelia kills Wally and cripples Irene before Brayker kills her. The group attempts to escape through old mine tunnels under the building, where Jeryline finds a boy named Danny hiding. The other townsfolk, under demonic possession, drive them back into the church. The residents demand an explanation, and Brayker reluctantly tells them the history of the key artifact. Following the creation of Earth by God, demons used seven keys to focus the power of the cosmos into their hands. When discovered, God created light, which scattered the demons and the keys across the universe. The artifact that Brayker holds is the last key needed to reclaim power; and to protect it, God had a thief named Sirach fill it with the blood of Jesus Christ. The guardians of the key, immortal while holding it, have since passed it on, refilling it with their own blood when they die. Brayker received the key from his commanding officer during World War I. Danny disappears and Jeryline rallies everyone to look for him, during which Roach sneaks the key out of Brayker's satchel. In the church attic, Irene and Bob discover that Wally was planning to attack the post office with a trunk full of weapons. The Collector soon possesses Uncle Willy, who attacks the others. While battling Willy, Roach makes a deal with The Collector to trade his life for the key, but The Collector betrays and kills him soon after Roach walks away. Brayker retrieves the key in the battle and Irene and Bob sacrifice themselves to stop the remaining minions. In the attic, The Collector brainwashes Danny, who mortally wounds Brayker before Jeryline kills him. As he dies, Brayker initiates Jeryline as a guardian of the key, deactivating all blood seals. Jeryline confronts The Collector and spits blood from the key in his face, causing him to revert to his actual demon form before being destroyed. At dawn, Jeryline refills the key with Brayker's blood and boards a bus with her cat, sealing the door behind them. Down the road, the bus stops to pick up a stranger (Mark David Kennerly), who declines to get on stating that he'll catch the next one. Dressed identically to his predecessor and carrying the same suitcase, Jeryline realizes that he is the next Collector. After exchanging a glance in passing, the new Collector begins following on foot, whistling the theme song to the Tales from the Crypt television series. 

=====

A group of treasure hunters led by Vincent explore a forest, until they find a cave containing the coffin of Lilith, mother of all vampires. Vincent takes out a box containing the four sections of her heart and puts it in her body, reviving her. Lilith awakens and kills all the treasure hunters, except Vincent, who subdues her with the key from Demon Knight. After having a fight with his sister Catherine, Caleb Verdoux goes to a dive bar, where an odd man named Jenkins tells him of a brothel hidden in a funeral home. Caleb and his friend Reggie visit the address, where the mortician McCutcheon forces them at gunpoint to climb into a coffin that takes them to said brothel. However they are unaware the prostitutes are all prostitutes led by Lilith. Lilith kills Reggie and turns to Caleb. When the police fail to find Caleb, Catherine reluctantly hires Rafe Guttman, a cynical and sarcastic private investigator. Rafe tracks Caleb's trail to the bar, where Caleb's friends direct him to the funeral home. At his first daytime visit, it appears to be just a funeral home. After a tip from Jenkins, Rafe revisits the funeral home that night. He discovers the funeral home is a front for a corrupt organization run by Reverend Current. Rafe overhears Lilith interview a woman, Tamara, followed by Tamara's scream and a body hitting the floor. On his third visit, Rafe is admitted into the brothel and approached by Tamara, who is now a vampire. Rafe tricks her into letting him strap her to a torture rack so he can investigate further, finding Jenkins decapitated in a coffin. While fleeing, Rafe drops his wallet, allowing Lilith to find his address. Having tasted Rafe's blood, Lilith takes an interest in Rafe and tries to seduce him. When Catherine arrives, Rafe follows and tells her of the brothel's activity. They alert the police, but the police dismiss Rafe as a fraud when they find no evidence. Meanwhile, Vincent destroys the key, freeing Lilith. As Catherine looks over footage where she confronted Lilith, she notices Lilith is not in the shot. Realizing that Rafe might be right, she calls him over. Caleb calls for help, asking them to meet him at the power plant. When they arrive, they discover Caleb is a vampire. Rafe and Catherine flee, but Rafe falls out a window, landing on the police chief's car. The vampires catch Catherine and bring her back to the brothel. Rafe awakens in a hospital and is nearly killed by Tamara, posing as a nurse. Rafe exposes her to sunlight, killing her. Catherine awaken at the brothel and begs Caleb to free her, but he refuses, too ingrained as Lilith's servant and fully embraced his newfound vampiric lifestyle. Lilith prepares to feed on Catherine while Caleb watches. Rafe loads up on Super Soakers filled with holy water and raids the brothel, killing Vincent and McCutcheon. He meets up with Current, who has realized his error and is attempting to rectify it. Current tells Rafe that Lilith's heart must be removed from her body and cut into four pieces, as before she was found by Vincent. Rafe gives him a spare water gun and the two enter the brothel, spraying all the vampires, including Caleb, who burn and explode. They find Lilith, who mortally wounds Current and flees after Rafe attacks her with an axe. Rafe finds Catherine, and they head to Current's church to reveal the existence of vampires with its media equipment. Lilith returns, handcuffs Rafe to a railing, and attacks Catherine. Rafe uses a nearby laser hit Lilith in the heart, cutting it into four parts. As the pieces remain in her body, Lilith remains alive. As Lilith devolves into a hideous form and attacks Rafe, Catherine grabs a candle stand and stabs out Lilith's heart. Lilith's body burns and collapses to the ground. The two have Lilith's remains burned and lock away the box with the heart pieces. Later, they sit in his car and Rafe fondles Catherine, which she seems more accepting of now. When he pulls back her skirt, he sees a pair of bite-marks on her thigh. Catherine, now a vampire, bites Rafe in the neck. 

=====

During halftime at a televised football game, L.A. Stallions running back Billy Cole receives a phone call from a mysterious man named Milo, who warns him to win the game or he will be assassinated. Cole ingests PCP and, in a drug-induced rage, brings a gun onto the field, shooting three opposing players to reach the end zone. Cole then shoots himself in the head. Meanwhile, private investigator Joe Hallenbeck, a disgraced former Secret Service agent, who at one time was a national hero for saving the president from an assassination attempt, discovers that his wife Sarah is having an affair with his best friend and business partner, Mike Matthews. Mike gives Joe an assignment to act as bodyguard for a stripper named Cory. Mike is then killed by a car bomb outside Joe's house. Joe is approached by Cory's boyfriend, former Stallions quarterback Jimmy Dix, who was banned from the league on gambling charges and alleged drug abuse. After an argument between Joe and Jimmy, an annoyed Jimmy takes Cory from the stage while she is performing. Joe plans to wait outside, where he is knocked out by a team of hitmen. Jimmy and Cory leave the bar in separate cars while Joe is left to dispatch one of the hitmen. When Cory is struck from behind and stops to confront the other driver, she is killed by the hitmen. Jimmy is fired upon and pinned down, but is saved by Joe. At Cory's house, Jimmy and Joe find a taped phone conversation between Senator Calvin Baynard, who is leading a congressional investigation into gambling in sports, and Stallions owner Sheldon Marcone. When the tape is ruined in Joe's faulty car stereo, Jimmy realizes that Cory tried using the tape against Marcone to put Jimmy back on the team, prompting Marcone to send the hitmen. Joe saves Jimmy from a second car bomb, and manages to trick two hitmen into blowing themselves up. Unfortunately, the explosion destroys the remaining evidence. Joe reveals to Jimmy that when he was in the Secret Service, he witnessed Baynard torturing a woman in a hotel room and assaulted the senator to thwart the attack. Baynard retaliated by having Joe fired from the Secret Service for refusing to cover up the incident. At Joe's house, Jimmy meets Joe's abrasive daughter Darian. When Joe catches Jimmy attempting to use illegal painkillers in the bathroom, Joe kicks him out. As Jimmy leaves, he is asked by an apologetic Darian to sign a football trading card, stating that Joe was a fan of Jimmy's and never watched another game after he was banned from the league. He leaves her with the signed card, "To the daughter of the last Boy Scout." Learning of Mike's affair with Sarah, detectives Bessalo and McCaskey assume that he was killed by Joe and move to make an arrest. But Milo, Marcone's top henchman, captures Joe first and shoots McCaskey using Joe's gun. Marcone explains to Joe that he has been buying Senate votes to legalize sports gambling, but that Baynard tried to blackmail Marcone for $6 million. Being aware of Joe's history with Baynard, Marcone says that it would be cheaper to kill the senator and frame Joe for the murder. Joe is forced to hand a briefcase filled with money to Baynard's bodyguards while someone takes pictures, but he notices that Milo switches it with a wired briefcase. Joe is rescued by Jimmy and Darian, and acquires both briefcases after running the bodyguards and Milo off the road. However, Milo survives and while Darian is left to wait for the police, he abducts her. Heading to the stadium to rescue Darian, Joe and Jimmy are captured and escorted to Marcone's office. Jimmy creates a diversion, allowing them to fight their way free. Realizing Milo will attempt to shoot Baynard, Joe goes after him while sending Jimmy to warn the senator. Grabbing the game ball, Jimmy throws it at Baynard, knocking him down just as Milo starts shooting. Joe knocks Milo to the edge of the stadium light platform, where SWAT officers shoot him several times. Milo then falls into the moving rotor blades of a police helicopter. The briefcase of money is recovered and Marcone, having escaped with the rigged briefcase, is killed when he opens it at his estate. The next day, Joe and Sarah reconcile, showing solidarity to a receptive Darian. Joe and Jimmy decide to become partners, and Joe tells Jimmy his motto: "Be Prepared." 

=====

Devout Evangelical Christian teenager Mary Cummings is entering her senior year at American Eagle Christian High School near Baltimore. She and her two best friends, Hilary Faye and Veronica, have formed a girl group called the Christian Jewels. One afternoon, Mary's boyfriend, Dean Withers, confesses to her in his pool that he is gay. In shock, Mary hits her head, and has a vision in which Jesus tells her that she must help Dean. Believing that Jesus will restore her purity, Mary has sex with Dean in an attempt to rid him of his homosexuality. Despite Mary's efforts, Dean is sent to Mercy House, a Christian treatment center, after his parents find gay pornography in his bedroom. The news of Dean's sexuality shocks and disgusts Mary's friends, aside from Roland, Hilary's sardonic, paraplegic brother. At the school assembly, Cassandra, a rebellious Jewish student who despises Hilary, causes a scene by breaking into obscenities under the guise of speaking in tongues. Mary develops morning sickness and soon discovers she is pregnant with Dean's child. Because the child is due after graduation, Mary decides to hide the pregnancy from her classmates, as well as her mother Lillian, who is covertly dating Pastor Skip, the school's married principal. Feeling forsaken by Jesus, Mary begins questioning her faith, specifically her peers' response to Dean's sexuality. This horrifies Hilary, who ousts Mary from the Christian Jewels, replacing her with an unpopular student named Tia. In an effort to help Mary, Hilary, Veronica, and Tia accost her in the street and attempt to perform an exorcism on her. Mary fights them, and Hilary hits her with a Bible. By Christmas time, Cassandra is the only one of Mary's peers who realizes Mary is pregnant. Mary soon bonds with Cassandra, who is now dating Roland; the three become close friends while ostracized by Hilary and the rest of their peers. Meanwhile, Pastor Skip's son, Patrick, attempts to pursue Mary, much to Hilary's chagrin, but Mary is evasive. Continually harassed by Hilary, Cassandra and Roland retaliate by uploading photos of a young, overweight Hilary to the school's computer system. The following day, someone vandalizes the school with obscene, anti-religious graffiti. Pastor Skip suspects Mary, Cassandra, and Roland, and discovers empty spray-paint cans in their lockers, planted by Hilary. Also found is a sonogram of Mary's baby, exposing her pregnancy. Cassandra is expelled from the school, while Mary and Roland are banned from the impending prom. Pastor Skip threatens to break off his relationship with Lillian if she does not send Mary to Mercy House. Meanwhile, Roland discovers empty spray-paint cans in Hilary's van, as well as credit card receipts from purchasing them. Armed with this evidence, Roland and Cassandra plan to crash the prom with Mary and expose Hilary, along with Patrick, who takes Mary as his date. At the prom, Hilary tries to have them ejected, but Roland confronts her with the receipts for the spray-paint. Tia, who has grown wary of Hilary's lies and hypocrisy, also attests her guilt to Pastor Skip, having discovered additional receipts bearing Hilary's signature. Publicly humiliated and rejected by Tia and Veronica, Hilary storms outside. Simultaneously, Dean, his boyfriend Mitch, and other residents of Mercy House arrive to crash the prom, and are met by Mary and Patrick in the school foyer. Mary reveals her pregnancy to Dean for the first time. Pastor Skip attempts to force the Mercy House residents out of the prom, but they refuse. Patrick argues with his father, and Mary contends that it is wrong to banish them. Their argument is interrupted by Hilary, who begins driving her van recklessly through the parking lot, ultimately crashing into the school's huge effigy of Jesus. Hilary expresses remorse and is comforted by Cassandra; meanwhile, Mary abruptly goes into labor and is taken to the hospital. Mary gives birth to a baby girl. Pastor Skip arrives at the hospital with flowers, but contemplates going inside. Mary and Dean pose for a photo taken by a nurse with their child alongside Roland, Cassandra, Patrick, Mitch, and Lillian. In a voice-over, Mary explains how she has returned to believing in a God who loves and helps the ones that love and help others in need. 

=====

Susan "Susie" Jensen is an aspiring model from the Midwest and new in the town of Mipple City, Minnesota. The story starts out as Susie uses her modeling to begin working at the strip club "Kitty Korner Klub" with her newfound friend Shelly Hine, where she now goes by the stage name of "Omaha"."Why they call her Omaha" (short story). Omaha starts to become well known after she is featured for the first time in Pet Magazine, an adult entertainment magazine as the centerfold "Kitten of the Month". After working as a locally popular dancer, she and Shelly meet Chuck Katt, an artist who begins to fall in love with Omaha and whom she considers "normal". After a new blue law is passed, "all strip clubs are to be closed down", Omaha and Shelly are put out of work. Shelly soon finds a hidden sub- basement at a restaurant that is owned by a man named Charles Tabey, a powerful, yet mentally ill business tycoon, with Shelly as his lover in secret. With Omaha out of work, Chuck Katt starts working for his former boss, Andre DeRoc, a media mogul in the town and the arch-rival of Charles Tabey. 

=====

In 2654, an interstellar war rages between the Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi Empire. The cat-like Kilrathi seek the complete eradication of the human race. A massive Kilrathi armada attacks Pegasus Station, a remote but vital Confederation base, and captures a navigation computer, through which it will be able to locate Earth. Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn (David Warner) recalls the Terran fleet to defend Earth, but expects it to arrive two hours too late. Tolwyn orders Lieutenant Christopher Blair (Freddie Prinze, Jr.), whose father he knew from a previous conflict called the Pilgrim Wars, to carry orders to the carrier TCS Tiger Claw in the Vega Sector, under the command of Captain Jason Sansky (David Suchet), to fight a suicidal delaying action to buy the needed time. Lieutenants Blair and Todd Marshall (Matthew Lillard) are pilots fresh out of training, traveling aboard the small supply ship Diligent, commanded by Captain James Taggart (Tchéky Karyo), to their new posting aboard the Tiger Claw. En route, the ship gets pulled into a gravity well and loses its navigation computer. While Taggart repairs it, Blair is able to space-jump them to safety, calculating the jump in under ten seconds. Taggart notes that Blair outperformed the computer. Along with the awkwardness of joining a new unit, and continual pranks that require discipline from his wing commander Lieutenant Commander Jeanette Deveraux (Saffron Burrows), Blair fights the distrust of Commander Paul Gerald (Jürgen Prochnow) and his crewmate Lt. Hunter (Richard Dillane) because of the drastic orders he brings from the Admiral, and because his mother was a "Pilgrim", a strain of humans who were the cause of the Pilgrim Wars. Pilgrims were the first human explorers and colonists and had developed the innate ability to navigate space by feel despite obstacles such as black holes. Marshall finds a kindred spirit in Lieutenant Rosie Forbes (Ginny Holder) and falls in love with her, but she dies when her fighter is damaged after a battle with an advance group of Kilrathi vessels and crashes on the flight deck during landing as the result of friendly competition with Marshall. The incident enrages Deveraux and shakes Marshall's confidence. Despite several setbacks, the Tiger Claw's personnel successfully attack and board a Kilrathi communications ship with the Diligent. In the attack, they also find the stolen navigation computer and learn the coordinates the Kilrathi fleet will use to approach Earth. The Tiger Claw, however, is heavily damaged and can do nothing more to prevent the assault, except to send Deveraux and Blair in fighters to find their way back to Earth. While it would normally be impossible for fighters to make such a jump without a navigation computer, Blair's Pilgrim heritage enables him to calculate the jump himself. If alerted to the Kilrathi's plans, Earth forces can destroy each Kilrathi ship before it gets its bearings after the space- jump; if not, Earth's defenses will surely be overwhelmed. Before Blair leaves, Taggart, who is in reality a Naval Intelligence officer, reveals himself to be a Pilgrim as well, shocking Blair. Deveraux's fighter is disabled in combat after destroying a missile, but she convinces Blair not to rescue her but to continue his mission. Blair uses his Pilgrim sense to jump to the vicinity of Earth. As his fighter begins to run out of fuel, he transmits the information Earth needs to defeat the Kilrathi assault. He is pursued through the jump by the Kilrathi command ship, but his position lets him bait the Kilrathi into the gravity well he encountered at the start of the movie. He pulls his fighter away at the last minute but the command ship is pulled in due to its larger mass. Unprepared, the Kilrathi fleet is destroyed by the Earth fleet without a fight. A Rescue and Recovery pilot from the Earth fleet rescues Blair while Taggart rescues Deveraux in the Diligent. Blair and Deveraux are reunited on the Tiger Claw and share a kiss as Deveraux is taken to get medical attention. 

=====

Fleeing Lord Dominion and his invading forces, Mentor headed towards Earth in a small spaceship containing many canisters of the mysterious Energy X. Lord Dominion's ships pursue Mentor and destroy his craft just outside the Earth's atmosphere; the blast scatters containers of the substance over the metropolis of Patriot City. Energy X strikes many of the city's inhabitants, giving them superpowers that echo their personality traits (for instance, Minuteman's staunch patriotism and El Diablo's fiery temper) or draw on the situation they were in when energized (e.g., The Ant or Nuclear Winter). Most of the game is set in Patriot City, but a number of other locations and time periods are used, including magical realms, prehistoric times, and realms entirely removed from time and space. The game involves a diverse roster of characters embodying traditional comic book archetypes and paralleling popular DC and Marvel properties. 

=====

After stealing an diamond in a heist in Antwerp, Franky "Four-Fingers" goes to London to see diamond dealer Doug "The Head" on behalf of New York jeweller "Cousin Avi". One of the other robbers advises Franky to obtain a gun from ex- KGB agent Boris "The Blade", then later calls Boris and encourages him to steal the diamond from him before he can turn it over to Doug. Meanwhile, boxing promoter and slot machine shop owner Turkish persuades gangster "Brick Top" to put boxer "Gorgeous George" in a matchup against one of Brick Top's boxers. However, when Turkish sends his partner Tommy and Gorgeous George to purchase a caravan from a group of Irish Travellers, George gets into a fight with Mickey O'Neil, a bare-knuckle boxing champion who badly injures George. Turkish persuades Mickey to replace George in his upcoming match by agreeing to purchase a new caravan for Mickey's mother. Brick Top agrees to the change on the condition that Mickey throws the fight in the fourth round. Boris gives Franky a revolver in exchange for a favour: Franky is to place a bet on Boris' behalf at Brick Top's bookies. Avi, knowing Franky has a gambling problem, flies to London with his bodyguard "Rosebud" to claim the diamond personally. Boris hires Vinny and Sol, two small-time crooks, to rob Franky while he is at the bookies. The robbery goes awry and Sol, Vinny, and their driver Tyrone are caught on camera, but manage to kidnap Franky. Instead of throwing the fight, Mickey accidentally knocks his opponent out with a single punch due to his overwhelming power. Infuriated, Brick Top robs Turkish of his savings and demands that Mickey fight again, and lose this time since the majority of people will bet on Mickey. Mickey refuses to fight again unless Turkish buys a better caravan for his mother, but Turkish has no money left since Brick Top stole his savings. Furious, Brick Top has his men vandalize Turkish's gambling arcade and burn down Mickey's mother's caravan while she is asleep inside. Meanwhile, Boris retrieves the diamond and murders Franky with a pistol. Brick Top tracks down Sol, Vinny, Tyrone, and their friend, Yardie "Bad Boy" Lincoln and plans on killing them for robbing his bookies. Sol bargains for their lives by promising Brick Top the stolen diamond, and is given 48 hours to retrieve it. Avi and Doug hire "Bullet-Tooth" Tony to help them find Franky. When the trail leads to Boris, they kidnap him and retrieve the diamond, closely pursued by Sol, Vinny, and Tyrone. Turkish and Tommy, who are on their way to purchase a gun from Boris, are driving on the same stretch of road at the time. When Tommy throws Turkish's carton of milk out of their car window, it splashes over Tony's windscreen, causing him to crash and killing Rosebud in the process. Boris escapes from the wreck only to be hit by Tyrone's car. Tony and Avi are confronted by Sol, Vinny, and Tyrone at a pub where Tony realizes that the trio's pistols are replicas, which he contrasts with his real handgun, intimidating them into leaving. The wounded Boris arrives with an assault rifle and a grenade launcher looking for the diamond, but is shot and killed by Tony, who wounds Tyrone at the same time. Sol and Vinny leave a wounded Tyrone and escape with the diamond, which Vinny hides in his pants. When Tony catches up to them, they tell him that the diamond is back at their pawn shop. Once there, they produce the diamond, but it is promptly swallowed by a dog that Vinny got from the travellers. Avi wildly fires at the fleeing dog, accidentally killing Tony. He gives up and returns to New York. Mickey agrees to fight to avoid more carnage, but gets so drunk after his mother's wake that Turkish fears he will not make it to the fourth round. If he fails to go down as agreed, Brick Top's men will execute Turkish, Tommy, Mickey, and the entire campsite of travellers. Mickey makes it to the fourth round, when he suddenly knocks out his opponent. Outside the arena, as Tommy, Turkish and Mickey try to run for their life, Brick Top and his men are killed by the travellers. Mickey has bet on himself to win, and waited until the fourth round to allow the travellers time to ambush and kill Brick Top's men at the campsite. The next morning, Turkish and Tommy find the travellers' campsite deserted as Mickey and the travellers have escaped with their winnings. When confronted by the police, they cannot explain why they are there, until Vinny's dog suddenly arrives and they claim to be walking it. Sol and Vinny are arrested when the police find Franky and Tony's bodies in their car. Turkish and Tommy take the dog to a veterinarian to extract a squeaky toy that it had swallowed, and discover the diamond in its stomach, as well. They consult Doug about selling the diamond and he calls Avi, who returns to London. 

=====

Following a news story depicting the demolition of a slum in East London in the south-east of the Cape Province in South Africa, liberal journalist Donald Woods (Kevin Kline) seeks more information about the incident and ventures off to meet black activist Steve Biko (Denzel Washington), a leading member of the Black Consciousness Movement. Biko has been officially banned by the Government of South Africa and is not permitted to leave his defined 'banning area' at King William's Town. Woods is opposed to Biko's banning, but remains critical of his political views. Biko invites Woods to visit a black township to see the impoverished conditions and to witness the effect of the Government-imposed restrictions, which make up the apartheid system. Woods begins to agree with Biko's desire for a South Africa where blacks have the same opportunities and freedoms as those enjoyed by the white population. As Woods comes to understand Biko's point of view, a friendship slowly develops between them. After speaking at a gathering of black South Africans outside of his banishment zone, Biko is arrested and interrogated by the South African security forces (who have been tipped off by an informer). Following this, he is brought to court in order to explain his message directed toward the South African Government, which is White-minority controlled. After he speaks eloquently in court and advocates non-violence, the security officers who interrogated him visit his church and vandalise the property. Woods assures Biko that he will meet with a Government official to discuss the matter. Woods then meets with Jimmy Kruger (John Thaw), the South African Minister of Justice, in his house in Pretoria in an attempt to prevent further abuses. Minister Kruger first expresses discontent over their actions; however, Woods is later harassed at his home by security forces, who insinuate that their orders came directly from Kruger. Later, Biko travels to Cape Town to speak at a student-run meeting. En route, security forces stop his car and arrest him asking him to say his name, and he said "Bantu Stephen Biko". He is held in harsh conditions and beaten, causing a severe brain injury. A doctor recommends consulting a nearby specialist in order to best treat his injuries, but the police refuse out of fear that he might escape. The security forces instead decide to take him to a police hospital in Pretoria, around 700 miles (1 200 km) away from Cape Town. He is thrown into the back of a prison van and driven on a bumpy road, aggravating his brain injury and resulting in his death. Woods then works to expose the police's complicity in Biko's death. He attempts to expose photographs of Biko's body that contradict police reports that he died of a hunger strike, but he is prevented just before boarding a plane to leave and informed that he is now 'banned', therefore not able to leave the country. Woods and his family are targeted in a campaign of harassment by the security police, including the delivery of t-shirts with Biko's image that have been dusted with itching powder. He later decides to seek asylum in Britain in order to expose the corrupt and racist nature of the South African authorities. After a long trek, Woods is eventually able to escape to the Kingdom of Lesotho, disguised as a priest. His wife Wendy (Penelope Wilton) and their family later join him. With the aid of Australian journalist Bruce Haigh (John Hargreaves), the British High Commission in Maseru, and the Government of Lesotho, they are flown under United Nations passports and with one Lesotho official over South African territory, via Botswana, to London, where they were granted political asylum. The film's epilogue displays a graphic detailing a long list of anti-apartheid activists (including Biko), who died under suspicious circumstances while imprisoned by the Government. 

=====

Jewel thief Miles Logan participates in a $17 million diamond heist in Los Angeles. One of his accomplices, Deacon, turns on Miles and kills Eddie, Miles' best friend and another member of the team, before attempting to take the stone from Miles. The police arrive and Miles is forced to hide the diamond in the ductwork of a building being constructed. Deacon flees and Miles is arrested, and as Miles is being taken away he is horrified to discover that Eddie has been killed. Two years later, Miles is released from prison and attempts to reconnect with his girlfriend. She dumps him for lying to her about his criminal life, and Miles decides to go retrieve the diamond. He is dismayed to find that the building he hid the diamond in is now an LAPD police station. He goes inside and discovers that the stone is hidden in what is now the Robbery/Homicide detective bureau, which requires a key card to access. Miles returns later on disguised as an eccentric pizza deliveryman. While unable to gain access to the ducts, he does manage to steal an access card. Miles visits his forger Uncle Lou, who creates a fake badge and transfer papers that allow Miles to enter the building posing as a newly transferred Detective Malone. While trying to access the ducts, Miles inadvertently foils a prisoner escape and is teamed up with Detective Carlson. The pair are sent out on a burglary call, where Miles quickly solves it as a fraud perpetrated by the owner. On the ride back, they stumble upon an armed robbery being committed by Miles' good friend and former getaway driver Tulley. Miles intervenes and arrests Tulley before the police can shoot him, but Tulley demands $50,000 to keep quiet about who Miles really is. Miles makes another attempt to locate the diamond but is interrupted by Carlson, who has discovered that Miles isn't who he claims to be. Miles convinces Carlson that he is from Internal Affairs. Miles tries to get back to searching for the diamond but he and Carlson are sent out on another call. While out, they capture a truckload of heroin belonging to a major dealer. Miles locates the diamond in the vent inside the evidence locker and finally retrieves it, but accidentally drops it into the load of heroin they seized. The FBI arrives and demands the heroin be turned over to them for testing. A panicked Miles suggests the FBI and his cops unit use the heroin as bait in a sting. He arranges to be with the heroin in the delivery truck, but is soon joined by Tulley (who he secretly set free from holding) and Deacon. During the drug deal, Deacon tries to expose Miles as a cop to the drug runners. While Miles and Tulley attempt to distract the dealers, the police and FBI raid the deal. Deacon escapes with the diamond in an armored truck and the police and FBI follow as he approaches the border to Mexico. The police and FBI are forced to halt their pursuit at the border, but Miles steals a patrol car and continues after Deacon. Miles forces Deacon to wreck the truck and then offers him a deal: Deacon gives Miles the diamond and allows Miles to arrest him and in exchange Miles takes him back to the United States and cuts him back in on the diamond. Deacon agrees, and Miles immediately double-crosses him by handcuffing him to the wrecked truck for the Federales to find. Deacon draws a gun to shoot Miles but Miles turns and shoots him first, killing him and avenging Eddie's death. Miles walks back the US side of the border where the FBI demands he explain his actions. The police also want to know who he's working for as his fake credentials didn't check out. Miles tells them he's an undercover Mexican officer, and has to get back to Mexico to explain everything to his fellow Federales. Miles gets a few inches over the border when Carlson and Hardcastle stop him and reveal that they know who Miles really is. However, they don't arrest him as they are grateful for all of his help and look at him as a friend. They jokingly state the FBI are strict about integrating people over international borders although Miles is only a few inches over the border. The three men share a bittersweet goodbye, before Miles heads off into Mexico with the diamond. 

=====

The novel takes place in Virginia, somewhere near the Shenandoah River, and quickly establishes its plot line in a post-apocalyptic era. The collapse of civilization around the world has resulted from massive environmental changes and global disease, which were attributed to large-scale pollution. With a range of members privileged by virtue of education and monetary resources, one large family founds an isolated community in an attempt to survive the still-developing global disasters. As the death toll rises, mainly to disease and nuclear warfare, they discover that the human population left on earth is universally infertile. From cloning experiments conducted through the study of mice, the scientists in the small community theorize that the infertility might be reversed after multiple generations of cloning, and the family begins cloning themselves in an effort to survive. The assumption is that after a few generations of cloning, the people will be able to revert to traditional biological reproduction. However, to the horror of the few surviving members of the original group, the clones who are finally coming of age reject the idea of sexual reproduction in favor of further cloning. The original members of the community, too old and outnumbered by the clones to resist, are forced to accept the new social order and the complications that arise. The new generations are cloned in groups of four to ten individuals, and due to a strong emotional and mental connection between the clones, they have a strong sense of empathy for one another. As the old generation dies out and the clones seek to expand their territory, they quickly discover that prolonged separation from other members of their group produces irreversible psychological stress. One woman, Molly, after being separated from her clones while on an expedition to find materials in the ruins of nearby cities, regains a "human" sense of individuality, which her fellow clones believe to be dangerous to the community. As a result of this, she is exiled. Though Molly is allowed to live by herself in peace, she is not allowed contact with the other clones except the members who bring her the supplies she needs. In secret, she goes on to have a child with Ben, one of the clones who accompanied her on the journey to the surrounding cities. After a few years of successful secrecy, she and the child are found, and although Molly and Ben are expelled from the community, the child, Mark, is allowed to stay. The clones, though wary of his threatening individuality, hope to study him in order to learn more about non-clones. As the child becomes a man, he realizes that his uniqueness gives him individuality and the ability to live away from the community, something which the clones are now unable to do. The leaders of the community realize that the latest generations of clones are losing all sense of creativity and are unable to come up with new solutions to problems; simultaneously they see that the growing lack of high-technology equipment will result in the community losing the ability to continue with the cloning process. As the only "naturally" produced human in the community, Mark seeks his own solution to the problem, and by force he leads a group of fertile women and children to abandon the community and start over, leaving a trail of devastation to the clone community in the wake of his departure. He returns to the community twenty years later to discover that in the wake of this disaster, the clones, unable to survive with their limited adaptability, have perished and the village has been destroyed. At novel's end, Mark returns to the community he created, where all of the children and younger generations, products of conventional reproduction, continue to thrive. The novel makes a passing reference to global cooling caused by human pollution, a prominent depiction of the future in the 1960s and 1970s: 

=====

Psychiatrist Jack Mickler (Marlon Brando) dissuades a would-be suicide - a 21-year-old man who is costumed like Zorro and claims to be Don Juan (Johnny Depp), who is then held for a ten-day review in a mental institution. Mickler, who is about to retire, insists on doing the evaluation and conducts it without medicating the youth. "Don Juan" tells his story - born in Mexico, the death of his father, a year in a harem, and finding true love (and being rejected) on a remote island. Listening enlivens Mickler's relationship with his own wife, Marilyn (Faye Dunaway). As the ten days tick down, and pressure mounts on Mickler to support the youth's indefinite confinement, finding reality within the romantic imagination becomes Jack's last professional challenge. 

=====

It starred E. G. Marshall and Robert Reed as father-and-son defense attorneys who specialized in legally complex cases, with defendants such as neo-Nazis, conscientious objectors, demonstrators of the Civil Rights Movement, a schoolteacher fired for being an atheist, an author accused of pornography, and a physician charged in a mercy killing. 

=====

Joanna Eberhart (Nicole Kidman) is a successful reality television executive producer, whose career suddenly ends after an attempted shootout by a disillusioned reality show participant. After being fired Joanna had a complete mental breakdown and she has even forgotten her wedding anniversary. With her husband, Walter (Matthew Broderick), and their two children, she moves from Manhattan to Stepford, a quiet Fairfield County, Connecticut, suburb. Joanna becomes friends with Roberta "Bobbie" Markowitz (Bette Midler), a writer and recovering alcoholic, and Roger Bannister (Roger Bart), a flamboyant gay man who has moved to town with his long-time partner, Jerry (David Marshall Grant). Joanna, Bobbie, and Roger witness an incident in which Sarah Sunderson (Faith Hill), violently dances and then collapses. Joanna argues with Walter about the incident with Sarah. He tells her that her children barely know her, their marriage is falling apart, and she is so domineering that people literally want to kill her. Walter tries to walk out of their marriage, but Joanna appeases him by trying to fit in with the other Stepford wives. Joanna changes her look and tries to become a housewife. Joanna, Bobbie, and Roger go to Sarah's home to check up on her. Sarah has left the door open and they hear her upstairs, screaming in ecstasy while having sex with her husband. As they scramble to sneak out, they find a remote control labeled SARAH. They do not notice that pressing a button causes Sarah's breasts to enlarge and makes her walk backwards robotically. They run away to Bobbie's messy, disorderly home. Roger confides to them that he and his husband are having marital issues and went to Stepford to get better like Bobbie (court order), Joanna (as a last resort) and their husbands. The Stepford women appear extremely vapid and shallow; in the Stepford book club, their "story" is a catalogue of Christmas, Chanukah collectibles, and decoration tips. In the Men's Association, Walter tells the other husbands that Joanna is planning to change. They show Walter that Ted's wife is a robot. Joanna and Bobbie sneak into the men's association to spy on the husbands. They discover a hall filled with family portraits and are caught by Roger. Roger tells them that there is nothing wrong and the women leave. The next day, Joanna and Bobbie discover Roger's favorite flamboyant clothes, playbills, and a photo of Orlando Bloom and a shirt with Viggo Mortensen's face in the garbage bin. Jerry tells them to meet him in the town hall and they see Roger, apparently running for State Senate, with a bland, conventional look and conformist personality. Joanna wants to leave and Walter agrees with her, saying that they will go the next day. At night, a robo-dog gives her a remote with her name. Joanne goes into Walter's study and discovers that all the Stepford wives were once working women in high power positions and that a champion terrier vanished and is believed to be the robo- dog. The next day, Joanna visits Bobbie and she notices that her house is spotless. Bobbie is now blonde, dressed in a Sunday dress, and blends in with the other Stepford wives. Bobbie says that she is a whole new person and the most important thing is her cookbook. While telling Joanna that she can help her change, Bobbie puts her hand over the stove's burner and does not even notice. Joanna wants to leave and calls the camp for her kids, but she finds out that they were taken by Walter. She goes back to the Men's Association and finds that in her family picture, she now looks like a Stepford wife. Walter has gathered with the other husbands and confesses that after marrying Joanna, he has felt undermined and all the husbands feel the same. Mike (Christopher Walken) shows how they insert nanochips into their wives' brains and turn them into Stepford wives. The men corner Joanna and Walter and force them toward the transformation room, but before Joanna enters, she makes a final appeal by asking whether the new wives really mean it when they tell their husbands that they love them. The next scene shows all of the Stepford wives, including Joanna, now blonde and dressed in Sunday dresses, at the grocery store. With Joanna and Walter as the guests of honor, Stepford hosts a formal ball. During the festivities, Joanna distracts Mike and entices him into the garden, while Walter slips away. Walter returns to the transformation room, where he destroys the software that makes the women obedient. Walter returns to the ball, where the baffled husbands are cornered by their vengeful wives. Walter reveals that Joanna never received the microchip implant because her argument during the struggle had won him over. Out of his love for and loyalty to the human being he married, he joined her plan to infiltrate Stepford, with her pretending to be a cyborg. Mike threatens Walter, but before Mike can attack, Joanna hits Mike with a candlestick, decapitating him and revealing that he is a robot, and not even partially biological. Claire (Glenn Close) explains that she created Stepford because she, too, was a bitter, career-minded woman; in her case, a tired brain surgeon. When she discovered that Mike was having an affair with her research assistant, she murdered them in a jealous rage. When Joanna wonders aloud why Claire did not simply make the men into cyborgs, she replies that she planned to turn the whole community into cyborgs. Claire then electrocutes herself by kissing Mike's severed robotic head. Six months later, Larry King is interviewing Joanna, Bobbie, and Roger, with Walter also in attendance. They have all met with success; Joanna has made a documentary, Bobbie has written a book of poetry, and Roger broke up with Jerry and won his State Senate seat as an Independent. As King asks about the fate of the other husbands of Stepford, Roger and Bobbie explain that they are still in Stepford, under house arrest, and are being retrained to become better people. The closing scene of the film reveals that the irate wives have taken over Stepford and are forcing their husbands to atone for their crimes by making them do housework and shop for them. 

=====

During Spring, a family of nomadic shepherds assists the births of their camel herd. The last camel to calve this season has a protracted labor that persists for two days. With the assistance and intervention of the family, a rare white calf is born. This is the mother camel's first calving. Despite the efforts of the shepherds, the mother rejects the newborn, refusing it her milk and failing to establish a care-bond with it. To restore harmony between the mother and calf, the nomadic family call upon the services of a group of lamas who perform a ritual with bread or dough 'effigies' () of the mother, the calf and the individual members of the family. The rite opens with the sound of a sacred conchshell horn followed by bells in the hands of lamas, some of whom wield vajra. The rite takes place with members of the extended nomadic community and a number of lama at a sacred place that consists of one end of a log, or wooden pole, set in the earth, with the other end raised to the sky: a stylized 'victory banner' () with a piece of blue fabric entwined around it, functioning as a prayer flag (darchor-style). The log is supported by a cairn of rocks at its base as foundation. The ritual, however, does not re-establish harmony between the mother and calf. The family then resolve to secure the services of an indigenous 'violinist' to play the music for a Mongolian 'Hoos' ritual. They send their two young boys on a journey through the desert to the community marketplace to locate a musician. The 'violinist' —who plays more precisely a morin khuur — is summoned to the camp and a ritual of folk music and chanting is enacted. The musician first drapes the morin khuur on the first hump of the camel to establish a sympathetic magical linkage between the mother and the state of harmony represented by the instrument. Once this is done he removes the instrument and commences playing. As the musician sounds the Mongolian 'violin', the female family member who lulled her child to sleep with a lullaby earlier in the documentary, repeatedly intones the calming sounds and beautiful melody of the 'hoos'. At this point, the mother camel starts to weep, tears visibly streaming from her eyes. Immediately after the rite the mother and calf are reconciled and the calf draws milk from her teat. 

=====

Film set at Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt in April 2003. The building doubles as a background building outside London's Royal Academy of Science. In 1890, England, a Chinese man, Lau Xing (Jackie Chan) robs the Bank of England. To evade the police, Xing becomes the valet for Phileas Fogg (Steve Coogan), an inventor, taking the pseudonym Passepartout. Phileas, just before Xing arrived, had been trying to break the 50-mph speed barrier, and after succeeding with the help of Passepartout, they head to the Royal Academy of Science. There, Fogg is insulted by the other "brilliant minds", in particular Lord Kelvin (Jim Broadbent) who believes that everything worth discovering has already been discovered. After a debate between the scientists about the bank thief, Phileas is pressured into a bet to see whether he can travel around the world in 80 days. If he wins, he will become Minister of Science in Lord Kelvin's place, if not, he will destroy his lab and never invent anything again. Phileas and Xing start their journey around the world, taking a carriage and leaving London after a confrontation with Inspector Fix (Ewen Bremner), a corrupt officer hired by Lord Kelvin to stop them. Xing and Phileas journey to Paris, France. Pretending to take Phileas to a convention with Thomas Edison, Xing leads him to an art school where Phileas meets Monique La Roche (Cécile de France), a would-be impressionist. There, Xing is attacked by disguised warriors, the Black Scorpions, sent by General Fang, a warlord from China who is after the Jade Buddha that he stole. Fang had previously given it to Kelvin in exchange for military assistance in China. When Monique learns of Phileas's ambition, she convinces them to take her with them. They depart in a hot-air balloon, chased by Fang's warriors. Whilst on the Orient Express, Monique learns that Xing is trying to return the Jade Buddha back to his village, and is travelling with Phileas to get there quickly. Monique keeps his secret in exchange for him convincing Phileas to let her travel with him. They travel to Turkey, where the train stops. Guards climb onboard and inform the trio that they are greeted by Prince Hapi. During the Prince's banquet, he orders Monique to stay as his seventh wife while the men are ordered to leave. The men blackmail Prince Hapi into releasing Monique using a prized but apparently flimsy "The Thinker" statue of the Prince. The statue is destroyed, much to Hapi's anger, but the trio escape from the guards. Lord Kelvin, learning that Phileas has been abetting a thief's escape, orders the British colonial authorities in India to arrest both. Xing notices this and warns his companions, disguising themselves as Indian women to evade capture and successfully flee to China. On the train Xing tells the story of the Ten Tigers of Canton to children. Fogg tells him legends are meaningless and Xing tells him that him traveling around the world in eighty days is a legend. Xing leads his friends to his village, Lanzhou, where they are happily greeted. Phileas, however, finds out Xing stole the Jade Buddha and leaves, but is immediately captured along with Xing and Monique by the Black Scorpions. With them is a man who was imprisoned for public urination. Xing challenges the leader of the group to a fight, during which he is joined by the martial arts masters of the "Ten Tigers of Canton", of which Xing is a member. The Tigers drive the Black Scorpions from the village and free the Westerners. The Buddha is returned to the village temple. Phileas, feeling used by Xing and Monique, leaves for San Francisco, United States, alone, only to be proven wrong when the latter decide to help him win his bet. In New York City, Fang's disguised warriors trick the trio to an ambush site. Fang reveals the nature of their arrangements with Lord Kelvin to take Lanzhou and tap the jade reserves underneath it. A battle against Fang and her warriors commences in the workshop where the Statue of Liberty is being constructed, resulting in Phileas missing a boat to help Xing. Fang's warriors were defeated and Xing nearly dies to save Phileas. Fang also survives but is knocked out by Monique with a punch and Xing jokes that she is the 11th Tiger. Phileas feels he has lost, but the other two say they may still make it if they catch the next ship. They board an old ship and Phileas convinces the captain to let him build a plane out of the ship's old wood in exchange for a new ship. Using an altered version of the Wright brothers' plans, Phileas builds the plane while the ship's crew builds a catapult to launch it into the sky. They reach London, where the machine falls apart and they crash in front of the Royal Academy. Lord Kelvin sends police to arrest them for robbing the bank, in order to stop them from making it to the top step of the Academy, and proclaims himself the victor when Big Ben strikes noon, seemingly ending the wager. Monique, Fix and other ministers attest to Kelvin's unfair methods and his bullying nature, but Kelvin scoffs at them. In the process he insults Queen Victoria, who arrives on the scene. She learned that he had sold her arsenal to Fang in exchange for jade mines in China thanks to one of his aides. Kelvin is arrested and sent to prison, and Phileas realizes he is one day early thanks to crossing the international date line. He victoriously ascends the stairs of the Academy and kisses Monique. 

=====

In the 5th century AD, the declining Roman Empire is withdrawing from Britannia, where the native Woads, led by Merlin, stage an insurgency. A group of Sarmatian knights and their half-British Roman commander Artorius Castus, known as "Arthur", have fulfilled their duties to Rome and are preparing to return home until Bishop Germanus orders them to complete one final mission: evacuate an important Italian family from north of Hadrian's Wall, saving them from an advancing army of invading Saxons, led by the ruthless Cerdic and his son, Cynric. Alecto, the son of the family patriarch, is a viable candidate to be a future Pope. Arthur and his remaining men - Lancelot, Tristan, Galahad, Bors, Gawain, and Dagonet - reluctantly accept the mission. Arriving at their destination, they find that the Roman patriarch Marius, who refuses to leave, has enslaved the local population, enraging Arthur. He discovers a cell complex containing a number of dead Woads and two tortured survivors — a young woman named Guinevere and her younger brother Lucan. Arthur frees them and gives Marius an ultimatum — leave with them willingly or otherwise be taken prisoner. He and his knights commandeer the homestead, and liberate its exploited people. The convoy flees into the mountains with the Saxons in pursuit. Marius leads an attempted coup but is slain by Guinevere. Arthur learns from Alecto that Germanus and his fellow bishops had Arthur's childhood mentor and father figure, Pelagius, executed for his beliefs. This further disillusions Arthur from the Roman way of life, a process that matures when Guinevere and Merlin remind Arthur of his connection to the island of Britain through his Celtic mother. Arthur leads the pursuing Saxons, led by Cynric, through a pass crossing a frozen lake. As battle ensues, Dagonet sacrifices himself to crack the lake ice with his axe, disrupting the Saxon advance. The knights safely deliver Alecto and his mother to Hadrian's wall and are officially discharged. Arthur, having concluded that his destiny lies with his mother's people, decides to engage the Saxons despite Lancelot's pleas to leave with them. The night before the battle, he and Guinevere make love and on the following day, Arthur meets Cerdic under a white flag of parlay, vowing to kill him. He is soon joined by Lancelot and his fellow knights, who decide to fight. In the climactic Battle of Badon Hill, the Woads and knights whittle the Saxon army. Guinevere engages Cynric, who overwhelms her. Lancelot aids her and kills Cynric but is fatally wounded. Cerdic kills Tristan before facing off against Arthur, who kills the Saxon leader, condemning the invaders to defeat. Arthur and Guinevere marry and Merlin proclaims Arthur as king of Britain. United by their defeat of the Saxons and the retreat of the Romans, Arthur promises to lead the Britons against future invaders. Three horses that had belonged to Tristan, Dagonet and Lancelot run free across the landscape, as the closing narrative from Lancelot describes how fallen knights live on in tales passed from generation to generation. 

=====

Told as a flashback to the early 21st century, with a wraparound sequence narrated by the orangutan Lawgiver in "North America – 2670 A.D.", this sequel follows the ape leader Caesar years after a global nuclear war has destroyed civilization. Living with his wife, Lisa and their son, Cornelius, Caesar creates a new society while trying to cultivate peace between the apes and remaining humans. Caesar is opposed by a gorilla named Aldo, who wants to imprison the humans who freely roam Ape City while doing menial labor. After defusing followers of Aldo who attacked a human teacher for saying "No" to apes, Caesar ponders if his own parents could have taught him how to make things better. MacDonald, Caesar's human assistant and the younger brother of MacDonald (from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes) reveals to Caesar that his brother told him of archived footage of Cornelius and Zira within the underground, now radioactive ruins of what is known as the Forbidden City from the last film. Caesar travels with MacDonald and his orangutan advisor Virgil to the Forbidden City to find the archives. It is revealed that mutated and radiation-scarred humans are living within the city, under the command of Governor Kolp, the man who once captured Caesar. Caesar and his party view the recordings of his parents, learning about the future and Earth's eventual destruction before they are forced to flee when Kolp's soldiers attempt to kill them. Fearing the mutant humans may attack Ape City, Caesar reports his discoveries. When Caesar calls MacDonald and a select group of humans to the meeting, Aldo leads the gorillas away. Kolp's scouts find Ape City. Believing Caesar is planning to finish off all mutant humans, Kolp declares war on Ape City despite his assistant Méndez's attempt to get him to see reason. Aldo plots a coup d'état in order for the gorillas to take control. Cornelius overhears from a nearby tree, but is critically wounded when Aldo spots him and hacks off the tree branch he is on with his sword. The next day, after a gorilla scouting pair are attacked by Kolp's men, Aldo takes advantage of a grieving Caesar's absence to have all humans corralled while looting the armory. Cornelius eventually dies from his wounds, leaving a devastated Caesar with the revelation that Cornelius was not hurt by humans. When Kolp's ragtag force launches their attack, Caesar orders the defenders to fall back. Finding Caesar lying among dozens of fallen apes, Kolp expresses his intention to personally kill him. The apes, however, are merely feigning death and launch a counterattack that captures most of the mutant humans. Kolp and his remaining forces try to escape, only to be slaughtered by Aldo's troops once they are out in the open. Aldo confronts Caesar about releasing the corralled local humans and orders the gorillas to kill them. When Caesar shields the humans and Aldo threatens him, Virgil (having learned the truth from MacDonald) reveals Aldo's role in Cornelius's death and that he broke their community's most sacred law – "Ape shall never kill ape". An infuriated Caesar pursues Aldo up a large tree, their confrontation resulting in Aldo falling to his death. With Caesar realizing that apes are no different than their former human slaveowners, he agrees to MacDonald's request for humans to be treated as equals, co-existing in a new society. They store their guns in the armory; Caesar and Virgil reluctantly explain to the armory's overseer, an orangutan named Mandemas, that they will still need their weapons for future conflicts and can only wait for the day when they will no longer need them. The scene returns to the Lawgiver, saying it has now been over 600 years since Caesar's death. His audience is revealed to be a group of young humans and apes, the Lawgiver noting that their society still waits for a day when their world will no longer need weapons, while they "wait with hope". A closeup of a statue of Caesar shows a single tear falling from one eye. 

=====

In an Eastern Orthodox church in Pale, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosnian Minister of Foreign Affairs is murdered after being paged to meet a colleague of a fellow member of the Bosnian Parliament outside. At a missile base in Kartaly, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, SS-18 ICBMs are being decommissioned. Ten nuclear warheads are loaded onto a train and sent to a separate site for dismantling. However, Russian General Aleksandr Kodoroff, along with a rogue Spetznaz unit, kills the soldiers on board the transport train and transfers nine of the warheads to another train. Kodoroff then activates the timer on the remaining warhead and sends the transport on a collision course with a passenger train. Minutes later, the 500-kiloton warhead detonates, killing thousands of civilians and delaying an investigation. The detonation immediately attracts the attention of the U.S. government. White House nuclear expert Dr. Julia Kelly believes that Chechen terrorists are behind the incident. U.S. Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Devoe interrupts her briefing to suggest that the crash and detonation were staged to hide the hijacking of the other warheads. A call to Devoe's long-time friend and Russian counterpart, FSB Colonel, Dimitri Vertikoff, adds reliability to his theory and he is assigned as Dr. Kelly's military liaison. Kelly and Devoe secures information about the terrorist's hijacking operation through an Austrian trucking company which is a front for the Russian Mafia. When the Mafia realizes they are U.S. federal personnel, they send thugs to kill them. Vertikoff, is killed while trying to pay them off. Devoe kills all of the attackers, before he and Kelly escape. Information from the trucking company says that the nukes are going to Iran. Spy satellites place the truck in a heavy traffic jam in Dagestan following a ongoing territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Devoe uses a ruse to identify it. The satellite, tracking in real time, is able to verify its license plate. Stopped at a Russian checkpoint, Kodoroff and his men kill all the guards before escaping. Devoe then leads a US Special Operations unit from a US military base in Turkey to stop them. Denied entry into Russian airspace from the Russian military, one of the helicopters is shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile, but the remaining helicopters are able to locate the truck carrying the warheads. A gunfight ensues in which Kodoroff is killed and the warheads are seized. Interrogation of the surviving member of the group reveals that one warhead was taken by another man who was able to escape before the truck was intercepted. Further work on the information from the trucking company leads IFOR to a Sarajevo address. Inside is a video cassette of a Yugoslav named Dušan Gavrić. Gavrić disclaims any allegiance in the Yugoslav Wars ("I am a Serb, a Croat, and a Muslim"), but blames other countries for supplying weapons to all sides in the war. Dr. Kelly realizes he intends to bomb a meeting at the UN headquarters in New York City after tracking the documents that was taken from the Austrian trucking company and the city goes into lockdown. Gavrić arrives in Manhattan with the Bosnian diplomatic delegation. A flashback shows that Gavrić wants to avenge the death of his wife and daughter, who were killed in Sarajevo during a sniper attack in the city. He and his brother were later found by DeVoe and Kelly. When his brother is killed by Devoe, a wounded and enraged Gavrić is later followed into a parochial school and then a church. Devoe and Kelly confront Gavrić, who commits suicide, knowing that the bomb is set to go off in a matter of minutes and cannot be deactivated. With only seconds to spare, Dr. Kelly is able to remove a part of the explosive lens shell of the bomb, stopping the primary explosion from establishing critical mass within the plutonium core. The primary wrecks the church, but the warhead itself does not detonate. Devoe and Kelly both survive with minor injuries. After the nuclear attack is over, Julia spends her free time swimming and Devoe stops by and ask her for a drink, which she accepts. 

=====

Felix Grandet, master cooper, married the daughter of a wealthy timber merchant at a time when the French Republic had confiscated the lands of the Church in the district of Saumur. When the land was auctioned his wife's dowry and his existing savings enabled him to buy substantial property, including some of the best area under vines, all at a very satisfactory price. Though there was little sympathy locally for the Revolution, Grandet rose in esteem and became mayor, later yielding the post under the Empire only because Napoleon had no liking for republicans. At this time his only daughter was ten years old and in that same year more wealth fell into Grandet's lap by way of inheritance of the estates of his mother-in-law, grandfather-in-law, and grandmother. We gradually learn of Grandet's miserly habits which included rarely admitting townspeople to his house. The principal exceptions were his banker des Grassins and his notary Cruchot, both of whom understood better than many the extent of Grandet's wealth and that since he was 60 in 1819 when much of the action is set, that the wealth must one day devolve on Eugénie. Naturally, they had candidates to marry her in the form of Cruchot's nephew President Cruchot de Bonfons who was president of the court of first instance, and the des Grassins son, Adolphe des Grassins. The townspeople took a lively interest in the competition, which is only natural since some sort of inheritance was the major route to prosperity in the early nineteenth century.Thomas Picketty, Capital in the twenty-first century, Harvard, 2014 Throughout this sequence we are treated to details of Felix Grandet's parsimony; this may have developed initially through sheer lack of funds but by now is total vice. He counts out slices of bread in the morning though actually never parting with cash for it since one of his tenants pays part of his rent in kind; most other consumables are supplied in a similar way. Mme Grandet is given no more than six francs at a time for pocket money.average annual income at the time was about 450 francs: see Picketty p106 Though his house is impressive externally it is old and run- down, and he is too miserly to repair it; their servant Nanon puts her foot through a rotten stair but faith fully saves the bottle she carries. The novel illustrates Balzac's belief that money had taken over as the national god. see Cousin Pons for more on this theme towards the end of Balzac's career On Eugénie's birthday, in 1819, Felix Grandet is celebrating with his favoured coterie of Grassinistes and Cruchotins. They are disturbed by a confident knock on the door and a young stranger is admitted, who hands a letter to Felix. It is from brother Guillaume, unseen and unresponsive in Paris for 30 years asking Felix to assist Charles his son to travel to the Indies. Additionally and confidentially, that Guillaume having gone bankrupt, is planning to take his own life. The next day newspaper headline announces the fact of Guillaume's death, and debts, which causes Charles to break down. While he sleeps Eugénie reads a letter to his mistress and assumes he is dismissing Annette and planning to marry her: Another letter impels Eugénie to collect up the rare gold coins her father gave her on her birthdays. Later she offers the gold to Charles who asks her to guard a gold dressing case given to him by his mother. Meanwhile Felix had made 14,000 francs on dealing in gold coin and preparations were made for Charles to depart to the Indies. Felix devises a way of profiting from winding up his deceased brother's failed business, aided by des Grassins. After Charles has left, Balzac reserves a final degradation for Grandet. His wife, who had been patient, loving and supportive throughout their married life, had been physically ground down by their austere life. As she lay ill in bed, with Eugénie pleading for a fire to warm her and the services of doctor, he does nothing and she dies. The final scenes - Grandet's death, Charles's cynical return and Eugénie's relative goodness – wrap up the narrative threads, but it is Felix Grandet's moral decay that is the scaffolding in this wonderfully crafted novel. 

=====

The game opens with John Hammond reading an excerpt from his memoirs. Hammond is a rich industrialist who used his wealth to assemble a scientific team that cloned dinosaurs. Intent on creating an amusement park showcasing his biological attractions, Hammond's park ultimately fails when the dinosaurs escape. While Jurassic Park was built on Isla Nublar, off the coast of Costa Rica, the animals were raised at an alternate location, Isla Sorna, also named "Site B". Trespasser takes place a year after the events of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, where the general public has learned about the existence of Jurassic Park.Trespasser Manual. 1998. DreamWorks Interactive. p5. The game begins in a dark apartment, where mail is piling up and a phone rings. When it goes to voice-mail, a woman named Jill leaves a message, expressing amazement that Anne (the apartment's resident) had actually gone ahead on a trip to the tropics. The message closes with Jill's comment, "I thought you HATED flying." The scene changes to an unseen person closing and bolting an airplane bathroom door and then the sounds of retching can be heard. The plane suddenly bucks and an apparent malfunction occurs and the plane crashes. Anne awakens on the shores of an island (apparently the sole survivor of the crash), and proceeds to explore. Anne learns she is on Site B, InGen's dinosaur breeding facility. Pursued by dinosaurs, Anne makes use of weapons left behind to defend herself as she explores. Following a monorail track into the island interior, Anne encounters dinosaurs such as Brachiosaurus, Velociraptor, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, Parasaurolophus, and Albertosaurus. After recovering security cards from an InGen town, Anne proceeds past a dam and to a large mountain. At the summit, Anne is able to contact the United States Navy on an emergency channel. After defeating the Alpha Velociraptor and its tribe that lives atop the mountain, she is rescued by helicopter. The game closes as Anne returns to her apartment. Jill calls and the message goes to the answering machine, saying she "better have a good damn reason for not calling," Anne wordlessly responds by tossing a raptor claw on her desk. 

=====

In a forest, Italian woodcarver Geppetto carves a heart into a pine tree, expressing his secret love for a woman named Leona. When he leaves, a bolt of lightning strikes the tree, imbuing the heart with magic. Years later, Geppetto finds the remains of the tree and carves a marionette out of it, naming him Pinocchio. Due to the heart's magic, Pinocchio comes to life, referring to Geppetto as his father. Pinocchio chases a pigeon outside, meeting Leona, and then a pair of thieves, Volpe and Felinet, who work for Lorenzini, a sinister theater director and puppet master, informing him of Pinocchio's existence and sentience. Lorenzini tries to purchase Pinocchio, but Geppetto refuses to sell his son. Pinocchio climbs out of a window and wanders into town, joining a group of boys in school. He gets into a fight with the rowdy Lampwick, and when he lies about it, his nose grows longer and he is kicked out of the class. In sadness, Pinocchio ends up causing damage to a local bakery, and Geppetto is arrested as a result. Pinocchio flees home, meeting a talking cricket, Pepe, who tells Pinocchio to behave, and stay out of trouble in order to become a real boy. The next day, Pinocchio and Geppetto are put on trial at court. Unless Geppetto pays a fine, he will be imprisoned. Lorenzini enters, offering to pay off the debt if Pinocchio is given over to him. Geppetto reluctantly agrees after being reminded of his poor state. Pinocchio becomes the star of Lorenzini's productions, and is given gold coins as payment. However, Pepe helps him discover that he is ultimately unloved by Lorenzini. Pinocchio rescues several of Geppetto's puppets from being deliberately burnt by Lorenzini, unintentionally setting the theater on fire. He then leaps into a river and flees to the forest, where he decides to live. Felinet and Volpe find him, swindling him out of his coins. Pinocchio spots a stage coach passing by, carrying Lampwick and other boys, travelling to Terra Magica, a hidden fun- fair for boys to do as they please. Meanwhile, Geppetto and Leona have been tracking down Pinocchio. Losing track of him, Geppetto rows out to sea, upon finding Pinocchio's hat on a beach. In the fun-fair, Pinocchio, Lampwick, and other boys go on a roller-coaster, but drinking the water of Terra Magica turns them into donkeys by symbolizing their bad behavior (but because Pinocchio has holes in his body only his ears appear). The fun-fair turns out to belong to Lorenzini, who sells the donkeys off to circuses and farms. Pinocchio has Lampwick kick Lorenzini into the cursed water, transforming him into a sea monster and forcing him to flee into the ocean. The boys and donkeys escape the fun-fair, and Pinocchio reunites with Leona at the beach, as he sets out to find his father at sea. Pinocchio and Pepe are consumed by a giant whale-like sea monster (which they recognize as the now feral Lorenzini), reuniting with Geppetto inside his stomach. From the strong smell of rotten chili peppers, they try to escape up Lorenzini's throat; Pinocchio lies to extend his nose and make the passage larger, causing his nose to break. Lorenzini starts to choke, breaching the ocean top and spitting Geppetto and Pinocchio out in the process and left to choke in the ocean depths, until Pinocchio's long nose breaks (somehow and off-screen). On land, Pinocchio and Geppetto embrace. Pinocchio's tears flow, the tears landing on the heart carving, the same magic force from before transforming him into a real boy. The two embrace once more over the miracle. Pepe congratulates Pinocchio before leaving, wanting to rest from the whole ordeal, but promising they will see each other again soon. On the way home back to the village, Pinocchio runs into Felinet and Volpe, whom he tricks them into going to Terra Magica and drinking the cursed water there; they are later revealed to have been transformed into a real cat and a fox, which results in them being captured by a farmer as new pets. They witness Pinocchio in town while lamenting their fate. The donkeys all transform back into boys by reforming. Geppetto and Leona marry, and Pinocchio gives his father a log he found, to carve into a girlfriend for him. 

=====

In the spring of 1974, nearly two years following the events of the first film, Vada Sultenfuss sets out on a quest to learn more about her deceased biological mother. She has matured from the eleven-year-old hypochondriac to a more serious teenager seeking independence. Her father Harry and his new wife Shelly DeVoto, whom he dated in the first film, are expecting a baby. They still live in the Sultenfuss funeral home in Madison, Pennsylvania, while Harry's brother Phil has moved to Los Angeles, where he works as a mechanic. Gramoo, Vada's paternal grandmother, has since died. Vada still has her mood ring from two years earlier and wears it in memory of her late best friend Thomas J., who died from an allergic reaction to bee stings, inflicted while retrieving it for her after she had lost it. To accommodate the new baby, Vada moves out of her bedroom and into Gramoo's old room, and it brings further problems with adjustment. Vada even jokingly thinks about getting her own apartment while spending a night out with her father. Vada is given a school assignment to write an essay on someone she admires but has never met. She decides to write about her late mother, but has few sources to go on. Harry tries to help, but because his first marriage lasted less than a year before Vada's mother Maggie died, his efforts are stifled. Shelly, who is adamant about keeping Maggie's memory alive in Vada's life, does her best to help too. Vada shares what little she knows about her mother, which is confined to a small box. Among its contents are programs of plays her mother was in, a passport, and a mystery paper bag with a date scribbled on it. Vada expresses her desire to travel someday, and after noticing from her passport that Maggie was originally from Los Angeles, Shelly suggests Vada go to Los Angeles to visit her Uncle Phil during her upcoming spring break so she can do research on Maggie. Harry immediately opposes the idea, claiming she's too young. However, he ultimately gives in and allows Vada to go to Los Angeles. Upon arriving in L.A., Vada finds herself confronting a boy her age named Nick, who comes to pick her up at the airport. Nick is the son of Phil's girlfriend Rose, the owner of the car repair shop where Phil works. As a favor to Phil, though annoyed at first about sacrificing his own spring break, Nick helps Vada with the difficult search of learning more about her mother. Their investigation is stalled when Vada learns that her mother's old high school burned down, but she and Nick still manage to track down a yearbook from a year her mother attended. Vada and Nick meet several people who knew her mother. Some of the things she finds out do not sit well with her, such as her mother being suspended from school for smoking. Two of these acquaintances have a look at the paper bag from Vada's small box of memories about her mother, but neither can decipher it. When another blurts out the name Jeffrey Pommeroy, revealing that Maggie was married to him just prior to meeting Harry, Vada panics. Thinking that he could be Vada's real father instead of Harry, Vada is crushed and wonders why her father never mentioned this person. Eventually, though with some hesitation, she goes to see Jeffrey, her mother's first husband. He provides Vada with valuable information to help with her essay, including home movies and the answer behind the date written on the paper bag. Seeing the home movies touches Vada, as she watches her mother act, as well as sing a song called "Smile". Meanwhile, Phil has trouble proving his love to Rose after a man frequently shows up at the repair shop and continuously flatters her. When Phil finally gets the courage to show Rose what she means to him, he proposes. As Vada is ready to head home, she and Nick share a goodbye kiss at the airport before she boards the plane. In her backpack, she finds earrings Nick placed there for her newly pierced ears. When Vada returns home, she realizes Shelly just had a baby boy and heads to the hospital to see her new brother. To calm his crying, Vada sings "Smile" while holding him. Vada's essay on her mother receives an A+, and she hopes to share what she learned during her trip with her brother someday. 

=====

Lucas Blye is an intelligent and nerdy 14-year-old high school student in suburban Chicago. He becomes acquainted with Maggie, an attractive older girl who has just moved to town. After meeting Lucas on one of his entomological quests, Maggie befriends him, spending time with him during the remainder of the summer until school begins. Lucas, who finds himself a frequent victim of bullying and teasing, has a protector of sorts in Cappie Roew, an older student and football player. Cappie was once one of Lucas' tormentors, until Cappie contracted hepatitis and Lucas, for reasons no one ever knew, brought him his homework every day, ensuring that Cappie didn't fail and have to repeat a year of school. Even though Lucas deems it beneath her, Maggie becomes a cheerleader for the football team in order to get closer to Cappie, on whom she has a growing crush. Angered and offended by Maggie's inattention towards him, Lucas begins to chastise Maggie, continuing to castigate her cheerleading as "superficial" and incorrectly assuming that she will be his date to an upcoming school dance. Maggie complains to Lucas that she's interested in activities other than being with him. On the night of the dance, Cappie is dumped by his girlfriend Alise over his attraction to Maggie, which she has been noticing. A depressed Cappie finds comfort with Maggie at her house — much to the chagrin of Lucas, who has arrived, in tuxedo, to pick her up for the dance. Even though Cappie and Maggie invite him out for pizza, he rebukes them and rides off on his bike. Rina, one of Lucas' friends, encounters Lucas as he sits alone, watching the dance from across a lake. Although she has feelings for Lucas, she puts them aside to console him about he and Maggie being "from two different worlds." On the way home, Lucas happens to ride by the pizza parlor and is crushed to see Maggie and Cappie kissing on their date. In a last-ditch attempt to impress Maggie and gain the respect he so desperately craves, the diminutive Lucas joins the football team. In the shower after practice, Lucas endures yet another prank from his constant tormentors Bruno and Spike. At the end of the day, Lucas flees in embarrassment to his favorite hiding place (beneath a railroad overpass near the school) and Maggie chases him to talk with him. After Maggie tells him that she wants him to be her friend, Lucas tries to kiss her. Maggie recoils, and a heartbroken Lucas screams at her to leave. The next day at the football game, Lucas removes his helmet during a play and is seriously injured after being tackled and is rushed to the hospital. Maggie, Cappie, and Rina attempt to contact Lucas' parents, though Maggie discovers that she does not know Lucas as well as she thought she did. Correcting Maggie's misguided impression that Lucas lives in the large luxurious house where she has seen him several times, Rina shows them that Lucas lives in a dilapidated trailer in a junkyard with his alcoholic father and only works as a gardener at the large house. Meanwhile, Lucas' schoolmates hold vigil for him in the hospital as he recuperates. Maggie visits Lucas' room that evening and sternly tells him never to play football again. Lucas promises, and the two reconcile, picking up their friendship where they left off. Lucas and Maggie speculate as to where they will be when the locusts return seventeen years later; both express the hope that they will still be in touch when the locusts return again. Lucas returns to school a short time after his recovery, with schoolmates all casting surprised looks at him as he walks through the hall. Upon reaching his locker, he finds Bruno and Spike there waiting for him, but he tries to ignore them as he opens his locker. Inside is a varsity letter jacket, with Lucas's name and number on the back. As Lucas takes it out in shock, Bruno starts the "slow clap," and the entire hallway starts applauding. Maggie, Cappie, Cash, and Rina are there as well, leading the applause as Lucas raises his arms triumphantly and smiles. 

=====

Gemma Dillard (Winona Ryder) is a 13-year-old country girl who lives with her Grandpa Dillard (Jason Robards) on a farm in the Texas Panhandle. Gemma is visited by her mother, who lives in Fort Worth, with an offer to come stay with her in the city. Her mother (Who had Gemma when she was still only a teenager.) is now married with a job as a hair stylist and can provide for her. Gemma at first experiences slight culture shock in regards to big city life but soon comes to accept her new surroundings. She becomes acquainted with a man with an intellectual disability, 21-year-old Rory Torrance (Rob Lowe). They play together, hang out together, and imagine that they are married. The story focuses on a series of bitter-sweet experiences that eventually return Gemma to the country. 

=====

The novel deals with the significance of two connected events that happened on the same day, long before the opening of the novel. The first was the excavation of an ancient and valuable archaeological idol, a phallic figure unearthed from the tomb of an Anglo-Saxon bishop Eorpwald, known as the "Melpham excavation". Gerald has long been haunted by a drunken revelation by his friend Gilbert, who was involved with this excavation, that the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated to embarrass Gilbert's father. Gilbert told Gerald that he put the idol there. Gerald, while feeling that his friend was telling the truth, pushed the matter to the back of his mind and tried to forget about it. He now feels ashamed that he, a history professor, has never had the courage to try to resolve the matter one way or another. The second is that Gerald Middleton fell in love with Dollie, Gilbert's fiancée, and had an affair with her when his friend went off to fight in World War I. When Gilbert was killed at the front, Dollie refused to marry Gerald. He ended up marrying a Scandinavian woman named Inge but continued his affair with Dollie, who became an alcoholic. Gerald and Inge later separated. Anglo-Saxon Attitudes is full of side-plots and coincidences and contains a host of eccentric characters. Some of these characters are Gerald's family. Robin his eldest son, is a womaniser who cannot decide whether to leave his wife or his mistress. Kay has an unhappy marriage and a deeply embittered view of her father, whom she appears to blame for everything that has gone wrong in her life, including her withered hand (which was actually caused by her mother). Gerald's estranged wife, Inge is a grotesquely deluded woman who cannot bring herself to acknowledge her younger son John's homosexuality or her daughter's physical disability. Gerald feels responsible for Dollie's plight and for those of his children. He feels that the knowledge of his complicity over the Melpham affair has drained his morale and made him withdrawn and indecisive. The novel begins with him resolving to make good the 'bloody shameful waste' of his life, by investigating the Melpham affair and making peace with Dollie. He also attempts to develop better relationships with his grown-up children and with Inge. By the novel's end, Gerald achieves a measure of peace with his past. He persuades Dollie to come forward with a letter from Gilbert's father's colleague, Canon Portway, proving that the Melpham incident was a hoax; then he and Dollie begin a platonic friendship. He gives up on achieving good relations with his family. 

=====

In 1922 New York City, flapper Millie Dillmount is determined to find work as a stenographer to a wealthy businessman and then marry him – a "thoroughly modern" goal. Millie befriends the sweet yet naive Miss Dorothy Brown as the latter checks into the Priscilla Hotel. When house mother Mrs. Meers learns that Miss Dorothy is an orphan, she remarks, "Sad to be all alone in the world." Unbeknown to Millie, the woman is selling her tenants into white slavery, and those without family or close friends are her primary targets. At a Friendship Dance in the Dining Hall, Millie meets the devil-may-care paper clip salesman Jimmy Smith, to whom she takes an instant liking. However, she carries on with her plan to work for and then marry a rich man, and when she gets a job at Sincere Trust, she sets her sights on the attractive but self-absorbed Trevor Graydon. Jimmy later takes her and Miss Dorothy on an outing to Long Island, where they meet eccentric widow Muzzy Van Hossmere. Jimmy tells the girls that his father was Muzzy's former gardener. Millie begins to fall for Jimmy, but she sees him summon Miss Dorothy from her room for a late night rendezvous, and assumes the worst. Millie is even more determined to stick to her plan and marry Trevor. One morning, she goes to work dressed as a flapper and attempts to seduce him, but her effort fails. Eventually, Trevor sees Miss Dorothy and falls in love with her, and vice versa, leaving Millie heartbroken. Meanwhile, Jimmy's attempts to talk to Millie are continually thwarted by no-nonsense head stenographer Miss Flannary. He eventually climbs up the side of the building and when he finally gets to talk to Millie, she tells him that she is quitting her job since Mr. Graydon is no longer available. Mrs. Meers makes several attempts to kidnap Miss Dorothy and hand her over to her Chinese henchmen Bun Foo and Ching Ho, but Millie manages to interrupt her every time. When Mrs. Meers finally succeeds, Millie finds Trevor drowning his sorrows, and he tells her that Miss Dorothy stood him up and checked out of the hotel. Jimmy climbs into Miss Dorothy's room, lets Millie in, and they find all of Miss Dorothy's possessions still there. Millie realizes that Miss Dorothy is just one of several girls who have vanished without a word to anyone, except to Mrs. Meers. Together with Trevor Graydon, they try to piece the puzzle together. When Jimmy asks what all the missing girls had in common, Millie mentions that they were all orphans. Jimmy disguises himself as a woman named Mary James seeking accommodations at the Priscilla Hotel, and "casually" mentions to Mrs. Meers that she is an orphan. Mrs. Meers spots Trevor sitting in his car in front of the hotel, becomes suspicious, and shoots him with a tranquilizer dart. Mary James is subsequently captured by Mrs. Meers and her henchmen, and Millie follows them to Chinatown, where the unconscious Jimmy has been hidden in a room in a fireworks factory where Miss Dorothy is sleeping. Trying to look casual, Millie smokes a cigarette outside the building, and when she begins to choke on it, she tosses it into a window, setting off the fireworks. As a series of explosions tear through the building, Millie dashes into the factory and finds several white girls tied up, about to be sent off to Beijing. She unties a couple of them, who then free the other girls, and then bumps into Miss Dorothy. They carry Jimmy out of the building and head for Long Island and Muzzy. Mrs. Meers, Bun Foo, and Ching Ho follow Millie and the gang, but under Muzzy's leadership, everyone manages to subdue the nefarious trio. Millie then discovers that Jimmy and Miss Dorothy are actually millionaire siblings and that Muzzy is their stepmother who sent them out into the world to find partners who would love them for who they were and not for their money. Millie marries Jimmy, Miss Dorothy marries Trevor, and Muzzy marries one of her instructors. 

=====

William Mandella, protagonist of The Forever War, lives with his wife Marygay on the icy world Middle Finger, a planet of the Mizar system. Dissatisfied with the state of their society, they eventually decide to jump forward in time, using the time dilation of interstellar travel. Their intention is to travel for 10 subjective years, at relativistic speeds, into the future, during which 40,000 Earth years will have passed on Middle Finger. They, along with other Forever War veterans and other disenchanted humans on Middle Finger, hope that whatever they will find upon their return will be more to their liking. This requires the consent of the posthuman group mind now known as 'Man', and of the alien group mind Tauran race. When permission is denied, William and allies hijack the ship. After Marygay and William head away from their planet, a series of unexplained occurrences happen and the ship starts to lose antimatter mysteriously. They abandon the ship and return home. Instead of the intended 40,000 years, they have only been away 24 Earth years. Upon arrival, they find the planet still intact, but seemingly vacant; everyone having literally disappeared at the same time as the incident on their ship. They then return to Earth and in the course of the investigation they discover a shape-shifting being posing as an android cowboy at a western-themed amusement park. This being has been on Earth and the other inhabited planets for millennia and is not certain of its own origin. It also has no idea what happened to the denizens of Earth. The resolution involves a god who evidently created the universe as an experiment. This god explains that the action of leaving the galaxy on a 40,000 year round-trip is similar to a laboratory mouse escaping its cage. Eventually "God" restores the inhabitants, who have been stored in stasis. 

=====

As with many of the Discworld novels, the story takes place in Ankh-Morpork, a powerful city-state based on the historical and modern settings of various metropolises like London or New York City. The protagonist of the story is Moist von Lipwig, a skilled con artist who was to be hanged for his crimes, but saved at the very last moment by the cunning and manipulative Patrician Havelock Vetinari, who has Moist's death on the scaffold faked. In his office, Vetinari then presents Moist with two options: he may accept a job offer to become Postmaster of the city's rundown Postal Service or he may choose to walk out of the door and never hear from Vetinari again. As exiting through the door in question would lead to a fatal drop, Moist decides to accept the job. After a thwarted attempt at escape, Moist is brought to the Post Office by his parole officer Mr Pump, a golem. It turns out that the Post Office has not functioned for decades, and the building is full of undelivered mail, concealed under a layer of pigeon dung. Only two employees remain: the aged Junior Postman Tolliver Groat and his assistant Stanley Howler. Meanwhile, Vetinari is holding a meeting with the board executives of the Grand Trunk Company, a company that owns and operates a system of visual telegraph towers known as "clacks". He notes that since they have taken full control, the quality of service had gone down considerably. Despite unnerving most of the board, Vetinari fails to make headway, especially with its chairman, Reacher Gilt. It's rumored that, from his penthouse office in Tump Tower, Reacher Gilt plans to usurp Vetinari as Patrician. As Moist attempts to revitalise the service, he discovers that a few months before taking the job, a number of his predecessors have predeceased in the building within weeks of each other in unusual circumstances. He also discovers that the mail inside the building has taken on a life of its own, and is nearly suffocated as a result. Moist introduces postage stamps to Ankh-Morpork, hires golems to deliver the mail, and finds himself competing against the Grand Trunk Clacks line. He meets and falls in love with the chain-smoking, golem-rights activist, Adora Belle Dearheart, and the two begin a relationship by the end of the book. Dearheart is the daughter of the Clacks founder Robert Dearheart, though the company was taken away from her father and the other founders by tricky financial manoeuvring. Because of this, she still has useful contacts amongst the clacks operators. The unscrupulous Clacks chairman, Reacher Gilt, sets a banshee assassin (Mr Gryle) on the Postmaster, but only manages to burn down much of the Post Office building. The banshee dies when he gets flipped onto the space-warping sorting machine. Lipwig makes an outrageous wager that he can deliver a message to Genua, 2000 miles from Ankh-Morpork, faster than the Grand Trunk can. "The Smoking Gnu", a group of clacks-crackers, sets up a plan to send a Discworld equivalent to a killer poke into the clacks system that will destroy the machinery, halting the message that Lipwig will race against. Lipwig talks the Gnu out of it, and opts for a more psychological attack on the Grand Trunk, leaving the semaphore towers standing. This plan succeeds. Gilt is soon arrested and finds himself in front of the Patrician, offered a similar choice to the one Moist faced in the beginning of the book: run the mint or exit the room. Gilt, however, ends up walking through the door to his death. Characters * Moist von Lipwig * Mr. Pump * Adora Belle Dearheart * Robert Dearheart * John Dearheart * Lord Vetinari * Tolliver Groat * Stanley Howler (the name echoes Stanley Gibbons, the philately organisation) * Reacher Gilt 

=====

The novel follows the adventures of John Paul Ziller and his wife Amanda—lovable prophetess and promiscuous earth mother, inarguably the central protagonist—who open "Captain Kendrick's Memorial Hot Dog Wildlife Preserve," a combination hot dog stand and zoo along a highway in Skagit County, Washington. Other characters in this rather oddball novel include Mon Cul the baboon; Marx Marvelous, an educated man from the east coast; and L. Westminster "Plucky" Purcell, a former college football star and sometime dope dealer who accidentally infiltrates a group of Catholic monks working as assassins for the Vatican. In so doing Plucky discovers a secret of monumental proportions dating to the very beginning of Christianity. 

=====

Beyond the end of the universe exists The City of the Saved, an urban sprawl the size of a galaxy. Within it every human being that ever lived, from the first australopithecine to the last posthuman, has been inexplicably resurrected. For three hundred years, the uncountable inhabitants have enjoyed their unaging and invulnerable second lives. But now, the unthinkable has happened. Someone has been murdered. 

=====



=====

At the beginning of the episode, Chandler helps Joey rehearse for an audition. The rehearsal calls for Joey to smoke a cigarette, and as Joey is not a smoker and coughs after taking a drag, Chandler, who used to smoke, demonstrates the "proper" smoking technique to Joey. But as he begins to take a few drags, he becomes addicted and picks up his old habit again. Throughout the episode, the gang try to persuade him to quit, which irritates him greatly. He defends himself by saying it is just a flaw of his, and claims that they are being hypocritical, as they all have their own irritating habits (e.g. Monica's snorting, Joey's knuckle-cracking, Phoebe chewing her hair). Phoebe discovers her bank has accidentally credited her with an extra $500. The gang persuades her to keep the money, but she decides to return it. However, instead of taking back the money, the bank gives her another $500 and a football phone. Not wanting to keep either the money or the phone, she gives both to Lizzy, a homeless woman. Lizzy buys a soda for Phoebe, who, upon opening the can, discovers a severed thumb floating in the soda. The soda company gives Phoebe $7,000. Monica is afraid to introduce her new boyfriend Alan to the gang for fear of them ridiculing him and driving him away, as they have apparently done in the past with her other dates. Much to her surprise, the gang can find no fault with Alan, and enjoy his company very much. Alan even convinces Chandler to stop smoking in a very brief telephone conversation after repeated failed attempts by the gang. However, Monica does not quite share the gang's enthusiasm for Alan, and decides to break up with him. Ironically, he tells her that he cannot stand the gang. Monica does not tell them about this in order to spare their feelings. Chandler tries using patches to quit smoking, but gives up at the end of the episode, and announces he is getting cigarettes. Phoebe then offers him the $7,000 in return for not smoking again; Chandler gladly obliges. 

=====

The episode begins with a blackout. Monica, Rachel, Ross, and Joey are watching Phoebe begin an acoustic set at Central Perk. Chandler gets trapped in an ATM vestibule with Jill Goodacre, a Victoria's Secret model. He tries to impress her in various ways that fail. He smiles so much it creeps her out. When she offers him some chewing gum, he pronounces oddly that "gum would be perfection." He tries to blow a bubble with the gum only to spit it out accidentally. He then tries to chew the gum again, only to realize it is someone else's gum and then proceeds to choke on it from the shock. Jill gives him the Heimlich maneuver and saves his life. Back at Monica's apartment, the rest of the friends have a discussion on the "weirdest place they've ever done it" and Rachel confesses that hers was "the foot of the bed". This leads to a conversation between her and Ross about how she wishes she had more excitement in her love life. Ross transposes his infatuation for her by predicting that her wish will come true in the future. Joey convinces Ross that he needs to tell Rachel how he feels about her before Ross enters the "friend zone". Ross works up the courage to speak to Rachel but before he can confess his feelings, a stray cat attacks him. Rachel and Phoebe search for the owner in the building. The owner turns out to be new Italian neighbor Paolo, whose sudden appearance is disconcerting to Ross. The last candle in the apartment goes out and everyone tries to make the scariest noise possible. During Ross's turn, the lights come back on and everyone sees Rachel and Paolo kissing. Chandler and Jill finally end up bonding, playing a game Jill invented that involves whipping pens around their heads. When the lights come back on, she kisses him on the cheek. A desperate Chandler then turns to the security camera in the corner and asks for a copy of the tape. 

=====

In order to curb his loneliness after his divorce, Ross adopts a capuchin monkey named Marcel. Things start off on rocky footing – Marcel seems rebellious and unwilling to listen to Ross. However, Chandler bonds with him almost immediately. With New Year's fast approaching, Chandler proposes that the gang make a no-date pact and have dinner together on New Year's Eve, which everyone agrees to. Phoebe sings 13 new songs she has written – all of them about her mother's suicide. During her set, she is interrupted by two scientists arguing over her performance. She goes to confront them, and finds out that one of them – David – thinks that she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen even though his partner, Max, begs to differ. Phoebe and David begin dating and she asks Chandler for permission to break the no-date pact for New Year's. He agrees as he has already asked Janice, having snapped at the thought of being alone despite how annoying she is. As the days pass, Monica plans on bringing her ex-boyfriend Fun Bobby, Rachel learns that Paolo will catch an earlier flight back to the US from Italy for New Year's, and Joey invites Sandy, a single mom he meets while working as one of Santa's elves at the mall. When Ross objects to all his friends breaking their no-date pact, Rachel suggests turning their New Year's dinner into a New Year's party to compensate so no one knows who is with whom. Max arrives and tells Phoebe that he and David have gotten a grant to study in Minsk for three years, and will be leaving on New Year's Day. When she goes to congratulate David, he and Max inform her that he has rejected the opportunity to go, wishing to stay in New York with her. The six friends end up keeping their no-date pact after all: Ross arrives at the party with only Marcel. Paolo has missed his flight, and Rachel gets attacked outside of the airport by a woman who thinks Rachel has stolen her cab. Max informs David that he is leaving for Minsk alone, and Phoebe convinces him to go with him, telling him he cannot stay just for her. Fun Bobby is depressed because his grandfather has just died, and makes the party even more depressing. Sandy not only brings her kids to the party, but she hooks up with Max. Chandler tries to tell Janice that he only invited her for New Year's, but she gets upset at him and storms off. At midnight, Phoebe is too sad to kiss anyone, Rachel's lip was cut in the attack so she cannot kiss anyone, and Monica does not feel like kissing anybody. Chandler demands someone kiss him anyway – so Joey obliges. 

=====

Steven Mills is a widowed scientist working on different ways to send radio waves into deep space. After sending a radio wave out of the galaxy, it hits a planet (Cosine N to the 8th), causing a disruption of gravity on the planet. Celeste, a beautiful blonde woman, is sent to investigate who could have done it and how it was done, believing it was an attack. She is aided by a device called Bag: an alien tentacle with a single eye and a mind of its own disguised as a designer purse. Bag is able to create any object, such as diamonds and designer dresses almost instantaneously. Celeste crashes a party hosted by Steven's brother, Ron, and immediately draws attention to herself by making outdated references to TV shows and political slogans under the mistaken belief that they are current (information that had actually taken 92 years to get from Earth to her home world). Celeste's inexperience almost results in her exposing herself as alien as she struggles with simple tasks such as cooking and trying to kiss for the first time. She goes home with Steven and spends the night (after Bag teaches her what sex is and which she greatly enjoys). Jessie, Steven's 13-year-old daughter, is at first happy that her father has found someone (her mother having died five years previously), but becomes suspicious when she observes Celeste eating the acid out of batteries and pulling eggs out of boiling hot water with her bare hands. However, she cannot convince her smitten father that something is unusual about Celeste. When Celeste tells him that she must leave in 24 hours, he impulsively proposes, and she accepts. Ron also has his doubts about Celeste and tries to dissuade Steven from marrying her on the idea she is an illegal immigrant or planning economic espionage, but then admits he is just jealous his brother has found his dream girl, whereas he will never find a girl like Princess Stéphanie of Monaco. Celeste begins enjoying life as a human as she encounters new experiences such as sneezing and love. When Jessie finally confronts her about being an extraterrestrial, Celeste admits her home world has no emotion and that she plans to depart once she gets Steven to recreate the radio signal and send it (which she says will reverse the gravity problems on her world). However, she begins to question her decisions when Jessie says it will devastate her father, for whom Celeste has now developed feelings. After Jessie argues with Steven, she runs away and is nearly hit by a car but is saved by Celeste, revealing her powers. Steven accepts that Celeste is indeed an alien and that she has fallen in love with him and sees Jessie as her own daughter. He further ingratiates her to human society by showing her how to eat real food. Steven figures out how to recreate the radio wave and saves Celeste's planet. Bag, however, had been sent to Earth to destroy it and eliminate the danger to Celeste's world entirely. After throwing Bag into the power field of the wave transmitter (destroying Bag), the leaders of Celeste's home world report in and tell her to finish Bag's job. Steven and Celeste manage to convince them it was an accident, not an act of aggression, and that Earth has many benefits that require further studying. They accept the explanation and demand that Celeste return to explain human culture to them. Not wanting to leave, Celeste negotiates having a native of Earth become an ambassador to their world as a token of goodwill. Ron is selected and accepts; he departs for Celeste's world in a spaceship served by several flight attendants, all of whom look like Princess Stéphanie. 

=====

A Game of Thrones follows three principal storylines simultaneously. 

=====

;"The Things They Carried": Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, the leader of a platoon of soldiers in Vietnam, carries physical reminders of Martha, the object of his unrequited love. Thoughts of Martha often distract Lieutenant Cross from his team's objectives. A death in the squad under his supervision causes Cross to reconsider his priorities, as he was heartbroken, he burns and throws away all reminders of Martha in order to focus on the mission and avoid distractions. ;"Love": Cross and O'Brien reminisce about the war and about Martha. O'Brien asks if he can write a story about Cross, expressing his memories and hopes for the future; Cross agrees, thinking that perhaps Martha will read it and come find him. ;"Spin": A series of unrelated memories from the war are narrated from O'Brien's point of view. It includes moments of camaraderie and beauty: a joke of a hate letter to the Draft Board; learning a rain dance between battles. ;"On the Rainy River": O'Brien gets drafted as soon as he graduates from college. He is reluctant to go to war and considers fleeing the draft; he begins to travel north to the Canada–US border on the Rainy River. Near the border, he encounters an elderly stranger who allows him to work through his internal struggle. O'Brien is given the opportunity to escape; however, the societal pressures are too much for him. He goes to war ashamed with his inability to face the consequences of leaving. ;"Enemies and Friends" Told in two sections, the developing relationship between soldiers Jensen and Strunk is shown. At first regularly antagonized by one another, the two are drawn toward respect and friendship by the stress and horrors of warfare. Ultimately, they agree that if one should be wounded, the other must deal a fatal blow as a form of mercy. ;"How to Tell a True War Story": O'Brien explores the telling of war stories by comrades, revealing that truth is delicate and malleable. Anything can be faked ... but generally, only the worst events can be proven real. He concludes that, in the end, the truth of a story doesn't matter so much as what the story is trying to say. ;"The Dentist": In order to mourn Curt Lemon, a man O'Brien did not know well, he shares a brief recollection about a bizarre interaction between Lemon and an army dentist. Lemon, who is afraid of dentists, faints before the dentist can examine him. Later that night, however, he complains of a phantom tooth ache so severe a tooth is pulled - even though it's perfectly healthy. Lemon has felt he needs to prove himself in front of his men and be the fearless man all soldiers are supposed to be. ;"Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong": O'Brien recounts the legendary (and almost certainly exaggerated) tale of Rat Kiley's first assignment, near the Song Tra Bong river. The area is so isolated that one of the soldiers flies his hometown girlfriend in by helicopter. At first, she cooks, cleans, and tends to the soldiers' wounds ... but gradually, she assimilates into Vietnamese guerrilla culture, even wearing a necklace made of human tongues, and disappears into the jungle. ;"Stockings": O'Brien explains how Henry Dobbins wore the stockings of his girlfriend around his neck to bed, and sometimes to battle. Even when the girlfriend breaks things off, he keeps the stockings around his neck, as their powers have been demonstrated. ;"Church": The platoon discovers an abandoned building being used as a sort of church, inhabited by monks who bring them food and supplies. The men discuss their relationships with churches, and for the most part, appreciate the interaction with other people and the peace of the building. Henry Dobbins wants to become a priest, but decides otherwise. ;"The Man I Killed": O'Brien describes a man he killed in My Khe, and how he did it. He makes up a life story for the man, torturing himself with the idea that the victim had been a gentle soul. ;"Ambush": O'Brien's daughter asks if he killed anyone in the war; he lies to her that he did not. He then tells the story of an ambush outside My Khe, in which O'Brien kills a young man who may or may not have wanted to harm him. ;"Style" The platoon witnesses a young Vietnamese girl dancing through the burned remains of her village, and argue over whether it's a ritual or simply what she likes to do. Later, Azar mocks the girl, and Dobbins rebukes him. ;"Speaking of Courage": After his service, Norman Bowker is at a loss. His former girlfriend has married someone else, his closest friends are dead. He reflects on the medals he won in Vietnam, and imagines telling his father about both these and the medals he did not win. Ultimately, although he has no one to share these memories with, he finds catharsis in imagined conversations. ;"Notes": O'Brien says that Bowker asked him to write the previous story, and that he hanged himself three years later unable to regain his footing and find any meaning in life after the war. O'Brien muses over the suspicion that, without Harvard and writing, he too might have lost the will to live after returning from Vietnam. ;"In the Field": When Kiowa is killed on the banks of a river, during a mission led by Jimmy Cross, Cross takes responsibility for his death. He writes to Kiowa's father while the others search for the body - as usual, Azar jokes around at first. Another soldier also feels responsible for the death, as he did not save Kiowa; the story ends with the body being found in the mud, and both soldiers left to their guilt. ;"Good Form": O'Brien reiterates that the real truth does not have to be the same as the story truth, and that it is the emotions evoked by the story that matter. He says that his story about killing a man on the trail outside My Khe was false; he merely saw the man die. But he wanted to provoke the same feelings in the reader that he felt on the trail. ;"Field Trip": After finishing the story, "In the Field," O'Brien says, he and his ten-year- old daughter visit the site of Kiowa's death with an interpreter. The field looks different from his memory of it, but he leaves a pair of Kiowa's moccasins in the spot where he believes Kiowa sank. In this way, he comes to terms with his friend's death. ;"The Ghost Soldiers": O'Brien recounts the two times he was wounded. The first time, he is treated by Rat Kiley, and is impressed with the man's courage and skill. The second time, he is treated by Kiley's replacement, Bobby Jorgenson; Jorgenson is incompetent, and nearly kills O'Brien. Furious, O'Brien promises revenge, but can recruit only Azar. They scare Jorgenson by pretending to be enemy soldiers, but the soldier proves that he is not a coward, so O'Brien lets go of his resentment. ;"Night Life": O'Brien tells the second-hand account of Rat Kiley's injury: warned of a possible attack, the platoon is on edge. Kiley reacts by distancing himself, the stress causing him first to be silent for days on end, and then to talk constantly. He has a breakdown from the pressure of being a medic, and shoots himself in the toe in order to get released from combat. No one questions his bravery. ;"The Lives of the Dead": O'Brien remembers his very first encounter with a dead body, that of his childhood sweetheart Linda. Suffering from a brain tumor, Linda died at the age of nine and O'Brien was deeply affected by her funeral. In Vietnam, O'Brien explains, the soldiers keep the dead alive by telling stories about them; in this way, he keeps Linda alive by telling her story.The thought and presence of death has shown to have a large effect on O'Brien. 

=====

A Storm of Swords picks up the story slightly before the end of its predecessor, A Clash of Kings. The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros are still in the grip of the War of the Five Kings,War of the Five Kings at A Wiki of Ice and Fire westeros.org, Retrieved 25 December 2014 wherein Joffrey Baratheon and his uncle Stannis Baratheon compete for the Iron Throne, while Robb Stark of the North and Balon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands declare their independence (Stannis's brother Renly Baratheon, the fifth "king", has already been killed). Meanwhile, a large host of wildlings, the tribes from beyond the Seven Kingdoms' northern border, approach the Wall that marks the border, under the leadership of Mance Rayder, the self-proclaimed "King Beyond the Wall", with only the undermanned Night's Watch in opposition. Finally, Daenerys Targaryen, the daughter of a deposed former king of Westeros and "mother" of the world's only living dragons, sails west, planning to retake her late father's throne. 

=====

The Qeng Ho arrive at the OnOff star shortly before the Emergent fleet, a few years before the sun turns on, at which point the Spider civilization will "wake up" and continue its climb into a technological civilization. A reception held by the Emergents doubles as a vector to infect the Qeng Ho with a timed "mindrot" virus. The Emergents time an ambush to take advantage of the onset of symptoms. During these events, a concurrent history of the Spider civilization unfolds – mainly through the picaresque, and then increasingly political and technocratic, experiences of a small group of liberal-minded and progressive Spiders. Their struggles against ignorance and obsolescent traditions are coloured with oddly human-like descriptions and nomenclature, prefiguring some major plot revelations towards the end of the story. Far above, after a close fight, the Emergents subjugate the Qeng Ho; but losses to both sides force them to combine and adopt the so- called "Lurker strategy", monitoring and aiding the Spiders' technological development, waiting until they build up the massive infrastructure and technological base that the visitors need in order to repair their vessels. The mindrot virus originally manifested itself on the Emergents' home world as a devastating plague, but they subsequently mastered it and learned to use it both as a weapon and as a tool for mental domination. Emergent culture uses mindrot primarily in the form of a variant which technicians can manipulate in order to release neurotoxins to specific parts of the brain. An active MRI- type device triggers changes through dia- and paramagnetic biological molecules. By manipulating the brain in this way, Emergent managers induce obsession with a single idea or specialty, which they call Focus, essentially turning people into brilliant appliances. Many Qeng Ho become Focused against their will, and the Emergents retain the rest of the population under mass surveillance, with only a portion of the crew not in suspended animation. The Qeng Ho trading culture gradually starts to dilute this, by demonstrating to the Emergents certain benefits of tolerated and restricted free trade; the two human cultures merge to some extent over the decades of forced co-operation. Pham Nuwen, the founder of the Qeng Ho trading culture, is living aboard the fleet under the pseudonym Pham Trinli, posing as an inept and bumbling fleet elder. He subverts the Emergents' own oppressive security systems through a series of high-risk ruses. During his plotting he begins to admire the Emergents' Focus technology, seeing it as the missing link in his lifelong goal to create a true interstellar empire and break the cycle of collapse-and- rebuild that plagues human planetary civilizations. The plan to wrest fleet control from the Emergents, however, requires the co-operation of Ezr Vinh, a much younger Qeng Ho who, through attrition, has become the Qeng Ho "Fleet Manager". Ezr's position as the unique liaison officer between Qeng Ho and Emergents leads him to despair, and he accepts Pham Nuwen's offer to join a plot against the Emergents as a way to personal redemption as well as to take revenge against the Emergents. However, his understanding of Pham's ambitions for Focus technology leads to a confrontation between them over the future use of Focus by the Qeng Ho. With new knowledge of the effects and victims of Focus, Pham is forced to admit the cost is too high, and the two reach an agreement and continue their plotting. The critical moment comes when the Emergents attempt to provoke a nuclear war on the Spider home-world in order to seize power. The conspirators subvert the Emergents' systems and put their plans in action, but so do a small group of Spiders who have become aware of the humans and have been working in secret for years to subvert their Focused as well. Together, the two sides successfully defeat the ruling class of the Emergents. The combined Emergent/Qeng Ho fleet now negotiates with the Spider civilization as a trading partner. Pham announces his plans to free all of the Focused in the entire Emergent civilization, and, if he survives that, to go to the Galactic Center to find the source of the OnOff star and the strange technology remnants that have clearly traveled with it. 

=====

The novel opens with Noah Calhoun, an old man, reading to a woman in a nursing home. He tells her the following story: > Noah, 31, returns from World War II to his town of New Bern, North Carolina. > He finishes restoring an antebellum-style house, after his father's death. > Meanwhile, Allie, 29, sees the house in the newspaper and decides to pay him > a visit. They are meeting, again, after a 14-year separation, which followed > their brief but passionate summer romance when her family was visiting the > town. They were separated by class, as she was the daughter of a wealthy > family, and he worked as a laborer in a lumberyard. Seeing each other brings > on a flood of memories and strong emotions in both of them. They have dinner > together and talk about their lives and the past. Allie learns that Noah had > written letters to her for one year after their breakup. She realizes that > her mother hid the letters so that Allie could never receive them and would > conclude that Noah had forgotten about her. They talk about what could have > happened between them without her mother's interference. At the end of the > night, Noah invites Allie to come back the next day and promises her a > surprise. She decides to see him again. During this time, her fiancé, Lon, > tries to reach her at the hotel. When Allie does not respond to his calls, > he begins to worry. The next day, Noah takes Allie on a canoe ride in a > small lake where swans and geese swim. She is enchanted. On their way back, > they are caught in a storm and end up soaked. When they return to his house, > they talk again about how important they were to each other, and how their > feelings have not changed. Noah and Allie share a kiss and make love. > Allie's mother shows up the next morning and gives Allie the letters from > Noah. When her mother leaves, Allie is torn and has a decision to make. She > knows she loves Noah, but she does not want to hurt Lon. Noah begs her to > stay with him, but she decides to leave. She cries all the way back to the > hotel and starts reading the letters her mother returned to her. At the > hotel, her fiancé Lon is waiting in the lobby. The man stops reading the story at this point, and implies to the audience that he is reading to his wife, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease and does not recognize him. Throughout the story he explains he is also ill, battling a third cancer, and suffering heart disease, kidney failure, and severe arthritis in his hands. He resumes reading the story and describing their life together: her career as a noted painter, their children, growing old together, and finally the diagnosis of Alzheimer's. He had changed the names in the story to protect her, but he is Noah and she is Allie. They walk together and Allie, although she does not recognize him, says she might feel something for him. That night they have dinner together. Referring to the story, she can't quite remember who Allie chose. Recognizing her husband, she tells him that she loves him. They embrace and talk, but after almost four hours, Allie fades. She begins to panic and hallucinate, and forgets who Noah is again. The nurses have to come in and they have to sedate her. Later, Noah has a stroke and cannot visit Allie. When he recovers he goes to visit Allie late at night, as he is staying in the same care home. When Noah tries to sneak past the nurse station, the nurse on duty states that she is going for a coffee, even though she has one on the counter. The nurse also tells Noah she won't be back for a while and not to do anything while she is away. Noah realises it is just a ruse to let him go see Allie, and he goes and finds Allie in bed in her room, asleep. She wakes up, recognizes him as Noah, and tells him that she loves him. They kiss and fall asleep next to each other, believing their love will take them away together. 

=====

Kanji Watanabe has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for thirty years and is near his retirement. His wife is dead and his son and daughter-in-law, who live with him, seem to care mainly about Watanabe's pension and their future inheritance. At work, he's a party to constant bureaucratic inaction. In one case, a group of parents are seemingly endlessly referred to one department after another when they want a cesspool cleared out and replaced by a playground. After learning he has stomach cancer and less than a year to live, Watanabe attempts to come to terms with his impending death. He plans to tell his son about the cancer, but decides against it when his son does not pay attention to him. He then tries to find escape in the pleasures of Tokyo's nightlife, guided by an eccentric novelist whom he has just met. In a nightclub, Watanabe requests a song from the piano player, and sings "Gondola no Uta" with great sadness. His singing greatly affects those watching him. After one night submerged in the nightlife, he realizes this is not the solution. The following day, Watanabe encounters a young female subordinate, Toyo, who needs his signature on her resignation. He takes comfort in observing her joyous love of life and enthusiasm and tries to spend as much time as possible with her. She eventually becomes suspicious of his intentions and grows weary of him. After convincing her to join him for the last time, he opens up and asks for the secret to her love of life. She says that she does not know, but that she found happiness in her new job making toys, which makes her feel like she is playing with all the children of Japan. Inspired by her, Watanabe realizes that it is not too late for him to do something significant. Like Toyo, he wants to make something, but is unsure what he can do within the city bureaucracy until he remembers the lobbying for a playground. He surprises everyone by returning to work after a long absence, and begins pushing for a playground despite concerns he is intruding on the jurisdiction of other departments. Watanabe dies, and at his wake, his former co-workers gather, after the opening of the playground, and try to figure out what caused such a dramatic change in his behavior. His transformation from listless bureaucrat to passionate advocate puzzles them. As the co-workers drink, they slowly realize that Watanabe must have known he was dying, even when his son denies this, as he was unaware of his father's condition. They also hear from a witness that in the last few moments in Watanabe's life, he sat on the swing at the park he built. As the snow fell, he sang "Gondola no Uta". The bureaucrats vow to live their lives with the same dedication and passion as he did. But back at work, they lack the courage of their newfound conviction. 

=====

Freddy Krueger, now powerless in Hell because the residents of Springwood have forgotten about him, uses what's left of his powers to bring Jason Voorhees back to life. Freddy then disguises himself as Jason's mother to manipulate him into killing Springwood teenagers to create fear and allow him to regain his strength. Meanwhile, Lori Campbell, who lives with her widowed father, has a sleepover with her friends Kia and Gibb. They are later joined by Trey, Gibb's boyfriend, and his friend Blake, whom Kia tries to get Lori to hook up with, much to Lori's disgust. Jason kills Trey that night, and the police suspect Freddy. After a nightmare, Blake awakens to find his father killed before Jason kills him. The police call it a murder–suicide the following day, hoping to contain Freddy. Elsewhere, Lori's ex-boyfriend Will Rollins and his friend Mark Davis, who are patients at the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, take Hypnocil to suppress their dreams because of their previous contact with Freddy. A news report prompts them to escape and return to Springwood to tell Lori about Freddy. That night, Lori and the others attend a rave in a cornfield. Freddy tries to kill Gibb in a nightmare, but Jason kills her and several other attendees in the real world; this makes Freddy realize that Jason's rampage will deny him victims. Linderman and Freeburg escape the rave with Will, Lori, and Kia. Lori and Will go to Mark's house, and find Freddy killing him. Deputy Stubbs approaches Lori and her friends, who realize Freddy's plan. Learning about the Hypnocil, they try to steal it from Westin Hills; Freddy possesses Freeburg, however, who disposes of the medicine. After electrocuting Stubbs, Jason is tranquilized by the possessed Freeburg and kills him before he falls asleep. The teens devise a plan to pull Freddy from the dream world into reality and force him to fight Jason, bringing the unconscious Jason to the now-abandoned Camp Crystal Lake. Freddy fights Jason in the dream world, where his dream powers show him that Jason is afraid of water because of his death by drowning. He uses water to make Jason powerless, but Lori goes to sleep and tries to save Jason. Freddy attacks her and reveals himself as her mother's killer. Jason awakens at Camp Crystal Lake and chases the teens into a cabin. Linderman is killed, and the cabin catches fire. Lori is awakened and pulls Freddy into the real world, where he is confronted by Jason. As Jason and Freddy fight, the remaining teens escape the cabin. Kia distracts Freddy until Jason kills her. On a dock, the two killers do devastating blows to each other, with Jason tearing Freddy's clawed arm off after Freddy cuts off Jason’s fingers and stabs his eyes. Lori and Will pour gasoline on the dock and set it afire; this makes propane tanks explode, throwing Freddy and Jason into the lake. Freddy climbs out and tries to kill Lori and Will, but is impaled by a wounded Jason with his own clawed arm and decapitated by Lori with Jason's machete. Jason and Freddy's headless body then fall into the lake, both seemingly dead. After throwing the machete into the lake, Lori and Will depart. A victorious Jason emerges from the water the next day, holding his machete and Freddy's severed head. Freddy suddenly winks as his ominous laughter is heard in the background, implying he is still alive.The story is continued in the comic Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash. 

=====

In 1964, Jimmy Cooper (Phil Daniels) is a young London Mod, disillusioned by his parents and a dull job as a post room boy in an advertising firm. Jimmy finds an outlet for his teenage angst by taking amphetamines, partying, riding scooters and brawling with Rockers, accompanied by his Mod friends Dave (Mark Wingett), Chalky (Philip Davis) and Spider (Gary Shail). One of the rival Rockers is Jimmy's childhood friend Kevin (Ray Winstone). An attack by hostile Rockers on Spider leads to a retaliatory attack on Kevin. Jimmy initially participates in the beating, but when he realises the victim is Kevin, he berates the other attackers but does not stop them, instead riding away on his scooter revving his engine loudly in frustration. A planned bank holiday weekend away provides the excuse for the rivalry between Mods and Rockers to escalate, as both groups descend upon the seaside town of Brighton. Jimmy plans to be noticed as a 'face', and hints to Steph (Leslie Ash) – a girl on whom he has a crush – that he would like her to ride with him, but she confirms plans to ride with Pete (Garry Cooper), an older, well-heeled Mod instead. In preparation for the weekend, the pals try to buy some recreational drugs from a London gangster, Harry North (John Bindon), but are cheated with fake pills. After vandalising the drug-seller's car in retaliation, in desperation, they rob a pharmacy, finding a large quantity of their favourite 'blues'. Brighton seafront where the pals gathered after travelling from London After an early morning group ride from London to the south coast, the friends gather on the seafront, where Jimmy first sees a flamboyant scooter-riding Mod he describes as Ace Face (Sting). Later in a dance hall, Jimmy suggests that he will help Steph, whose escort is now chatting to an attractive American girl, to dance with Ace Face, but on the dance floor ushers her away to dance with himself. Steph leaves Jimmy to dance with Ace Face, whereupon Jimmy plots to gain attention by climbing up on to the balcony-edge and dancing with much applause, to the annoyance of Ace Face. After diving into the audience, Jimmy is ejected by bouncers. Steph's escort leaves with the American girl, and once again Jimmy tries to get with Steph, this time for the night, but she has arranged accommodation with a female friend. The lads spend the night sleeping rough, meet up at a cafe on the following morning, then proceed along the promenade, where a series of running battles ensue. As the police close in on the rioters, Jimmy escapes down an alleyway with Steph, and they have sex. When the pair emerge, they find themselves in the middle of the melee just as police are detaining rioters. Jimmy is arrested and detained with the volatile Ace Face. When fined £75, a vast amount at the time, Ace Face mocks the magistrate (John Phillips) by offering to pay on the spot with a cheque, to the fellow Mods' amusement. Back in London, Jimmy becomes severely depressed. His mother throws him out after finding his stash of amphetamine pills. He then quits his job, spends his severance package on more pills, and learns that Steph is now his friend Dave's girlfriend. After a brief fight with Dave, the following morning his rejection is confirmed by Steph, and his beloved Lambretta scooter is accidentally destroyed in a crash. Jimmy takes a train back to Brighton, taking increasing levels of pills and becoming more emotionally unstable. In an attempt to relive the recent excitement, he revisits the scenes of the riots and his encounter with Steph. To his horror, Jimmy discovers that his idol, Ace Face, has a menial job as a bellboy at the Grand Brighton Hotel. Jimmy steals Ace's scooter and heads out to Beachy Head, riding close to the cliff-edge. Finally, the scooter is seen crashing over the cliff-top, which is where the film begins with Jimmy walking back against a sunset backdrop. 

=====

The series follows Honor Harrington, military heroine and later, influential politician, during a time of extreme interstellar change and tension. Most of the more than 20 novels and anthology collections cover events between 4000 and 4022 AD with "PD" (Post-Diaspora) dating beginning with a dispersal to the stars from our sun ("Sol") in 2103 AD. The main series novels are set primarily in a timeline beginning 40 years after Harrington's birth on October 1, 3962 AD (1859 PD), and some short stories flesh out her earlier career. Additional novels and shorter fiction take place up to 350 years earlier, and still-earlier canon history is filled in between narratives and in appendices attached to the main novels and anthologies. The political makeup and history of the series frequently echoes actual history, particularly that of Europe in the last half of the second millennium. The series is consciously modeled on the Horatio Hornblower series by C.S. Forester, and its main character, like Horatio Hornblower, on a mix of Thomas Cochrane and Admiral Lord Nelson. Weber originally planned for Harrington to die in the fifth book. This was later changed to parallel Nelson by having her die at the peak of her career in the climactic Battle of Manticore in 1921 PD (4024 AD), then continue the series with her children as the main protagonists.Foreword to Storm from the Shadows. However, collaborating author Eric Flint intervened, asking for the invention of a mutual enemy for both the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of Haven to oppose in a spy-and- counterspy spin-off sub-series the two contractually agreed to co-write, just as they have contracts to write in Flint's 1632 universe. This "rethink" and redesign caused Weber to move the series' internal chronology up by about 20 years and begat the Crown of Slaves novel, first in the "Crown of Slaves" sub- series based on a number of the short stories of the first four collections. In this scenario, proxies for Manticore and Haven oppose the same hidden enemy, the genetic slavers and powers behind the government and corporations of the planet of Mesa. Mesa is later revealed in Mission of Honor to be part of a secret cabal of about a dozen highly capable planets that are busily building a secret navy using advanced technologies at a secret planet and known to itself as the Mesan Alignment. The Mesan Alignment's navy has new technology and conducts a sneak attack on Manticore in 1922 PD during the twelfth mainline novel, Mission of Honor. The Mesans have a 600-year-old secret program to reinstitute purposeful genetic engineering of humans and break up the Solarian League, while taking down all opponents opposing such genetic engineering. This makes the staunchly anti-genetic-slavery star nations of Haven, Manticore, and various associates of the planet Beowulf primary targets of the Mesan Alignment. The "Crown of Slaves" sub-series books and last two mainline Honorverse novels detail the rising extent of this threat. As the two sub-series progress, albeit with somewhat-separate casts of characters, each is expected by Weber to carry the detailed storyline events particular to their astrographical region forward and tie together into an ongoing plotline concerning the massive and monolithic Solarian League, which foreshadowing in the most recent novels suggests is about to undergo severe disruption. The thirteenth mainline novel, A Rising Thunder, ties together events in both sub-series and synchronizes the timeline of each sub-series with Honor Harrington's mainline novels. This book confirms the Solarian League is officially now the new Mesan cat's paw, effectively at war with both the Star Empire of Manticore and the Republic of Haven, as it has been manipulated into error after error by the operatives of the Mesan Alignment. 

=====

In 1975, John Baker and his partner Lenny take John's children Angela and Peter on a boating trip near Camp Arawak. Angela and Peter prank their father by capsizing their boat. They attempt to swim ashore where Lenny is waiting for them, but camp counselor Mary Anna recklessly strikes John and one of his children with her speedboat, killing them both. Eight years later, Angela now lives with her eccentric aunt, Dr. Martha Thomas, and Martha's son Ricky. Aunt Martha sends Angela to Camp Arawak for the first time, along with Ricky, who had attended the camp before. Angela's introverted nature makes her a target for ridicule and bullying, mostly from her bunkmate Judy and their counselor Meg. Angela's other counselor Susie and the camp's head counselor Ronnie do what they can to help. The cook, Artie, attempts to molest Angela, but Ricky catches him, and Ricky and Angela run out. Later, an unseen figure causes Artie to knock over a pot of boiling water and scald himself. Camp owner Mel Costic calls it an accident. When campers Kenny and Mike mock Angela, Ricky and his friend Paul fight them. Paul befriends Angela. When Kenny drowns, his death is ruled accidental at Mel's insistence, although Ronnie and police officer Frank express doubt. Paul asks Angela to attend a film with him. After campers Billy and Mike throw water balloons at Angela, Billy is stung to death when someone traps him in a bathroom stall and drops a hive in it. Mel suspects a killer is in the camp. Angela and Paul's relationship is strained when Paul kisses her. Angela has a flashback to when she and her sibling witnessed their father in bed with Lenny. Angela recoils from Paul's advances and runs away. Judy seduces Paul, and Angela finds them kissing. Paul attempts to explain himself to Angela at the lake but Judy and Meg shoo him away and throw Angela into the water. After Ricky rescues Angela, children fling sand at them. Ricky comforts Angela and swears revenge on her aggressors. Meg is stabbed to death in the shower while getting ready to meet Mel. At the camp social, Paul apologizes to Angela and she asks him to meet her at the waterfront later. Mel finds Meg's body and is convinced that Ricky is the killer. The children who threw sand at Angela and Ricky are camping in the woods with their counselor Eddie when two of them ask him to take them back to the main camp. He returns to find the four remaining children hacked to death with his hatchet. Back at the camp, the killer enters Judy's cabin and murders her, raping her with a hot curling iron while smothering her with a pillow. The camp is thrown into a panic. Thinking Ricky is the killer, Mel beats him mercilessly, only to be shot in the throat with an arrow by the real killer. Frank is called and searches with the counselors for the missing campers. Paul is at the beach with Angela, who suggests they go skinny dipping. Frank discovers Ricky unconscious but alive. Ronnie and Susie find Angela sitting on the beach and humming, with Paul, whose head appears to be resting on her lap as she strokes his hair. A flashback shows Aunt Martha welcoming the survivor of the boat accident into her home. It is revealed that the real Angela is the child who died in the accident, while Aunt Martha took custody of the surviving Peter, reasoning that since she already has a son and always wanted a little girl, that she should raise Peter as Angela instead. Back in the present, "Angela" leaps to their feet holding a hunting knife, allowing Paul's severed head to fall on the ground. Shocked, Ronnie exclaims, "How can it be? My God, she's a boy!" as the nude and blood-covered "Angela" stands before the horrified Susie and Ronnie, male genitalia in full view. 

=====

The events of Oni take place in or after the year 2032. The game world is a dystopia, an Earth so polluted that little of it remains habitable. To solve international economic crises, all nations have combined into a single entity, the World Coalition Government. The government is totalitarian, telling the populace that what are actually dangerously toxic regions are wilderness preserves, and uses its police forces, the Technological Crimes Task Force (TCTF), to suppress opposition. The player character, code-named Konoko (voiced by Amanda Winn-Lee), full name later given as Mai Hasegawa, begins the game working for the TCTF. Soon, she learns her employers have been keeping secrets about her past from her. She turns against them as she embarks on a quest of self-discovery. The player learns more about her family and origins while battling both the TCTF and its greatest enemy, the equally monolithic criminal organization called the Syndicate. In the game's climax, Konoko discovers a Syndicate plan to cause the Atmospheric Conversion Centers, air-treatment plants necessary to keep most of the world's population alive, to catastrophically malfunction. She is partially successful in thwarting the plot, saving a portion of humanity. 

=====

Billionaire media mogul Bill Parrish is considering a merger between his company and another media giant and is about to celebrate his 65th birthday with an elaborate party planned by his eldest daughter, Allison. His youngest daughter, Susan, a resident in internal medicine, is in a relationship with one of Bill's board members, Drew. She is considering marriage, but Bill can tell that she is not passionately in love. When she asks for the short version of his impassioned speech, he simply says, "Stay open. Who knows? Lightning could strike!". When their company helicopter lands, he begins to hear a mysterious voice, which he tries with increasing difficulty to ignore. Susan meets a vibrant young man at a coffee shop. He takes an interest in her and tells her that lightning may strike. She is enamored but parts without getting his name. Unbeknownst to her, the man is struck by multiple cars in a possibly fatal collision. Death arrives at Bill's home in the uninjured body of the young man, explaining that Bill's impassioned speech has piqued his interest. Given Bill's "competence, experience, and wisdom", Death says that for as long as Bill will be his guide on Earth, Bill will not have to die. Making up a name on the spot, Death is introduced to the family as "Joe Black". Bill's best efforts to navigate the next few days, knowing them now to be his last, fail to keep events from going rapidly out of his control. Drew is secretly conspiring with a man bidding for Parrish Communications. He capitalizes on Bill's strange behavior and unexplained reliance on Joe to convince the board of directors to vote Bill out as chairman, using information given to him inadvertently by Bill's son-in-law, Quince, to push through approval for the merger which Bill had decided to oppose. Quince is devastated. Susan is confused by the appearance of Joe, believing him to be the young man from the coffee shop, but eventually falls deeply in love with him. Joe is now under the influence of human desires and becomes attracted to her as well. After they make love, Joe asks Susan, "What do we do now?" She replies, "It'll come to us". Bill angrily confronts Joe about his relationship with his daughter, but Joe declares his intention to take Susan with him for his own. As his last birthday arrives, Bill appeals to Joe to recognize the meaning of true love and all it encompasses, especially honesty and sacrifice. Joe comes to understand that he must set aside his own desire and allow Susan to live her life. He also helps Bill regain control of his company, exposing Drew's underhanded business dealings to the board by claiming to be an agent of the Internal Revenue Service and threatening to put Drew in jail. At the party, Bill makes his peace with his daughters. Susan tells Joe that she has loved him ever since that day in the coffee shop. Joe realizes that Susan loves the unknown man, not him, and the realization crushes him slightly. Mastering his emotions powerfully he balks at telling Susan who he really is, although she seems to intuit his true identity. Struggling to comprehend the magnitude of the situation, Susan cannot label Joe as Death. She says finally, "You're, you're Joe". He promises her "you will always have what you found in the coffee shop". On a hillock in the grounds above the party, Bill expresses trepidation, asking "Should I be afraid?", Joe replies "Not a man like you". Fireworks explode in the distance while Susan watches Joe and her father walk out of view. Susan is stunned as "Joe" reappears alone, bewildered, this time as the young man from the coffee shop. He is uninjured and cannot account for how he got there. Susan accepts that her father is gone, and rekindles the romantic spark she had shared with the young man. "What do we do now?" she asks. "It'll come to us", Joe replies, as the two of them descend hand-in-hand towards the twinkling lights of the party. 

=====

Professional photographers Vinod Chopra (Naseeruddin Shah) and Sudhir Mishra (Ravi Baswani) open a photo studio in the prestigious Haji Ali area in Bombay, and hope to make enough money to keep it running. After a disastrous start, they are given some work by the editor of "Khabardar", a publication that exposes the scandalous lives of the rich and the famous. They accept it and start working with the editor, Shobha Sen (Bhakti Barve), on a story exposing the dealings between an unscrupulous builder, Tarneja (Pankaj Kapoor), and corrupt Municipal Commissioner D'Mello (Satish Shah). During their investigation, they find out that another builder Ahuja (Om Puri) who is Tarneja's business rival is also involved in this dealing to get a contract for building 4 flyovers from D'Mello. While working on their story, Sudhir and Vinod decide to enter a photography contest that carries prize money of Rs. 5000/-, and take a number of photographs all over the city. On developing their pictures, in one of the photographs, they see a man shooting someone and realize that the killer is none other than Tarneja. They immediately return to the scene and find the body lying behind the bushes. Before the duo gets to the body, it disappears, but they manage to retrieve one of a pair of gold cufflinks. Sometime later, they attend the inauguration of a bridge dedicated to the memory of late Municipal Commissioner D'Mello who is supposed to have died of a terminal disease. There they discover the other cuff link. They return at night and dig up the area and unearth a coffin containing the dead body of D'Mello. The Mahabharata scene is considered to be one of the major highlights of the film, and has been praised for its humour. They take several photographs of the corpse, and wheel it with them with the hopes of exposing Tarneja. However, the body disappears and they lie to Shobha saying that the body is hidden safely with them. Shobha, in turn, starts blackmailing Tarneja. He invites her, Vinod and Sudhir for dinner and plants a time bomb to kill them. Unfortunately, the bomb explodes prematurely and the trio escapes. Vinod and Sudhir find out that the body is with Tarneja's rival, Ahuja who had, in an inebriated condition, carried the coffin to his farmhouse. They steal the corpse but not before Tarneja, Ahuja, the new Municipal Commissioner Srivastav, Shobha and others also get involved resulting in a series of comic mix-ups. The climax is set upon a stage dramatization of the Mahabharata, particularly the enactment of the Draupadi Cheer-Haran episode, which is turned on its head with the duo and the group following them inserting themselves into the scene. The iconic sequence also includes a scene from the ill-fated romance of Salim and Anarkali with the corpse playing Anarkali. In the end, the police arrive and Vinod and Sudhir present their evidence to the police officer. Srivastava, being the Assistant Municipal Commissioner, tells the officer to wait a few minutes before arresting Tarneja. Tarneja tells Ahuja and Shobha that if he goes to jail, he would make sure that their malpractices are also exposed. In a twist ending, they all come to an agreement and Srivastava manages to pin the murder of Commissioner D'Mello and the collapse of the bridge on Vinod and Sudhir. In the final scene, Vinod and Sudhir are shown several months/years later released from prison, still in their prison clothes. They turn to the camera and make a symbolic cut-throat gesture, signifying the death of justice and truth. 

=====

Chapter 1, "The Stowaway", is an alternative account of the story of Noah's Ark from the point of view of the woodworms, who were not allowed onboard and were stowaways during the journey. Chapter 2, "The Visitors", describes the hijacking of a cruise liner, similar to the 1985 incident of the Achille Lauro. Chapter 3, "The Wars of Religion", reports a trial against the woodworms in a church, as they have caused the building to become unstable. Chapter 4, "The Survivor", is set in a world in which the Chernobyl disaster was "the first big accident". Journalists report that the world is on the brink of nuclear war. The protagonist escapes by boat to avoid the assumed inevitability of a nuclear holocaust. Whether this occurred or is merely a result of the protagonist's paranoia is left ambiguous. Chapter 5, "Shipwreck", is an analysis of Géricault's painting, The Raft of the Medusa. The first half narrates the historical events of the shipwreck and the survival of the crew members. The second half of the chapter analyses the painting itself. It describes Géricault's "softening" the impact of reality in order to preserve the aestheticism of the work, or to make the story of what happened more palatable. Chapter 6, "The Mountain", describes the journey of a religious woman to a monastery where she wants to intercede for her dead father. The Raft of the Medusa plays a role in this story as well. Chapter 7, "Three Simple Stories", portrays a survivor from the RMS Titanic, the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale, and the Jewish refugees on board the MS St. Louis in 1939, who were prevented from landing in the United States and other countries. Chapter 8, "Upstream!", consists of letters from an actor who travels to a remote jungle for a film project, described as similar to The Mission (1986). His letters grow more philosophical and complicated as he deals with the living situations, the personalities of his costars and the director, and the peculiarities of the indigenous population, coming to a climax when his colleague is drowned in an accident with a raft. The unnumbered half-chapter, "Parenthesis", is inserted between Chapters 8 and 9. It is different in style from the other chapters, which are short stories; here a narrator addresses his readers and offers a philosophical discussion on love. The narrator is called "Julian Barnes", but, as he states, the reader cannot be sure that the narrator's opinions are those of the author. A parallel is drawn with El Greco's painting Burial of the Count of Orgaz, in which the artist confronts the viewer. The piece includes a discussion of lines from Philip Larkin's poem "An Arundel Tomb" ("What will survive of us is love") and from W. H. Auden's "September 1, 1939" ("We must love one another or die"). Chapter 9, "Project Ararat", tells the story of fictional astronaut Spike Tiggler, based on the astronaut James Irwin. Tiggler launches an expedition to recover what remains of Noah's Ark. There is overlap with Chapter 6, "The Mountain." Chapter 10, "The Dream", portrays New Heaven. 

=====

In 1930, fishermen in the small Spanish port of Esperanza make a grim discovery in their nets, the bodies of a man and a woman. The resultant ringing of church bells in the village brings the local police and the resident archaeologist, Geoffrey Fielding (Harold Warrender), to the beach. Fielding returns to his villa, and, breaking the "fourth wall", retells the story of these two people to the audience. Esperanza's small group of English expatriates revolves around Pandora Reynolds (Ava Gardner), an American nightclub singer and femme fatale. All the men love her (or believe that they do), but Pandora is unable to love anyone. She tests her admirers by demanding they give up something they value, citing Zeno of Elea's quote: "the measure of true love is how much poison Marius Goring is willing to drink for it." One of her admirers (Marius Goring) thus commits suicide in front of Pandora and her friends by drinking wine that he has laced with poison, but Pandora apparently shows indifference. Pandora agrees to marry a land-speed record holder, Stephen Cameron (Nigel Patrick), after he sends his racing car tumbling into the sea at her request. That same night, the Dutch captain Hendrick van der Zee (James Mason) arrives in Esperanza. Pandora swims out to his yacht and finds him painting a picture of her posed as her namesake, Pandora, whose actions brought an end to the earthly paradise in Greek mythology. Hendrick appears to fall in love with Pandora, and he moves into the same hotel complex as the other expatriates. Geoffrey and Hendrick become friends, collaborating to seek background information on Geoffrey's local finds. One of these relics is a notebook written in Old Dutch, which confirms Geoffrey's suspicion that Hendrick van der Zee is the Flying Dutchman, a 16th- century ship captain who murdered his wife, believing her to be unfaithful. He blasphemed against God at his murder trial, where he was sentenced to death. The evening before his execution, a mysterious force opened the Dutchman's prison doors and allowed him to escape to his waiting ship, where in a dream it was revealed to him that his wife was innocent and he was doomed to sail the seas for eternity unless he could find a woman who loved him enough to die for him. Every seven years, the Dutchman could go ashore for six months to search for that woman. Despite her impending wedding to Stephen, Pandora declares her love for Hendrick, but he is unwilling to have her die for his sake, and tries to provoke her into hating him. Pandora is also loved by Juan Montalvo (Mario Cabré), an arrogant, famous bullfighter, who murders Hendrick out of jealousy. But as soon as Montalvo leaves, Hendrick comes back to life as if nothing had happened. He attends the bullfight the next day, and when Montalvo sees him in the audience, he becomes petrified with fear and is fatally gored by the bull. Before dying, Montalvo tells Pandora about his murder of his romantic rival, leaving her confused. On the eve of her wedding, Pandora asks Geoffrey if he knows anything about Hendrick that will clear up her confusion. Once he sees the Flying Dutchman preparing to sail away, he hands her his translation of the notebook. However, the Dutchman's yacht is becalmed. On learning the truth, Pandora swims out to Hendrick again. He shows her a small portrait of his murdered wife. She and Pandora look exactly alike. Hendrik explains they are man and wife and that through her he has been given the chance to escape his doom, but he rejected it because it would cost her death. Pandora is undaunted, however. That night, there is a fierce storm at sea. The next morning, the bodies of Pandora and the Dutchman are recovered. 

=====

The film opens with an unnamed company installing a phone booth in the middle of a square. Later, a man takes his son to the school bus. He enters the phone booth to make a call and the door slowly closes behind him. The man realizes that the phone doesn't work, so he tries to leave only to discover that the door is stuck. He tries desperately to get it open, but nothing works. Eventually two business men come by and try to help him out, but to no avail. This gathers the attention of many passers- by who begin to congregate and watch the action. Several people (including a strong man, a repair man and a police officer) try to open the door but it remains stuck. Eventually a firefighter is just about to try to break open the glass roof of the phone booth when the phone booth company appears. They unbolt the booth and take the booth (with the man inside it) away on their truck. The crowd cheers and gladly waves the man away. The man watches frantically as he is carted across town. He tries to scream for help from people, but everyone just smiles and waves. Eventually the truck stops next to another truck also carrying a man stuck in a phone booth. The two men try to communicate but cannot. After many hours the truck arrives at a massive underground warehouse. The phone booth is lifted up in the air by a giant magnet and the truck drives away. The phone booth is carried by a forklift through the warehouse, which is full of phone booths containing decaying remains of other trapped citizens. The man struggles in fear but cannot escape. The forklift drops him and leaves. The man looks to his right and sees the trapped man he saw on his way to the warehouse who has strangled himself with the telephone cord. The man collapses out of frame in despair. The film ends with the phone booth company setting up a similar booth in the same park. 

=====

Recent parolee Michael Zane stops at a run-down desert motel outside Las Vegas, Nevada. He catches a boy, Jesse, stealing from his car, and chases him back to his mother, Cybil Waingrow, who he seduces. The following morning, four men arrive to pick him up: Murphy, Hanson, Gus, and Franklin. Dressed in Elvis costumes, the group goes to Las Vegas and robs a casino holding an Elvis convention. A firefight breaks out and Franklin is killed during their escape. Back at the motel, Hanson and Murphy argue about Franklin's share until Murphy shoots Hanson. Michael hides the money in the crawl space, unaware that Jesse is watching him. The three remaining thieves drive into the desert to bury Hanson. Murphy returns alone after shooting Gus and Michael, but crashes his car and is knocked unconscious before reaching the motel. Michael was wearing a bulletproof vest and survived the shooting by playing dead. He makes his way back to the motel and discovers that the money is missing. Guessing that Jesse was responsible, he storms into Cybil's place and finds the money. He tries to bribe Cybil to forget the situation, but eventually agrees to take Cybil and Jesse with him. Michael explains that the money is marked, but says Murphy knows a money launderer in Idaho who can help. Murphy, realizing that Michael has taken the money, drives to Idaho to intercept him. At a restaurant, Cybil steals Michael's wallet and sneaks away from Michael and Jesse. She takes Michael's car and calls the money launderer, Peterson, using a password she found in Michael's wallet. Murphy appears at the money launderer's premises using the same password. Peterson explains that Cybil called first, so they wait for her. Cybil arrives and finds Murphy, who she assumes is Peterson. Michael and Jesse arrive later in a stolen car and find the premises empty except for the bodies of Peterson and his secretary. Michael guesses that Murphy has his car and reports it stolen, causing Murphy to be arrested. The police discover that Michael is also driving a stolen car and arrest him as well. The men are put in adjoining cells and have a confrontation. Jesse helps Michael make bail after Michael agrees to make him his partner. Murphy calls a man named Jack who helps him make bail. Michael retrieves his car and finds Cybil tied up and gagged in the trunk. Murphy is picked up while hitchhiking, then kills the driver and steals his clothes and vehicle. Cybil and Jesse drive by. Murphy runs them off the road, and takes Jesse hostage, telling Cybil to find Michael and the money. Cybil begs Michael for help. After some persuasion, Michael decides to help and reports Murphy to the authorities. Michael meets Murphy at a warehouse with the money and convinces him to release Jesse. As Murphy realizes that the bag is full of cut-up newspaper instead of money, he is stung by a scorpion that Michael hid inside. A SWAT team surrounds the warehouse. Murphy pretends to surrender but grabs a gun and shoots Michael. A gunfight ensues. Murphy refuses to surrender and is killed by police. An ambulance takes Michael for medical care, but is stolen by Cybil and Jesse. Once again, Michael wore a bulletproof vest, and is only slightly injured. The three escape together and are seen on Michael's boat, the "Graceland". 

=====

The series follows the continuing adventures of the four Ghostbusters, their secretary Janine, their accountant Louis, and their mascot Slimer, as they chase and capture rogue spirits around New York City and various other areas of the world. 

=====

Set years after the end of The Real Ghostbusters, lack of supernatural activity has put the Ghostbusters out of business. Each member has gone their separate way, except for Dr. Egon Spengler, who still lives in the firehouse to monitor the containment unit, take care of Slimer, further his studies and teach a class on the paranormal at a local college. When ghosts start to reappear, Egon is forced to recruit his lone four students as the new Ghostbusters. These are Kylie Griffin, a goth girl genius and expert on the occult; Eduardo Rivera, a cynical Latino slacker; Garrett Miller, a young white paraplegic athlete who uses a wheelchair; and Roland Jackson, a studious African-American machinery whiz. Filling the cast are Janine Melnitz, the Ghostbusters' previous secretary who returns to the job, and Slimer, a hungry ghost. The series follows the adventures of this "Next Generation" of Ghostbusters tracking down and capturing ghosts all over New York and occasionally beyond the city. The series is styled as a supernatural comedy, following the trend set by its predecessor, but given an updated and darker feel. This is reflected by the use of a gritty, rock/punk-inspired variation of Ray Parker Jr.'s song "Ghostbusters" as the opening theme, written by Jim Latham and performed by voice actor Jim Cummings. Recurring themes throughout the series are the new team learning to work together despite their differences, Janine's largely unrequited affection for Egon, the love-hate relationship between Kylie and Eduardo that is never resolved, and the Ghostbusters' frequent clashes with authority figures who disbelieve their work. 

=====

The story begins with , a high school student in a Hokkaidō coastal city, walking up to an observatory and reminiscing about his girlfriend, ; there he finds her exchange diaries that she purposefully left behind. The ensuing story is narrated by Shuji through flashbacks while reading Chise's diary. Chise, a fellow student in his class, declares her love for Shuji at the beginning of the series. However, Chise is very shy and Shuji is insensitive: neither know how to express their feelings very well, but they do indeed have feelings for each other. One day, while Shuji is shopping in Sapporo, unknown bombers attack the city in broad daylight. He and his friends run for cover, but notice a fast and small flying object shooting down the enemy bombers. Separated from his friends, Shuji wanders through the wreckage—only to stumble upon Chise; here she has metal wings and weapons—apparently grafted onto her body. She tells him she has become the ultimate weapon, without her knowledge or consent, and that she is seen by the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) as the last hope for defending Japan. In the anime, it is not apparent why Chise was chosen to be the ultimate weapon or why the country is under attack. It was not until the OVA episodes were released that an explanation for Chise being chosen was offered: her body has the highest degree of compatibility with the weapon system. This story focuses primarily on Chise's fading humanity as her condition worsens. The main conflict is within Chise herself; she questions whether or not she is human. Her soul is constantly trying to be a normal girl, while her body succumbs to the devastating effects of the weapon cell within her. Fundamentally important to the plot is the relationship between Shuji and Chise. From this, the resolution of the conflict follows. In the end, she is able to realize who she truly is. A number of minor characters who do not necessarily know of Chise's role in the war have sub-plots that concern everyday people in the context of war: a woman whose husband is constantly away from home, a school boy who joins the army to protect his girlfriend, a girl whose civilian boyfriend is killed in a bombing, and others. 

=====

Millennium features a civilization that has dubbed itself "The Last Age". Due to millennia of warfare of every type (nineteen nuclear wars alone), the Earth has been heavily polluted and humanity's gene pool irreparably damaged. They have thus embarked on a desperate plan; time travel into the past, collect healthy humans, and send them to an uncontaminated planet to rebuild civilization. The time travelers can only take people that will have no further effect on the timeline: those who have vanished without a trace, or died without being observed; otherwise they would be changing the past, which risks a temporal paradox and perhaps even a catastrophic breakdown of the fabric of time. Though they collect everyone they can, they exert a great deal of effort on those destined to die in various disasters such as sinking ships and crashing airplanes (and once a century of Roman soldiers lost and dying in the North African desert). As such incidents leave no survivors to report interference and change the timeline, they can freely remove the living but soon-to-die victims, and replace them with convincing corpses they have manufactured in the future. The novel deals with several of the raids, their eventual discovery in the present day, and the fallout that results from changes to the present day reverberating into the future. The story follows Louise Baltimore, who is in charge of a "snatch team" that goes back into the past to kidnap people who would otherwise die. Because of the massive pollution and the genetic damage she has sustained, she is missing one leg and must get advanced medical treatment daily. Her natural appearance is quite ugly due to skin damage (from "paraleprosy") and other problems; however, she wears a special "skin suit" which makes her look whole and beautiful (which may or may not be real--she is an unreliable narrator), and gives her a functional artificial leg. The team she leads uses a "time gate" to appear in the bathroom aboard an airplane in flight. Dressed to look like flight attendants, they begin to bluff the passengers into entering the bathroom where they are pushed into the gate, to arrive in the future. After large numbers of people disappear, the remaining passengers become suspicious. The future team then uses special weapons to stun them before throwing them through the gate. During the removal of the passengers, they run into an unexpected hijacker. The ensuing gunplay is one-sided; one of the snatch team members is killed, and her stunner is lost. The rest of the team finishes removing the passengers and the real flight attendants. The team then scatters pre-burnt body parts around the plane so they will be found after the crash. As the plane approaches the moment when it is destined to crash, the lost weapon still has not been found. Upon returning to her present (our future), Louise is informed that the weapon that was left behind has caused a paradox and that it must be recovered to prevent a breakdown in the fabric of time. 

=====