From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== John Corbett stars as Matt Andrews, a geologist who is asked to investigate why there have been two large sinkholes affecting the city of New Orleans. Jessica Steen plays Corbett's girlfriend Allison Beauchamp, assistant to the Mayor, who has to decide whether the problems with the sinkholes will spread far enough to require that the remainder of Mardi Gras be cancelled, which would be a complete economic disaster to the city. Matt has a number of personal issues because of a disaster which happened at a mine he was advising on its operations. Although cleared of responsibility for the accident, he still blames himself, which may be causing him to be overcautious. Matt admits the potential problem of the sinkholes becoming so serious as to endanger the city could occur next week, or not for three hundred years. Based on the lack of real evidence of immediate danger, and because some evidence that she should have received has been destroyed by the mayor's political flack, Allison has decided not to close the festival, only to have the disaster metastasize, like a cancer devouring the city's underground. The only answer is to obtain several tons of polyurethane liquid in 2 compounds which when combined produces an expanding foam that will fill the huge sinkhole cavern. The polyurethane expanding foam reaction is able to expand to hundreds of times its size, and becomes as hard as concrete afterwards. Due to an emergency, while Matt is underground inspecting the caverns, he becomes partially trapped, and has to ask to have the foam started (which will kill him if he can't find an escape) because if they don't start the flow of the liquid immediately, the ground underneath downtown New Orleans will collapse similar to the effects of soil liquefaction and thousands to tens of thousands of people will be injured or killed. The last few minutes of the film become a race against time as Matt attempts to find an exit before the polyurethane foam envelops him. The film points to an event that would happen five years after the movie was made. Matt points out the sinkholes, if they do fail and open up, could be as serious a disaster to the city as if its levees collapsed, an event that did happen as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. ===== Thomas Covenant is resurrected by Linden Avery. He is once again a leper, and his mind slips in and out of human reality as an after- effect of spending millennia as part of the Arch of Time. As a result of the combined use of wild magic, Earthpower, and Loric's krill, the Worm of the World's End has been awakened, and is moving towards the Land to drink of the Earthblood. This will result in the destruction of all things, the breaking of the Arch of Time which encompasses the Earth, and subsequently the release of Lord Foul. The Elohim are fleeing to the farthest reaches of the Earth to avoid being eaten by the Worm. Major enemies to Linden and Thomas include Lord Foul, the Worm, Kastenessen, Roger Covenant, Joan Covenant (possessed by a Raver), She Who Must Not Be Named, and other creatures loosed upon the land. Linden Avery, accompanied by Ramen, Giants, and Haruchai, seeks to find a way to stop Joan's caesures, find and free her son Jeremiah, and stop the Worm of the World's End. ===== In Taipei, a team of ghost hunters pay a freelance camera man to photograph places looking for paranormal activity. From the sounds of things, previous attempts have been unsuccessful. The camera man is taking his pictures and this time captures a picture of a boy in a seemingly empty room. The team of ghost hunters are thrilled and take it upon themselves to further investigate. They bring a police officer, a sharp shooter and a lip reader for further help in their investigation for further study of Ghost. The officer has a sick mother who is in the state of coma and has a decaying body. Though the officer refuses to offer help in the initial stages, he accepts the case due to curiosity. On the other side the director of this entire program calls the team to give up their research as it seems worthless and is costly to the Japanese government. The team reveals a magnetic cube which can split itself and capture energy of any form. Its capacity to hold energy is such that it can withstand the force of gravity and float in air. The director obviously agrees to offer further support. It is further revealed that the walls of the room of the captured ghost are packed with thousands of such cubes to obstruct the movement of the ghost boy. The inclusion of a police officer angers one of the teammates who decides to take revenge on the team. She steps into the room of the captured ghost and sprays an energy synchronizer which allows her to capture the ghost inside her pocket. The team which arrives later is shocked at the missing ghost and demands she tells the truth. In the meantime, the ghost escapes from her pocket and kills her. Her soul appears for a short span of time and vanishes. It will be quite astonishing as to why the soul of the boy is still persisting. Further observation reveals that the captured ghost follows a fixed pattern of activities like staring out of the window and trying to walk through a door at a particular time. This causes the team to set the ghost boy free into the open world to trace his activities. The police officer follows the boy to his school which apparently was the place of his suicide. The ghost boy was also found to leave a trace of silk strands along his foot steps. Investigation in school reveals clues pointing to the place and cause of his death. They follow the clues to a dead body and conclude that he was strangled to death by his own mother. This produced a strong hate in him which has made his soul restless. Furthermore, the body of this dead boy is found to be in the center of a nuclear fusion reactor whose magnetic flux is also found to have caused his unstable soul. The police officer doubts a relation between the ghost boy and the silk strands. He follows the silk strands which leads him to an unwell women in an hospital, who dies shortly afterwards. On the other side the director issues orders to seize the project which angers the team leader. The team leader captures the soul of the boy in a magnetic cube and leaves without a trace. This causes the soul of the boy's mother to take revenge on all the people involved in the team by killing them. The mom tries to kill the police officer's girlfriend. The police officer arrives at the scene with a sniper rifle and sprays the bullets with holy water. The police officer saves his girlfriend but the ghost mom is chases after him. He drives away and crashes his car into a subway entrance. He escapes into a train but the ghost mom manages to catch him. His girlfriend calls him and he tells her to check on his mom, who has been hospitalized. He says sorry and prepares to be killed by the ghost mom. She reaches into his heart and stops it. The team leader sets the ghost boy free and kills himself in the same spot as of the boy so that he can turn into a ghost. The boy, now released, goes to where the police officer is and reaches into his heart and revives him. He and his mother, both as ghosts, hug. The police officer then calls the team leader to tell him that the team leader was wrong. The boy's energy wasn't stuck in the world because of hate, it was because of his bond with his mother. The police officer returns home. He finds his mother's ghost sitting in his living room. He asks if she is angry at him. She doesn't reply and stands up, puts an egg into a pot, and disappears. The police officer stares at the egg in the pot, and it disappears just like his mom. It is revealed that his girlfriend signed her death certificate at the hospital as the patient's daughter-in-law. ===== The novel opens with Conan walking into Shadizar through the Karpash Mountains. He is ambushed by some bandits in the mountains and rescued by a giantess named Teyle. She leads Conan back to her village in the swamp they inhabit at the foot of a mountain. The swamp is also inhabited by Vargs, who are described as "Green dwarves" and act more like goblins or orcs. Upon arriving, he is knocked out by Teyle to be experimented upon by the request of Raseri, the village chieftain and Teyle's father. Conan awakens inside a cage made from the bones of giants and finds he's being experimented upon by Raseri. Raseri is performing research on the physical endurance of damage in humans. Meanwhile, Dake the freakmaster is on his way to the giant's village with his entourage of Penz the wolfman, Tro the catwoman, Sab the four-armed man, and Kreg his assistant. Dake's mission is to capture a giant and a "green dwarf" for his freak show. On the way, Dake's freak show is attacked by Vargs, but the creatures are scared off by a massive red demon which Dake summons (which is an illusion). Penz captures one of the Vargs at the behest of Dake. Dake promptly hypnotizes his Varg into servitude. The Varg that is captured turns out to be Vilken, the son of Fosull, a Varg chieftain. Conan eventually escapes the cage in which he is being held and sets fire to Raseri's hut, sending all of his research on humans into flames. Conan escapes into the swamp, running across some Vargs and killing several of them. Meanwhile, Dake arrives at night in the hopes of capturing a giant for his freak show with the help of Tro the catwoman's night vision. The flaming hut distracts many of the giants and Dake is able to capture Teyle, as well as Morja and Oren, who are also Raseri's children. As Conan escapes, the giants release their "Hellhounds", a massive beast with the appearance of a cross between a bear and a wolf. The hellhounds, Vargs, and giants are tracking Conan in that order of following. Soon, Conan slays all the hellhounds. When the Vargs and giants find these corpses, they are amazed. Conan finally escapes the swamp only to be magically captured by Dake. Figuring that more of his own kind will attract too much attention, Raseri decides to leave the swamp to look for his children by asking the local humans if they have seen a man resembling Conan. Fosull decides on a similar plan, but coats himself in mud (so as not to display his green skin) and follows the cart's tracks, knowing what they look like. Fosull manages to get a ride with a drunken wine seller in his cart. Dake forces Conan to display his strength so that it may be measured. Dake learns that Conan is stronger than all the rest of his freak show combined and sets Conan to use as his strongman for the traveling circus. Raseri eventually finds Fosull's wagon and learns that the cart in front of him contains a Varg who is tracking their children. Fosull learns that he is being tracked by a giant, but knows not who. Dake exhibits his circus to a village. Eventually, Conan discovers that rage helps in weakening Dake's spell. Soon, Penz reveals he knows a few of Dake's spells. Fosull and Raseri form a temporary alliance to rescue their children. Dake meets up with a caravan of other merchants. They stop for the night and Dake sends Morja to the leader of the caravan as a gift. Raseri and Fosull have managed to sneak up secretly. This enrages Dake's slaves and they manage to break the spell of entrapment set upon them. The former-slaves, Raseri, and Fosull manage to rescue Morja before she arrives at the merchant's wagon. The group kills the merchant and several guards in the ensuing battle. Oren throws a rock at Dake as he's reciting his enslavement spell. The spell gets 2/3 done and binds the ex-slaves, Raseri, and Fousull (except for Conan) before the thrown rock smashes Dake's teeth preventing the final articulation of the spell. Conan promptly slays Dake in the process. Raseri is convinced that the group should not be able to leave knowing how to get to his village of giants. Raseri tells the group that he has a potion which will help them forget how to get to his village. However, his potion is actually a poison. Penz sprinkles a powder (stolen from Dake) that turns all liquid to water into the cups of the slaves while Raseri is not watching. Eveyone drinks the potion and Raseri reveals they are about to die. Fosull, whose drink was not sprinkled with the magical powder, kills Raseri with his poisoned spear and dies shortly afterwards. Raseri's death also prevents the poison from taking effect. Soon, Teyle decides to let the group leave and the book is concluded. ===== When Aaron loses his parents, the only family he has left are his estranged aunt and uncle (Burt Reynolds), who are reluctant to take the young boy in. But with no other options, Aaron moves into their farm house, nestled in the sprawling wilderness, and begins a new life. Aaron finds much comfort in exploring the nature around him and becomes even more intrigued when he spots a white wolf patrolling the nearby bridge. When he witnesses a hunter wound on the majestic animal, Aaron reaches out to the wolf and creates a bond that will become very important to protecting both of their lives. ===== ===== Princess Ann of Truania arrives at Louie's Sweet Shop. She is the daughter of the exiled king and is looking for Louie, whose brother is a valuable assistance to the king back in Truania. They request the boys assistance to safeguard a half-coin for them. The other half will be delivered to them with a message when it is safe for the king to return to his country and regain control. The king's assistant, Colonel Baxis and Zelda, Ann's lady-in-waiting are traitors and are immediately distrusted by the boys. The traitor's intend to send a fake half- coin to the boys in order to get the king to return to his country too soon so that he can be arrested. Ann overhears the plot and is kidnapped. Eventually the boys rescue Ann and convince the king that his assistant is a traitor. ===== Arno Strine, a temp in Boston, discovers he can stop time when he is a young man. He works on this power, and learns how to trigger and control these time stoppages. However, instead of becoming rich or a diabolic criminal, Strine becomes an elaborate voyeur. He stops time so that he can see women naked, and eventually creates scenarios that he can watch after he allows time to start again. But despite his enjoyment of this power, Arno wants a real relationship, and he overcomes his shyness to begin a relationship. When he finally consummates this relationship, his power to stop time passes to his girlfriend, whose own time adventures begin. Arno works on the story of this time power, under the title "The Fermata." ===== Everything was going well for Kwong Mei-Bo (Stephy Tang) until recently. After graduating from college, Bo opened a sweets shop with her longtime boyfriend, Jun (Stephen Wong Ka Lok), thinking that she would eventually marry Jun when everything has been set up and running smoothly. One day, Bo met her old Taiwanese classmate Kei Kei (Alice Tzeng). Kei Kei liked Jun's hard working and nice personality, and decided to steal Jun for her own, not caring about Bo's feelings. Bo not only lost the long time love of her life, but she also lost the sweet shop that she has worked so hard on. Ah-Man (Leila Tong) is Bo's good friend on the phone. The pretty and attractive Man would often time have some short relationships with other men while concealing all this from her introverted and slow boyfriend, Fung (Terry Wu). Although Man loves Fung, she takes him for granted and thinks he will never leave her despite her selfishness. In the meantime, Fung is two- timing Man with another woman. After the break-up, Bo found a job as a make-up artist in the mall. Her boss Kuen broke the news of her engagement and invited everyone out to celebrate. At the party, Bo realized that her boss's really young fiancée looked very familiar. She recognized him as her old neighbor Keung (Alex Fong), who had a crush on her before being admitted to teenage prison, but Keung keeps pretending that he doesn't know Bo. A month later, Kuen's wedding was suddenly canceled and Bo found out that her boss's life savings were stolen from the fiancée, who disappeared. Bo unexpectedly met Keung on the streets, learning that he is a conman. Keung finds Bo following him and expects her to sue him, but Bo hires Keung to deceive Kei Kei and let her have a taste of her medicine. One day, Keung met his ex-girlfriend, Yan (Linda Chung). Yan told Keung that her family will move to Singapore and that he should go visit them. Although Keung had deceived Yan's sister's money, they had forgiven him. In his drunk and self-loathing state, Keung kissed Bo for the second time as she tries to comfort him. As an experienced liar, Keung successfully courted Kei Kei. Being abandoned by Kei Kei, Jun decided to make up with Bo. But Bo has no longer has feelings for Jun because she unknowingly fell in love with Keung. Keung's old thug friends ask him to join in on a kidnapping act, but he rejects. Meanwhile, Ah-Man finally felt tired and guilty, and decided to set up a stable relationship with Fung. But Fung tells Man that he wants to break up. In the past six months, Fung was secretly dating his co-worker's girlfriend Min (Miki Yeung). Fung finally decided to let go of Man and had chosen Min for a 'back up lover' relationship, which did not last because Min decided to get married with her real boyfriend. This gave Fung new insights and reminded him that he can never be her priority. Thus, he lets go of Man (who is sobbing at the breakup) because he feels she needs someone who can accept her as she is and who she can accept and feel safe with. They were incompatible and he had to put up with her, while she, on the other hand, did some horrible things to Fung, only to regret them immediately afterwards. Soon, Keung's intentions on deceiving Kei Kei were exposed because her cousin was once deceived by him too. Keung pretends to form an alliance with Kei Kei to expose and humiliate Ah-Bo instead, making her devastated. A few months later, Jun's sweets shop went bankrupt when Kei Kei took all the money and fled. It turns out that it was part of Keung and his apprentice's plan to deceive her. While helping Jun recover from the loss of the sweets shop and employees, Jun and Bo got back together. Keung, having successfully deceived Kei Kei and got all the money back, watches Bo and Jun from a distance. Bo notices him and walks out of dinner at their sweets shop. The old man that sells egg waffles confirms that her "boyfriend" Keung was there just a while ago. However, before Bo is able to meet up with Keung, his thug friends' failed kidnap attempts resulted in getting Keung involved, and he was beaten on the streets. Keung trudged his bloody body to Bo and Jun's restaurant, hoping to tell her that he loved her. Disappointed that she didn't find Keung, Bo walks back to her restaurant, not knowing that Keung had collapsed a block behind her restaurant and died from loss of blood. The movie ends with Bo and Man finally meeting up in real life, but Bo discovers that Man's new boyfriend was Jun. 'L for Love, L for Lies has a fascinating ending with a strange, maybe unthinkable twist, especially after what the story line evolved to. In summary, love can show its true form in the things we do that are not noticed — it is love when we do something good for a loved one, but it also takes the shape of lies (lies to make things better and maintain stability/protect loved ones, or lies for deception, e.g., cheating and dishonesty). There is a sharp contrast with the repenting Keung and Jun who gets a second chance (and the ending tells it all), as to who really loved Bo, despite the lies (the difference in the lies throughout the story and the way they followed these lies with actions). ===== Brasyl is a story presented in three distinct strands of time. The main action concerns Marcelina Hoffman; a coked-up, ambitious reality TV producer in contemporary Brazil, a striving amateur capoeirista who transcends the cliches of luvvy television phony and becomes a full-fledged, truly likable person as we watch her embark upon a mad new project. Marcelina is going to find the disgraced goalie who lost Brazil a momentous World Cup half a century before and trick him into appearing on television for a mock trial in which the scarred nation can finally wreak its vengeance. Another strand is set in mid-21st century São Paulo, at a moment when the first quantum technologies are reaching the street, which industriously finds its own use for these things. Q-blades that undo the information that binds together the universe, Q-cores that break the crypto that powers the surveillance state that knows every movement of every person and object in Sampa and beyond. The final strand is an 18th-century Heart of Darkness adventure in the deep Amazon jungle, following an Irish-Portuguese Jesuit into slaver territory where he is sent to end the mad, bloody kingdom of a rogue priest who scours the land with plague and fire. He is joined by a French natural philosopher, who intends to reach the equator and discover the shape of the world with a pendulum. ===== Lucy visits a fortune teller with her three mis-matched friends, and a marriage is predicted in her future. When the fortune-teller's prophecies for her friends come true, Lucy begins to suspect that she will soon be marrying. Lucy spends the following 12 months looking for Mr Right. Various eligible bachelors are introduced, among them Gus, Lucy's unreliable lover; Daniel, her oldest friend; Chuck, a handsome American; and Adrian, the video shop man. This is followed by a series of disastrous dates, drunken nights out, confessions and revelations. Author Keyes has said, "I'm very fond of that book and I think I have the most affection for Lucy Sullivan as a character. There's a lot of me in there [...] I wanted to write about a single girl in London who goes out with eejit after eejit, you know, because that was really the life I had led, and there was this strange culture of singleness I encountered and I found this very funny. Lucy's depressive, but she has a sense of humour, and that's why I like her." ===== On a train bound for lawless northern China, businessman Gordon Creed (Ricardo Cortez) encounters acquaintance Myron Galt (Douglas Wood) and his attractive daughter Lola (Sheila Bromley). Galt is on his way to foreclose on a very promising oilfield built up by Jim Hallet (Gordon Oliver). Creed, on the other hand, wants to offer Hallet enough money to pay off his loan from Galt (for a tidy share of the oilfield). Creed is annoyed when his reserved compartment is appropriated by General Chow Fu-Shan (Vladimir Sokoloff). The general is on his way to deal with self-styled General Wu Yen Fang (Boris Karloff), a warlord who has taken control of a province. However, Chow Fu-Shan is assassinated on the train by one of Fang's men. After being questioned by military governor General Ma (Tetsu Komai), the three travel by horse to a remote town, where they find not only Hallet (Gordon Oliver), but Creed's estranged wife Jane (Beverly Roberts), who is working for missionary Dr. Abernathy (Gordon Hart). Then, Fang's subordinate, Captain Kung Nui (Chester Gan) and his men take over the town. When Kung Nui casts his eyes on Jane, Hallet impulsively punches him. Jane and Hallet have fallen in love, though she does not believe in divorce and has kept their relationship strictly platonic. Hallet is knocked out and imprisoned. When Fang arrives, he tries to persuade Jane to go with him, promising she would enjoy it (blithely explaining "I am Fang"). Hallet escapes with the help of an associate disguised as one of Fang's soldiers, and sends him to notify General Ma of Fang's whereabouts. Hallet then breaks in on Fang and Jane's private discussion. Fang remembers Hallet, who once hid a coolie and dug three bullets out of his shoulder; that was Fang before his meteoric rise. The warlord decides to help his benefactor. Fang robs Creed of $50,000, uses it to pay Galt what Hallet owes, then takes the money and offers it to Dr. Abernathy. Creed bribes Captain Kung Nui to rebel against Fang. Kung Nui wants to regain face by having Hallet executed. Fang pretends to give in, but just before a firing squad shoots the oilman, Fang has his right-hand man, Mr. Cheng (Richard Loo), kill Kung Nui. Afterward, Fang personally shoots Creed to fix Hallet's romantic problem, but only manages to wound him. Government troops arrive and force their way into the town. In the confusion, Jane, accompanied by Hallet, goes to attend to her husband's wound. Creed produces a gun and announces that Hallet is going to have a fatal accident, but is killed by Fang. With the battle lost, Fang decides to surrender rather than risk the lives of his captives by fighting to the end. He is taken out and shot. ===== A girl is seen slowly and deliberately laying her head down on railroad tracks as an oncoming train approaches. Two years later, Carlos, a well-to-do family man and publisher of pulp horror novels receives an anonymous yellow package containing a severed human hand. He buries it in a nearby park. The next yellow package he receives is left unopened on a bench in the city. However, when he arrives home the package is awaiting him. This one contains a torn-up dress and a photograph of a girl. His beautiful wife reads him a telegram asking if he would like a forearm. He feebly attempts to lie about the contents with a work-related explanation to his wife. Now suspicious, Carlos's wife follows her husband and spots a mysterious woman in black following him as well. Without a word, Carlos enters the mysterious woman's car. She drives him to her remote home, where she feeds him lysergic acid embedded in red blotting paper. Suddenly he is ambling down a long corridor drawn towards a woman's voice lamenting her lost love. He reaches the end of the hallway to discover the voice emanating from a tape recorder. He finds a woman's body in a refrigerator curled up, pale, but immaculate. When he awakens from the drugged stupor the editor is back at home, his body covered in a jaundiced yellow. His wife explains to him that she received a call from Parker, the mysterious woman, and she went to her house to fetch him. The wife believes neither the explanation given by her husband nor the one she receives from Parker about what has happened. Trying to come clean with his wife, the editor tells her how two years ago he met the young woman of the refrigerator. Her name was Esther. In a flashback Esther is seen in a coffee shop fiddling with some pills. She appears bored, yet eager to flirt with the older publisher. Shortly afterwards they became lovers. Then Carlos and Esther, now a couple, are seen out near the sea. As she edges toward the cliff, she says, "I'd die so that my love for you will last. So that indifference will not kill it". Calmly the editor's wife confesses that she knew some of it all along. She had hired a detective to spy on her husband. In fact it was the detective who saved Esther when she put her head on the train track. Through the collective memories of the publisher, his wife, and Parker, the corrosion of the romance is recounted. Sick and heartbroken after she was rebuffed by the editor, Esther fell under the spell of a scheming doctor claiming to cure leukemia. While still under his influence Esther met Parker in a hotel in Paris. In love with her, Parker rescued Esther from the false healer. However, Esther never fully recovered from her ill-fated affair with the editor. After some suicide attempts one day Parker found Esther dead with an empty bottle in her hand. Parker now planned to avenge her deceased lover. She started to send the macabre yellow packages. The last of which contains Esther's severed head. The editor then called the police, but when they arrive to Parker's house to investigate she has left with her driver heading back to Paris. Seduced by Parker, the editor's wife goes inside Parker's car and leaves with her. ===== At the end of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck is adopted by the Widow Douglas in return for saving her life. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in some respects a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the widow attempts to "civilize" the newly rich Huck. Huck is kidnapped by his father but manages to fake his own death and escape to Jackson's Island, where he coincidentally meets up with Jim, a slave of the Widow Douglas' sister, Miss Watson. Jim is running for freedom because he has found out that Miss Watson plans to "sell him South" for $800. Together they construct a raft and travel on the Mississippi River,Huckleberry Finn / Huckleberry no Boken (TV- Serie) – wunschliste.de Jim hoping for freedom from slavery, and Huck searching freedom from his drunk father and controlling foster parent. ===== An army private (Craven) and his new bride (Wilson) are trying to honeymoon on an island occupied by the military and a murderer. ===== Lobby card for the film Simon Dayton is in fear for his life and seeks the help of Mr. Wong to protect him. Just prior to meeting Mr. Wong, Dayton is found dead in his office without a mark on him with several witnesses testifying Dayton was alone in his office that was locked from the inside. Though the police view Dayton's death as due to a heart attack, Mr. Wong discovers a broken glass ball that contained poison gas. Among the suspects are agents of a foreign power wishing to stop Dayton's chemicals being sent to use on the foreign power in the form of the same poison gas that killed Dayton, Dayton's business partners who will have Dayton's share of the business come to them after Dayton's death and the actual inventor of the chemical who has been cheated out of profits and recognition by Dayton. ===== At a maternity hospital, future fathers pace the corridors while their wives wait for their babies either anxiously or happily. Efficient and compassionate nurse Miss Bowers keeps the ward running smoothly. Things liven up when Grace Sutton is transferred from the prison where she is being held for murder. Most agree that the man she killed deserved to die, and Nurse Bowers sympathetically allows Grace's concerned husband Jed unlimited time with his wife. In the ward, the women have varied feelings about motherhood. Mrs. West, a mother of six children, thinks babies are what give meaning to women's lives. In contrast, Florette, a showgirl, just wants to get rid of her twins as soon as possible. Miss Layton has decided opinions about child rearing and has no intention of being a doting mother. While the women debate their various theories, a woman who wants a baby so much that she has become demented wanders in from another ward. An Italian woman quietly sobs when she learns that her newborn has died. After a touching farewell with Jed, Grace, whose health has suffered from prison conditions, is taken into the labor room. While Jed waits anxiously, Florette is appalled by the plans that the prospective adoptive mother of her twins has concocted. She cradles one baby herself and discovers mother love. Miss Layton has also given up on her progressive plans for her baby. Down the hall, things are going badly for Grace. When the doctors ask Jed to choose between saving Grace or the baby, he chooses Grace, but she herself insists that the doctors operate and save the baby. After she dies, Jed refuses to see the baby girl, but wise Nurse Bowers places the child in his arms, and as with the mothers, he cannot resist her charms. ===== Jack meets with retiring corporate head Don Geiss (Rip Torn), who discloses that he has chosen Jack over his soon-to-be son-in-law Devon to run the company. Devon returns with intent to sabotage Jack, but Liz attempts to make Devon look bad by forcibly making out with him in front of a security camera. Jack chooses Liz to replace himself as Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming. Liz accepts when she learns of the higher salary and tells her staff "Suck it monkeys, I'm going corporate." Tracy begins to feel he is an embarrassment to his son when he is excluded from a "Bring your father to school" day. Hoping to make his family proud, Tracy searches for a legacy and decides to produce the world's first pornographic video game. Despite Frank's skepticism, Tracy has some success in designing the game by conquering the uncanny valley, a scale on which the strangeness of special effects are measured. A depressed Devon becomes resigned to the fact that Jack will receive the promotion. Don Geiss, however, goes into a diabetic coma, despite the efforts of Dr. Spaceman (Chris Parnell), before he can announce his decision. Devon denies knowing that Geiss had chosen Jack as his successor. The next day, Devon appears in Jack's office, revealing he has convinced the board to put Kathy Geiss (Marceline Hugot), his fiancée, in charge, with Devon acting as the power behind the throne. He then kicks Jack out of his office. ===== For treating a wounded revolutionary, respected surgeon, Dr. Charles Gaudet (Boris Karloff) is sentenced to life imprisonment to the infamous French penal colony on Devil's Island. It isn't long before he speaks out against the inhuman conditions and incurs the anger of the brutal prison commander, Colonel Armand Lucien (James Stephenson). But when Lucien's daughter Collette receives life-threatening wounds in an accident, the only person on Devil's Island who can save her, is Gaudet. ===== At the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob discovers that his friend Patrick Star had a famous relative named Patrick Revere (a parody of Paul Revere), who warned Bikini Bottom of vicious man-eating mollusks during the 17th century. Later, Mr. Krabs, SpongeBob's boss, reveals that he also had a famous relative--his great-great-grandpappy Krabs, who invented "The Spendthrift Bill Fold System", a booby trap that baits its victims with a dollar bill. Disappointed, SpongeBob walks into the park where he observes a statue covered in poop and runs into Sandy, who reveals that her great-aunt named Rosie Cheeks was the first squirrel to discover oil in Texas. Feeling sorry for SpongeBob, Sandy takes him to a library. SpongeBob learns that he is the great-great-great-grandson of a Western hero called SpongeBuck SquarePants. Sandy begins to tell SpongeBob the story of SpongeBuck. In the story, SpongeBuck SquarePants takes a train to a town named Dead Eye Gulch. He goes to The Dead Eye Funeral and Ice Cream Parlor, and later to a western saloon called the Krusty Kantina. There he meets William Krabs (Mr. Krabs' ancestor), Hopalong Tentacles (Squidward's ancestor, a parody of Hopalong Cassidy) and Polene Puff (Mrs. Puff's ancestor). Later, Pecos Patrick Star (Patrick's ancestor, a parody of Pecos Bill), arrives and warns everybody that the town's villain, Dead Eye Plankton (Plankton's ancestor), will arrive and sing a song called "Dead Eye". Dead Eye Plankton then arrives and challenges SpongeBuck to a duel at high noon. SpongeBuck gets kicked away to a desert, where he meets Pecos Patrick Star. Pecos Patrick tells SpongeBuck that he must smack Dead Eye Plankton several times to defeat him. When they get back into town, SpongeBuck meets Dead Eye Plankton and the two proceed to have a western duel. SpongeBuck then accidentally steps on Dead Eye, defeating him. The next scene shows William Krabs profiting by having the people of Dead Eye Gulch step on Dead Eye Plankton in exchange for one dollar. Eventually, the people build a golden statue of SpongeBuck to show their gratitude. SpongeBuck says that if he ever has a great-great-great-great-great-grandson, he wants him to say he was proud of his grandfather. After hearing the story, the two friends go back to the park. SpongeBob realizes that the statue is covered in jellyfish feces and cleans it, which is actually a statue of SpongeBuck. The episode concludes with SpongeBob saying that someday people will know the name SpongeBob SquarePants, unaware of the fact that the jellyfish have returned. In the epilogue, SpongeBuck and Pecos Patrick sing a reprise of "Idiot Friends". ===== A man runs through a forest carrying something. A nearly deserted train pulls into a station and two conductors get out, take a stretch, and kill time as no one seems to board. Just as the train is about to depart, the running man calls out, runs to the train and seems to want to board. He does not speak and, assuming that perhaps he does not know English, the conductors let him on with the intention of getting his money later. He joins two of the only five passengers who appear to be on the train at that point. One of the passengers, an inebriated salesman named Pete (Steve Zahn), offers the man a drink. Downing a mouthful of pills, the man washes them down with the vodka. Soon after, the man dies as a result of ingesting Seconal, combined with alcohol, which causes his heart and lungs to stop working. Upon this discovery, Pete and another passenger, med student Chloe (Leelee Sobieski), locate the head conductor Miles (Danny Glover) and alert him to what has happened. Miles intends to call the authorities at the next stop, but Pete discovers a mysterious object in the box the dead man was carrying and, peering inside, is intrigued. Chloe also looks inside the object and both, immediately convinced that there is a liberating fortune inside, scheme for ways to keep it. They suggest the idea to Miles, who tells them they're crazy, and takes the object and the box it was in back to his office purportedly to keep it safe and call the authorities, but he too peers inside and his will is overcome. With a crazed Chloe taking the lead, the three decide to dispose of the man's body and keep the treasure for themselves. Their only problems now are keeping anyone else from finding out, warding off the other suspicious passengers as well as the other conductor and keeping a close eye on one another, as paranoia takes hold and the box's influence continues to do its work. Eventually, it is revealed that the box contains a supernatural force of some kind, and that whoever looks into it sees what would tempt them the most, dooming them to corruption and death before dawn. The last survivor, Miles, lives only long enough to attempt to destroy the device by placing it in the path of an oncoming train, but dies just after seeing it nudged off the tracks by a curious dog. Ultimately, a random toddler-age child wandering alone, in the middle of nowhere, miles from any city, town or train station, picks up the box, looks inside, and smiles. ===== While her mother, a famous television fitness coach, is on promotion tour in Europe, fifteen-year-old Colie has to spend the summer holidays with her aunt Mira in Colby, North Carolina. Having endured a tough time at school, Colie is not looking forward to Colby. In her hometown Charlotte, Colie is an outsider as she used to be very overweight and, after losing weight, mean rumors about her being easy to get were spread. After Colie arrives at the train station in Colby, she is picked up by Norman, Mira’s subtenant. Soon after her arrival Colie gets to know Morgan and Isabel who serve as waitresses in the Last Chance Diner where Norman is working as cook. At first, Colie is very dismissive but later regularly helps out in the restaurant. Over time, her initial defensiveness vanishes and they become friends. Also, she enjoys staying with her eccentric but warm-hearted aunt. In the course of a painting project, she and Norman get closer. During the festivities for the Fourth of July, Colie encounters the girl which spread the rumors at her school. She is able to stand up to her and gets the number of her handsome cousin. In the end, Colie falls in love with Norman and while watching the eclipse of the moon they try to help Morgan to get over the break-up from her long-time boyfriend. ===== ===== Though a fictionalized Western based on George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the film is almost a generic war story covering the enlistment, training, and operational deployment of a group of recruits that could take place in any time period. The main plot follows two cavalry soldiers working under the command of a tough General and who fight Plains Indians and fall for the same woman. ===== A Fraction of the Whole uses a multi-perspective narrative, often going back in time to show Martin's perspective on events before returning to Jasper's story in the present. The framing narrative of the novel is written from the perspective of Jasper, writing secretly from the prison cell he is incarcerated in for an initially undisclosed crime. ===== The novel concerns Anton Harkness, the commander of an American submarine in World War I which is caught in a whirlpool which drags it to the bottom of the sea where it collides with a glass dome. The crew are rescued by the Atlanteans who live beneath the dome. Harkness falls in love with an Atlantean girl with whom he escapes after the Atlantean dome is destroyed. The Sunken World was originally published in the Summer 1928 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly. ===== Upon inheriting his father's newspaper and magazine empire, Sir Basil Turton suddenly finds himself the most sought-after bachelor in London society. Much to everyone's surprise, he marries a virtually unknown Continental European named Natalia. Sir Basil being little interested in anything other than his art collection, the new Lady Turton assumes control of the Turton Press, becoming in the process a major player in the political arena. Six years after the marriage, the narrator of the story, a society columnist, finds himself seated next to the imperious Lady Turton at a dinner party. When she at long last takes notice of him, she bombards him with a series of personal questions, during the course of which he mentions his love of art. Lady Turton uninterestedly invites him to see Sir Basil's collection at their house in the country and the narrator eagerly accepts. Arriving at the estate the following Saturday, the narrator is impressed by the extravagant topiary with large trees trimmed into a variety of shapes, including a complete chess set, and the many sculptures and statues on the grounds. Over the course of the evening, the narrator perceives Major Haddock, another guest for the weekend, is infatuated with Lady Turton, who does not rebuff his advances. It is also obvious to the narrator that the butler, Jelks, holds her ladyship in contempt for the cruel way she treats Sir Basil; Jelks has offered, in return for a third of the narrator's card winnings over the weekend, to give him hints on Lady Turton's strategies at the card table. The next day, the gracious Sir Basil takes the narrator on a tour around the vast estate. Stopping to rest, the two men sit on a bench overlooking the garden and begin chatting, at which time the narrator notices a woman wandering in the garden. She is soon joined by a man who is carrying in his hand a small camera. The two figures approach a piece of sculpture (a wooden piece by Henry Moore) and appear to be laughing at it. The man begins to take pictures while the woman strikes ludicrous poses beside the piece, at one point sticking her head through one of its holes. The man takes more pictures and, from the narrator's perspective, leans down and kisses the woman, her laughter filling the air. It soon becomes apparent, however, that the woman cannot free her head from the sculpture, and, seeing the man is unable to release her, Sir Basil and the narrator make their way down to the garden; they find the two figures are Lady Turton and Major Haddock. As her ladyship angrily berates her husband, Sir Basil tells Jelks to fetch a saw so he can cut her out of the piece. When the butler returns with a saw in one hand and an axe in the other and offers the implements to his employer, the narrator notices the hand holding the axe is extended out further toward Sir Basil, as though Jelks is trying to coax him into using it instead of the saw. Sir Basil takes the axe. The narrator closes his eyes in anticipation of what is about to befall the terrified Lady Turton when he hears Sir Basil say, "Look here, Jelks. What on earth are you thinking about? This thing's much too dangerous. Give me the saw." The narrator looks at Lady Turton, who is pale-faced and gurgling incoherently with fear, and then at Sir Basil, who for the first time has the traces of a smile in his eyes. ===== An air force pilot is unnaturally accident-prone and seemingly cannot be killed. ===== Railroad engineer Sisif (Severin-Mars) rescues a small orphan, whose name he learns is Norma (Ivy Close), following a disastrous crash. He raises the little girl as his own, along with his son Elie (Gabriel de Gravone), whose mother died during his birth. In time, Norma becomes a lively and playful young woman. Her greatest joy is time spent with Elie, by now a handsome violin maker, whom she believes to be her natural brother. But Sisif, to his own horror, finds himself falling in love with his adopted daughter. Sisif confesses to a wealthy colleague, Hersan (Pierre Magnier), Norma's origin and that he is attracted to her. Hersan threatens Sisif with blackmail if he does not consent to give Norma to him in marriage. Norma herself is reluctant but is moved by the prospect of greater prosperity. Sisif reluctantly agrees to the marriage, and himself drives the train that will deliver Norma to her husband. Distraught, he drives recklessly, and nearly wrecks the train. After some months of marriage, Norma writes to say that it is unhappy. Elie discovers the truth about Norma's origin and reproaches his father for keeping it secret, thereby preventing Elie from marrying her before she married Hersan. An eye injury forces Sisif to abandon the mainline railways, and he goes to work instead on the funicular at Mont Blanc. When Norma comes to vacation at Chamonix with her husband, she learns where Sisif and Elie live. Hersan finds out that Elie is also in love with Norma when he smashes a violin that was made by Elie. Inside is a love letter that only Hersan reads. A jealous Hersan fights with Elie on the edge of a precipice. Hersan falls to his death, but so eventually does Elie. Sisif, enraged by Elie's death, blames Norma and drives her from him. Without Hersan, Norma is left penniless, while Sisif's failing sight means that he loses his job. Norma goes to live with him without his permission and manages to stay undetected in his shack for a time. When he at last realizes she is there, they cling to one another, time and tragedy having restored the balance in their father-daughter relationship. Sisif grows old, cared for by Norma. After sending her out to join in a local festivity, Sisif waits at the window, watching not with his eyes but with his mind. As Norma dances, Sisif dies. ===== A caravan settles for the night in the Gobi Desert. A man sneaks into a tent to steal a scroll, but adventurer and soldier of fortune Kentaro Moto (Peter Lorre) is only pretending to be asleep and kills him. When the caravan reaches Peiping, Moto is searched by the police. The scroll is found, but Moto grabs it and escapes. He changes clothes and accepts an invitation to a party hosted by Colonel Tchernov (Sig Rumann) in honor of American Eleanor Joyce (Jayne Regan). At the soirée, Moto observes a guest, Chinese Prince Chung (Philip Ahn) leaving his mother to speak privately with Tchernov in another room. Tchernov offers to buy certain family heirloom scrolls from Chung. When Chung refuses to part with them, Tchernov draws a pistol, then is killed (off- screen) by Moto. Joyce stumbles upon the scene and watches in disbelief as Moto calmly stages it to look like a suicide. Moto politely advises her to say nothing to avoid an international incident. Later, as a favor to his rescuer, Chung grants Moto's request to see the scrolls. Chung informs him that the seven scrolls give directions to the lost grave of Genghis Khan. The Chungs are determined to see that it and its fabulous treasures remain undisturbed. However, one scroll was lent to an exhibition and was stolen. A dealer in antiquities, Pereira (John Carradine), shows Joyce some wares. She is interested in a (fake) scroll, but the price is too high. While shopping the next day with smitten diplomat Tom Nelson (Thomas Beck), they see Moto entering Pereira's shop. Moto gets Pereira to confess that he stole the authentic scroll, but before he can obtain more information, Pereira is shot and killed by a gunman in a car which speeds away. Moto returns to his apartment to find it ransacked. Sensing that the would-be thief is present, Moto leaves his gun lying around. Schneider (Wilhelm von Brincken) holds him at gunpoint and forces Moto to give him the scroll. When Moto tries to flee, Schneider shoots several times with Moto's gun. However, the gun was filled with blanks; Moto trails Schneider to Madame Tchernov (Nedda Harrigan). When they leave to rendezvous with their gang, Moto starts to follow, but is knocked out by the butler, Ivan (John Bleifer), another crook. Joyce, who had been comforting the widow, is taken hostage. The arch-villain (and Madame Tchernov's lover), Herr Koerger (Sidney Blackmer), forces Prince Chung to reveal the location of the scrolls by striking his mother. As they are leaving, Madame Chung attacks Koerger with a knife and is killed. Meanwhile, Nelson finds and revives Moto. They rush to the Chungs, but arrive too late. The dishonored prince commits suicide after they untie him; Moto comforts him before he dies by promising to avenge the Chung family and safeguard the tomb. The two men track the criminals to a junk. After another attempt to kill him, Moto informs Koerger that the scroll he gave Schneider is a fake. He offers to split Genghis Khan's treasure. Then he sows dissent by telling Madame Tchernov that Koerger is dumping her for Joyce, which the quick-thinking American "confirms". This provides a distraction for Moto to kill Koerger. Later, to the dismay of Joyce and Nelson, Mr. Moto burns the scrolls to fulfill his promise to Chung. ===== The film is the story of Sobran Jodeau (Jérémie Renier), an ambitious young peasant winemaker, and the three loves of his life – his beautiful wife Celeste (Keisha Castle-Hughes), the proudly intellectual baroness Aurora de Valday (Vera Farmiga), and Xas (Gaspard Ulliel), an angel who strikes up an unlikely but enduring friendship that borders on eroticism with him. Under Xas' guidance, Sobran is forced to fathom the nature of love and belief and in the process grapples with the sensual, the sacred and the profane – in pursuit of the perfect vintage. ===== The Underdog is about Cameron Wolfe, a 15-year-old boy and a down-and-out character, his family, and a girl he falls for. Cameron struggles with his identity, questions his morality, and tries to overcome feelings of inadequacy. Cameron shares a room with his older brother, Ruben, who is always coming up with petty criminal activities he never follows through with, such as robbing a dentist only to be distracted by the beautiful nurse working there. His sister, Sarah, is always "going at it" with her boyfriend, Bruce. His brother, Steve, is successful and thinks he is above the rest of his family. His mother works hard all week and still manages to complete motherly duties, and his father is a plumber. Cameron starts working for his father on weekends, where he meets Rebecca Conlon, a girl who he thinks is perfect. The culminating event of the novel is Sarah and Bruce's break-up. Her emotional reactions engages and unites all of the family. Cameron is particularly affected by the fallout and questions his own treatment of women. As the break-up is unfolding Cameron is also asked to help his former best friend, Greg, with some money issues. Greg gets entangled in a drug buying fiasco and Cameron must lend him the money to get him out. Much of the emotional landscape of the novel is established through Cameron's vivid dream sequences, which allow the reader a glimpse into his deeper feelings. The story is about boys' dirty habits, family sticking together and being an underdog. ===== The play takes place on Mother's Day where Alan is in his mother's flat. Unexpectedly his brother Terry turns up, having been missing since after their Mother's death several weeks before. Terry has brought along with him a fifteen-year-old girl called Lilly who lives in a squat below the flat. She wears a hijab with niqab, speaks in an unusual mix of English and an unknown Middle-Eastern language and also claims to have endured many horrors as a victim of an Islamic war in an unspecified country. Tension mounts while the anger builds between the two brothers as they argue over who should inherit the flat, as well as argue their conflicting memories of their deceased mother. Eventually Lilly's partner The Medic arrives. He is a sixteen-year-old boy who frequently swings from being overly grateful to extremely angry. He along with Lilly look after a plastic baby doll called Bubba which they treat as if it is their own child. Also showing up at the flat unexpectedly is Alan's 15-year-old son Garth, who for years has hidden his true psychotic personality, enjoying to inflict cruelty onto others under the influence of his imaginary friend called Mr Green. Taking place in real- time and spanning approximately ninety minutes in length, chaos ensues in the flat as the characters go to extreme lengths to achieve their aims. ===== The novel concerns electrical engineer Myles Cabot, who disappears from his home in Boston while performing an experiment. He finds himself transported to the planet Venus where he is captured by the Formians, a race of ant-like creatures. After learning of the Cupians, a human-like race that is subservient to the Formians, Cabot escapes and falls in love with the Cupian princess Lilla. He goes on to introduce the Cupians to gunpowder and leads them in a revolt against their Formian masters. ===== Suzanne (Dina Meyer) and her 7-year-old stepdaughter Molly Driscoll move into a new house, where Molly acquires an imaginary friend named Candace Brewer. Later, it is revealed that a girl by that name lived in the house about a century earlier. Her mother died during childbirth of her baby sister, Dora. Candace took her baby sister and left her on a church steps so she didn't have to suffer the abuse from her father like she did. When she returned home, her father knew she took the baby and hanged Candace on the apple tree in the backyard. Everyone believed 10-year-old Candace had hanged herself so she was buried in unhallowed ground, since suicide was considered a sin. The plot centers around whether Candace is indeed imaginary or is a malevolent ghost. Despite Suzanne's effort to evict the ghost out of her new husband's house, Candace still threatens Suzanne's new family. All the while, Suzanne's husband remains sceptical. ===== The novel is set in the immediate post-World War II period in the fictional English small provincial town of Otterbury. The town was largely untouched by the war apart from one accidental hit from a mis-targeted bomb which destroyed a few buildings near the centre of the town; schoolboy Nick Yates was pulled from the ruins and his parents were killed. The bombsite is known locally as the "Incident" of the book's title, and is used as a site for war-games by two rival gangs of boys from the local King's School: Ted's Company, led by 13-year-old Edward Marshall, whose second-in- command is George, the narrator, and which includes Nick, Charlie Muswell and Young Wakeley, and the 'enemy' Toppy's Company, led by William Toppingham (also 13) and his sidekick Peter Butts, and including the ghastly Prune. After a battle during the school lunch-hour ("dinner-interval") in which Ted's Company have been declared victorious, the boys are wildly kicking a football to each other on the way back to school when Nick accidentally kicks it through one of the school windows. After owning up, he is ordered by the headmaster – a character much feared by the boys – to pay for the damage out of his own pocket. The sum concerned amounts to nearly five pounds (a huge amount - a reasonable weekly wage for an employed adult at the time and is far beyond the means of a schoolboy). Compounding the problem, the orphaned Nick now lives with his aunt and uncle who have no children of their own; they resent the unlooked-for responsibility and do not treat him well, and he cannot face confessing to them for fear of their reaction (when he finally does, he is severely punished and his uncle decides to sell Nick's puppy). Ted arouses a sense of collective responsibility for Nick's plight amongst the boys of both companies, in the spirit of 'One for all and all for one' from The Three Musketeers which their English teacher, Mr Richards ('Rickie' – "a decent chap, as schoolmasters go") is currently reading to them, because they were all involved in the irresponsible football-kicking. The boys resolve to raise the money between them to pay for the damage. To this end, Ted and Toppy sign the Peace of Otterbury temporarily ending hostilities between the gangs and they join together to launch Operation Glazier; over a bank holiday weekend they carry out a variety of money-making schemes such as busking (led by Charlie Muswell), shoe-shining (with some illicit spraying of dirty water via a flit gun to increase trade), window-cleaning (Kwik-Klean Co.), an acrobat troupe, and lightning sketches by Toppy's sister (Miss E Toppingham, R.A.) to raise the money. Operation Glazier exceeds its target, but the money mysteriously disappears whilst in the charge of Ted and his grown-up sister, Rose, who looks after him. Toppy initially accuses Ted – who is ostracised by all but George and the ever-loyal Nick Yates – but then realises the real culprits are the deeply unpleasant local spiv Johnny Sharp and his seedy accomplice known as "The Wart". The boys turn detective to try to recover the money, stalking the Wart (who is much the weaker character of the two) and trying to extract a confession from him, but Johnny Sharp interrupts the proceedings, threatens the boys with a cut-throat razor, and locks them in the tower of the local church. The boys escape and rethink their strategy to expose Sharp and the Wart; they have seen the men hanging out with a local merchant named Skinner and suspect that the missing money might be on Skinner's premises, just opposite the Incident (the boys are afraid of Skinner – "a whacking great bad-tempered thug of a man" – and avoid him as much as possible, though occasionally trespass into his yard as part of their war games). Ted and Toppy use the combat-planning skills they've developed during the games at the Incident to lead a well-planned raid on Skinner's warehouse where they uncover evidence of far more extensive criminal activities, including trading in black-market goods and production of counterfeit coinage. Skinner, Sharp, the Wart and a fourth accomplice (an 'unshaven type') return unexpectedly while Ted and Toppy are inside the warehouse. Toppy escapes but Ted is trapped and taken prisoner by Johnny Sharp. The rest of the boys are still outside the yard, poised to attack: George is sent off to get the police while the other boys start a pitched battle to rescue Ted, in which The Wart and Skinner are overpowered and trussed up. Ted is saved thanks to Nick, who bravely attacks Sharp and is seriously injured in the process. Sharp escapes on foot, pursued by the boys, and by this time, also the police – his attempt to get away in a dinghy up the river is brought to a prompt end by Peter Butts who launches a firework at the dinghy and capsizes it. The book ends at school assembly with the boys being simultaneously castigated for their illegal raid on Skinner's premises and their "disreputable" money-raising schemes, which are considered by the headmaster to be detrimental to the image of the school, and lauded as heroes for uncovering the criminals' operations by Inspector Brook. The headmaster relents in the light of Inspector Brook's praise and says that the school will pay for the broken window (the missing money not having been recovered). The boys promise to leave any future criminal detection to the police. The book is written in the first person of George, a subordinate "officer" in one of the "armies" of the war games. ===== At the start of the novel, the couple mourns the death of their young daughter Chaowen. Guilt and anguish have driven the lovers apart, unable to get past their mutual loss. Hulan's inner turmoil is made even worse when she is forced to shoot and kill a woman at an All-Patriotic Society rally to save a young girl from being stabbed by her mother. The Chinese government opposes the Society as a threat to public order, an opinion that Hulan strongly shares. Hulan and David are brought together to work on the same case from different perspectives. Hulan is sent to an archaeological site near the construction of the massive 3 Gorges Dam project to investigate a suspicious death.Lisa See, "Three Gorges Dam is potential new symbol in China, possibly surpassing even the Great Wall", NPR, 08/12/03 In an NPR report, See emphasizes the potent symbolism of the Dam, alluding to a 4,000-year-old Chinese saying: "He who controls the water controls the people". She concludes her report by returning to the same idea: ". . . no matter how the outside world views the dam, inside China it will be there to remind the people of a sage emperor; in other words, the current government, who serves the people by controlling the waters".See, "All Things Considered (NPR), 08/12/03 David is sent to the same site to find out how precious Chinese artifacts are being smuggled out of China. The archaeologists at the site are working frantically to find as many antiquities as they can before the dam is completed, flooding their dig site as well as many others. They are especially interested in finding evidence that people in the area have maintained continuous culture for 5000 years. The plot weaves together several story lines. One involves the difficult task of finding out the true intentions of the All-Patriotic Society. Another is concerned with Chinese archaeology and whether the men and women who work at the dig site are involved in the smuggling of antiquities. With dead bodies turning up rather frequently, Hulan's task in solving these crimes is challenging. And there is also the painful journey of Hulan and David as they try to accept their daughter's death. Reviewers of Dragon Bones have tended to be somewhat ambivalent about it. Lev Raphael's review is rather typical in this regard."Dragon Bones." Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 23 July 2003 Raphael finds the novel to be "overly romantic" and the conclusion melodramatic. On the other hand, "the real strength of this book is the absorbing portrait of China, from the bugged office of a high official to the dismal hut of a starving peasant, the kind of person who knows what it is 'to eat bitterness.'" See presents an "effective depiction of a modern land held emotionally and socially hostage to the past . . ." ===== Millie McGonigle (Evelyn Keyes), is riding a bus home from work when the frustrated driver, Doug Andrews (Glenn Ford), stops the vehicle and quits. As the assistant personnel director of a large department store, Millie is impressed by his independence and hands him her business card. The next day, Millie learns that Tommy Bassett (Jimmy Hunt), a young boy she knows and likes very much, has lost his mother in a traffic accident. With his father already killed in World War II, Tommy is sent to a foundling home. An orphan herself, Millie quickly decides to adopt him, but learns from Ralph Galloway (Ron Randell), the head of the place, that she has to be married to have a chance. Desperate, she invents a fiancé on the spot (conveniently away in Alaska), but Ralph insists on interviewing her phantom boyfriend within 60 days. When Doug shows up looking for a job, Millie considers him very suitable husband material (as does the rest of her all-female staff) and accepts an invitation to a date. However, as an unpublished author, Doug senses that there is something odd going on. He finally gets her to confess what she is trying to do. Doug quickly lets her know that he is a confirmed bachelor; however, he is willing to help the no-nonsense businesswoman land a spouse. They decide to target an unsuspecting Ralph. Doug's lessons prove highly effective. Both the staid, respectable Ralph and the much more dashing Phil Gowan (Willard Parker), Millie's neighbor, fall in love with her. By this time though, Millie has lost her heart to Doug. After Doug learns that his book is going to be published, he quits his job at the department store and prepares to go to New York to work with the publisher. Then a couple takes an interest in adopting Tommy. Ralph informs a distraught Millie that her 60 days are up, gets her to admit there is no fiancé, and asks her to marry him. Instead, she accepts Phil's proposal. When she informs Doug, he advises her never to tell her future husband why she is marrying him, because "A man likes to think he's loved for himself alone." Millie finds she cannot go through with the marriage. She makes an agonizing choice; she decides to chase after Doug rather than keep on fighting for Tommy. When she goes to see Tommy for the last time, Ralph informs her that the boy had been taken an hour before. Heartbroken, she returns to her lonely apartment, only to find Doug there. She kisses him repeatedly, confessing that she loves him even more than Tommy. He is unmoved, brusquely ordering her to go wipe the smudged lipstick from her face. When the bewildered woman goes to comply, she finds Tommy sleeping on her bed, and Doug stands behind her with a smile on his face. ===== The second in the series of Mr. Wong features starring Boris Karloff finds wealthy gem-collector Brandon Edwards gaining possession of the largest star sapphire in the world, the 'Eye of the Daughter of the Moon', after it has been stolen in China. Edwards, at a party in his home, confides to Mr. Wong that his life is in danger. During a game of Charades, Edwards is mysteriously shot dead and the gem disappears. Unknown to Wong, the jewel is in the possession of Edwards' maid, Drina, who intends to return it to China, but she is murdered also, and the gem is taken again. After one more murder—the suspect list is dwindling—Wong exposes the killer, turns him over to Police Inspector Street, and Wong orders his manservant Willy to return the gem to China. ===== The novel is set in the London theatres of the 1930s. The book revolves around Josephine Tey, a version of the famous novelist. The story begins with Tey taking the train from Scotland to London in order to attend the final week of performances of her renowned play, Richard of Bordeaux, written under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. On board, she meets a young woman, Elspeth Simmons, the adopted daughter of hatmakers from Berwick- upon-Tweed. The two strike up a friendship on the journey, as the girl is a fan of Tey's work, and is on her way to see the play again. Upon arriving in London, the pair separate, as Elspeth has left her bag on the train. Soon after, the girl is found dead, apparently having been stabbed with a hat pin, a crime which seems to have been carefully planned. Here enters Detective Inspector Archie Penrose, an old acquaintance of Tey's, the best friend of her lover, whom Penrose saw die at the Somme. Clues and circumstance suggest that Tey may have been the intended target, so the narrative follows her and her time at the theatre. There, we are introduced to a world of excitement and intrigue, and more death follows. We meet the leads in the play, Johnny and Lydia; the two are presumably based on the real life leads in the best-selling run, John Gielgud, whose career it, arguably, made, and Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies. The back-stabbing world of casting and performance combines with the classic murder mystery plot. ===== The novel's characters and setting stay true to Lois-Ann Yamanaka's local upbringing on the Big Island of Hawaii. Written in both English and Hawaiian Pidgin, Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers is a coming- of-age first-person narrative of Lovey Nariyoshi, a local Japanese girl growing up in Hilo, Hawaii in the 1970s. During the anti-Japanese wave that flowed through the United States during this time period, Lovey looks back at all of the key events and people in her life that help shape the young girl she becomes in the end. By only seeing white stars on TV, discovering the birthing canal with her pregnant teenage-neighbor Katy, rationalizing her best friend Jerome's homosexuality and other events, Lovey tries to find her place in the world - a world that constantly tells her that being pure Japanese is not beautiful. ===== The novel takes place, roughly, over a period of three years. Part One begins when Lovey is in the sixth grade and she and her best friend Jerry are watching a Shirley Temple movie. Lovey comments on how there is always a happy ending in movies, but never in real life – especially in her own life where she is pure Japanese, and not pretty like the haoles and hapa children in her class. And so she and Jerry constantly make up their own obituaries when they are playing together. We are introduced to both of Lovey's parents in Part One: Verva Nariyoshi being the mother that always seems unhappy with Lovey, and Hubert Nariyoshi being the father that treats Lovey like the son he never had. Other characters in this section include Katy – the Nariyoshi's pregnant teenage neighbor that teaches Lovey that babies come out of a woman's vagina and not the other end. Aunt Helen is another neighbor, and Verva's best friend. Among all the characters in the novel, Lovey learns the most from her father Hubert. He teaches her about the "dominate and recessid jeans" of pea flowers and rabbit mating on their farm, hunting wild turkey and other animals, and tells her not to get too close to any the animals bred for food - like the cow that Calhoon names Bully. Hubert also teaches Lovey about his Japanese Samurai ancestors, how they moved to Hawaii to work on the plantations on the island of Kauai, and how Lovey should be proud of her heritage. Part Two begins at school, probably at the beginning of the seventh grade. Although Jerry is handsome enough to attract the eyes of the popular Lori Shigemura, their classmates still call him "Queer" and "Fag" and call Lovey "Queen" and "Lez." This is the section where Jerry's homosexuality is alluded to the most. He and Lovey both argue over who David Cassidy would rather date, and they both decide that it would be a blonde haole girl. This is also where Lovey gets her period and realizes that she hates being a girl. In this section we are introduced to Jerry's older high school-aged brother Larry. Larry is always violent towards Lovey and Cal and Jerry, later killing their pet Koi in Part Three because they watch him and his girlfriend Crystal have sex in her bedroom. Part Three is where most of the rising action occurs throughout the novel. Lovey and Jerry are now in their last year of middle school. We are given fuller descriptions of the Rays of the Rising Sun, a YMCA club consisting of the most popular girls in Lovey's class. Lori is a part of this group, and dances with Jerry at their Graduation Dance at the end of the year. Lori is constantly calling Lovey names because she is jealous of the relationship she has with Jerry. And as mentioned before, Larry kills Lovey and Calhoon's pet Koi out of anger - Crystal gets pregnant and her mother takes her to Japan to abort the baby. However, a few months after she comes back home, she again gets pregnant by Larry. Refusing to live with the shame, she hangs herself. But the most traumatic event in Part Three is when Hubert loses his eyesight during a hunting accident. Out of anger he yells and throws dirt at Lovey. And out of guilt he gets drunk and accidentally blows out his eyes when trying to shoot a deer. Lovey feels responsible, and finally learns that being proud of her ancestry is more important than the physical things that she lacks - things that society tells her she should have. Lovey flies to the island of Kauai to get a bag filled with dirt for her father to "see" his home again. ===== When Porky tries to go to sleep, a cat starts singing Largo al factotum from The Barber of Seville in his back yard. Porky then starts throwing objects at the cat and finally hits him with a vase. The cat starts singing When Irish Eyes Are Smiling at Porky, and Porky throws a book at him, causing the cat to yowl in pain. Porky attempts to return to bed only for the cat to throw the book back and continue the song, as Porky closes the window in retaliation. Porky's phone rings and he answers it; the caller is revealed to be the cat finishing the song. Furious, Porky grabs a shotgun and claims "D-uh-d-uh-darn that old cat, I'll fix him this time once and for all!" and lays a saucer of milk on the porch. Porky then falls asleep as the cat drinks the milk and wakes Porky up by banging on the saucer. Porky then chases the cat with the shotgun until the cat sings Rock-a-Bye Baby, which lulls Porky to sleep. The cat then wakes Porky up by conducting the loud music playing on the radio (Frat by John F. Barth), before running out and singing The Umbrella Man, an American hit recorded in 1938 by Kay Kyser's dance orchestra. Porky locks down the window, but the cat reopens the door and sings Jeepers Creepers. Porky chases him out again, only for the cat to slam the door open into Porky before shutting it behind him. When the cat is outside singing Make Love With a Guitar, Porky grabs his gun and shoots the cat, who manages to gasp out a chorus of Aloha 'Oe, and dies. As Porky feels guilt over the cat's death, he's startled to hear the cat's nine lives outside his window singing the Sextet from the opera Lucia di Lammermoor. As the picture irises out, a crash is heard (presumably, Porky, at his wits' end, jumped out of the window).Internet Archive ===== Medusa Challenger is the story of two flower sellers, Uncle Jack (Jack Wallace) and his nephew Joey (Joe Mantegna), who sell flowers on the busy Lake Shore Drive bridge in downtown Chicago. When the huge cement carrier Medusa Challenger causes the drawbridge to be raised and traffic to be stopped, Jack and Joey become separated. Jack is chatting with Al the bridge tender in the tower where the bridge controls are located while Joey is watching "the stuff," the fresh flowers they hope to sell, on the other side of the bridge. Jack worries about Joey since Joey is mentally challenged. Jack is determined to get across the river so he commandeers a rowboat and rows across the Chicago River just as the big boat steams straight towards him. However, Joey rises to the occasion and sells all the flowers to the cars stopped by the bridge raising. Jack learns a new appreciation of Joey’s abilities and potential. ===== The novel concerns a tyrant who attempts to control civilization by using a madness-inducing drug. ===== ===== The story is set in Regency Brighton in 1811. Paul, the Duc de Chaucigny-Varennes, an émigré from the terrors of the French Revolution, is passing off Melanie, a beautiful young girl, as his ward – the daughter of an executed friend, the Marquis de Tramont. In fact, Melanie is a dance hall singer. Paul's plan is to marry Melanie to a rich husband such as Edward, Marquis of Sheere, who seeks her hand. The rich Lady Julia Charteris, who is much taken with Paul, encourages Edward's marital plans and tries to woo Paul for herself. But Melanie has long loved Paul, and in a last gamble to turn him away from Lady Julia, she pretends to return to France. Her trick works: Paul realises the depth of his feelings for her and there is a romantic happy ending. ===== People start to commit suicide using brutal techniques. Starting from the United States of America, this suicide wave spreads all over the earth. In a small town, a man kills himself after long time he spends on the computer. Following this man's death, his friends start to get e-mails from him. They also start seeing strange creatures around themselves. This is just the beginning of the doomsday. ===== Neil is a former Triad boss, who has just been released from prison. He attempts to starts his life anew by being a parental guide to his two sisters (Ada Wong, Vonnie Lui) and opening a repair shop. However, Neil meets Johnny a local merciless Triad kingpin. ===== Long ago while the world was being created, the world of the immortals was also being formed by the almighty Bathala. Enchanted creatures had the responsibility of looking after nature and its inhabitants (humans). The world of the Engkantos was soon divided into two distinct groups –the benevolent Kabanuas and the evil Kasamayans. The two factions engaged in years of bitter war. Apo Suga, the leader of the Kabanua, asked the Sun God to bring peace to the world of the Engkantos. The Sun God granted Suga's wish and told him that one of his daughters would bear a child, a "Dyosa"’ or goddess that would have the strength to bring peace and unite the Kabanuas and Kasamayans. Amang Suga then had the task of deciding which of his two daughters – Mariang Sinukuan or Mariang Magayon -would conceive the chosen one in her womb. The Sun God told him that the one with a pure heart would bear the Dyosa of Nature. Amang Suga put his two daughters to the test to determine which of them would give birth to Dyosa. He was satisfied with Sinukuan's reply and crowned her princess and heir to the Kabanua throne. Amang Suga then arranged for Mariang Sinukuan to be married to Tadaklan, the leader of the Kasamayans, with the hope of achieving peace in their world. Amang Suga, however, had no knowledge that Sinukuan was in love with Bernardo Carpio, a Kabanua warrior. On the day of her wedding, Sinukuan was still undecided whether to follow her duty as the chosen one or follow her heart. Bernardo Carpio came to convince her to elope with him. Mariang Sinukuan made up her mind, followed her heart and went on to escape with Bernardo Carpio, accompanied by Huling and Miong. As they crossed treacherous roads and in the middle of their journey, Sinukuan revealed that she was carrying Bernardo's child. Apo Suga, Tadaklan and Magayon caught up with Sinukuan and Bernardo Carpio at the passageway to the world of mortals. Tadaklan, enraged by Sinukuan's treachery, turned Bernardo Carpio into a statue of stone, while Sinukuan's two companions were transformed into dwarves and Bakos was turned into an ugly goat creature. Mariang Sinukuan was not able to escape the fury of her sister Magayon who turned her into a unicorn. Mariang Magayon revealed that she was also in love with Bernardo and also pregnant with his child. The Kasamyans almost immediately returned to their previous ugly appearance after the wedding was called-off. After the disappearance of her sister and due to Apo Suga's failing health, Mariang Magayon took over the Kabanua throne. The Lakans reluctantly accepted her leadership but still considered Sinukuan the rightful heir to the throne. Magayon made a pact with Tadaklan to arrange a marriage between Magayon's daughter and his son. Meanwhile, Sinukuan, along with Huling and Miong, was transported into the world of humans, with the help of Bakos’ magical flute. The trio landed in a circus where Huling and Miong were forced to work as dancing midgets. The greedy owner of the circus noticed that the unicorn (Sinukuan) could fetch her more money, so she decided to make it into a dancing unicorn and forced it to perform a dance in front of the crowd. The unicorn later gave birth to a beautiful, human baby girl. The child quickly manifests the traits of being a Dyosa, transforming from a human into a mermaid, centaur, or harpy. ===== Mala (Evan Rachel Wood) and her friend Senn (Justin Long) are young creatures of an alien race that inhabits Terra, a peaceful, near Earth-like planet that is part of a star system in the Milky Way galaxy, and have a rich semi-advanced culture. One day a large, mysterious object partially blocks the Terrian sun, piquing the Terrians' interest. However, since the Terrian culture bans the development of new technologies, such as telescopes, without the approval of the ruling council, none of the inhabitants are able to get a closer look at the object in their sky. Mala, who is inventive and headstrong, goes against the rules of her community and creates a telescope, which she takes out into the dark empty area outside the Terrian city and uses to view the object and witnesses smaller objects coming from the large object. Coming down to the city, the small objects are revealed to be some kind of incoming scout spaceships. The scout spaceships fly through the city, and by the time Mala gets back there they have already begun abducting Terrians (with some willingly offering themselves to the scout spaceships mistaking them as their new "gods"). After Mala's handicapped father, Roven (Dennis Quaid) is abducted she goads a ship into tailing her and lures it into a trap, which causes it to crash. Afterward, she saves the life of the pilot, revealed to be a human, an officer named Lieutenant James "Jim" Stanton (Luke Wilson). After his personal robot assistant named Giddy (David Cross) warns Mala that Jim will die without a supply of oxygen (which the Terrian atmosphere does not contain), she creates an oxygen generator and fills a tent with oxygen so that Jim can breathe, and eventually convinces Giddy to teach her human language. Giddy informs Mala that the mysterious object is a generation ship called The Ark, containing humans from Earth. Giddy tells Mala that centuries beforehand, both Mars and Venus were terraformed by humans and colonized due to the consumption of natural resources. But 200 years later, the two planets demanded independence from Earth, which the Earth government refused to grant to them due to the high demand of resources from the two colonies. This dispute eventually escalated into a violent interplanetary war that rendered all three planets uninhabitable. The remnants of the human race traveled for several generations in the Ark across space looking for a new home, before they arrived at Terra, and gave it its name. When Jim awakes, he learns from Giddy he has no means of calling for help and a crucial part of the ship was damaged beyond repair in the crash. Mala agrees to make a replacement part, so that she can go with Jim to save Roven. When Mala, Jim, and Giddy return to the crash site, they discover the ship has been moved. The trio track the ship to a huge secret underground military facility which was built by a previous, warlike generation of the Terrians. The trio realizes that despite the current peaceful nature of the Terrian's city, the elders and wise leader Doron (James Garner) of the council have secretly retained the military technology from the dark days of war (realizing Mala and Jim's species do have things in common). After infiltrating the facility, fixing the ship and flying back to the Ark, Jim orders Mala to stay hidden and goes to be debriefed. Impatient, Mala ventures off, meanwhile, the commander of the military wing of the Ark, General Hemmer (Brian Cox), takes power over the civilian leaders in a coup, and declares war on Terra, citing the deteriorating condition of the Ark. Then, after Mala finds Roven in a room where the humans are studying the captured Terrians, and when she was about rescue him, human guards are alerted to her presence. Trying to save Mala, Roven sacrifices himself and two guards after breaching the hull. Hemmer tells Jim his goal is to annihilate the Terrians so the humans can turn Terra into the new Earth by dropping a huge machine onto the planet's surface-called the Terraformer-which will create an Earth-like atmosphere. To set the example to Jim's loyalty, Hemmer puts Mala and his younger brother, Stewart (Chris Evans) inside of a chamber with Terrian atmosphere. Hemmer tells Jim if he presses a button, the room will fill with oxygen, and thus he cannot save one without killing the other. Jim saves Stewart, but secretly also saves and helps Mala escape back to Terra with Giddy (which Jim orders him to protect Mala at all costs). Hemmer orders Jim to be in the first group of space-fighters designated by Hemmer to defend the Terraformer, while Hemmer will go down to the planet's surface in the Terraformer to personally supervise the terraforming process. Doron and the Terrian elders give the order for Terrians to use the military technology from their base for the reason they had kept it all secret, but intact, and Terrian glider-fighters led by Mala (accompagned by Giddy, still acting under Jim's order to protect her), attack the human ships, beginning a huge battle. After the humans drop the Terraformer onto the surface, it begins replacing the native gases with oxygen and nitrogen, which will asphyxiate the aliens. Finally, as the Terraformer is close to completing its objective, Jim realizes that annihilating the Terrians is morally wrong, and also by seeing an angered Mala and Stewart fighting each other (after Stewart shot down Senn, who's also part of the Terrian resistance) and turns his ship towards the Terraformer and attacks it. As his ship is damaged with anti-aircraft defensive fire, Jim fires his air-to-air missiles at the Terraformer's command module, destroying it, and killing a disappointed, betrayed Hemmer. While Mala, Giddy and Stewart barely escape the resulting explosion, Jim's ship is destroyed in it and he dies peacefully, knowing he did a heroic deed. An epilogue shows what happened in Terra some time later. The Terrians and the humans agree to live in peace. With the Terraformer destroyed, the Terrian atmosphere becomes safe once again for the aliens. The Terrians create a sanctuary for the human colonists to live in, with an Earth-like atmosphere. In the human sanctuary, a large statue of Jim is under construction, in honor of his memory and sacrifice, much to Mala, Senn (who had survived Stewart's attack), Giddy and Stewart's comfort. ===== The film tells the story in a non-linear fashion, with two timelines being depicted simultaneously. Rahul Bose has a dysfunctional marriage with Sameera Reddy who has an extra-marital affair.. Rahul tries to reconnect with his long-lost father (played by Mithun Chakraborty), while Sameera dreams of breaking free of her stifling domestic life. Rahul is considered as a failure both in professional and personal lives. However, an honest and simple man, he clings to simple joys of life and memories of his childhood. The back-and- forth movement of the story between two timelines (the present day and Rahul's childhood) and the arrangement of the sequences make Mithun a mystery man—he could be dead, alive, or, just a figment of Rahul's imagination. Laboni Sarkar, portraying the character of Mithun's wife in the film The film begins as Mithun follows Rahul as the later returns home from a day's work. Rahul is shown to be a doting father, but a failed husband. Mithun then starts to tell his own story. He had a happy family with wife (Laboni Sarkar) and the adolescent son Sumanata. A past flame of Mithun, played by Sudipta Chakraborty, incidentally arrives in the village (as a part of a masked dance troupe) and meets Mithun. At one unrestrained moment, she tries to seduce Mithun. Mithun tries to resist. However, Mithun's wife, Laboni, sees a glimpse of them in a compromising situation. Laboni, pained by the betrayal, decides to leave Mithun, with their son in tow. While a devastated Mithun becomes a footloose traveller, their son bears the scar for the rest of his life. Back to the present, father and son come face to face to heal old wounds. Battling the brunts of a society that defines success too materialistically, Rahul also continues to relive his childhood memories. His wife, Sameera, meanwhile flies to the United States to spend an extended holiday with her brother's family settled there. She writes several travelogues. Rahul suddenly meets his father one day in a Calcutta street. He spends a memorable day with his father, reliving their memories, as well as discussing many aspects of life. Suddenly, Mithun disappears. Rahul's wife returns from USA, and tells him that she has been in an extra-marital relationship for long, and their children are actually not fathered by Rahul. Rahul says he knows everything, and still love their children. Soon, Sameera leaves Rahul. Rahul continues to live with their children. Towards the end of the film, Rahul again has a talk with his father, Mithun. Mithun tells him that many things in life remain unsaid, untouched. Mithun goes on to tell that after Mithun's wife, Laboni, left him, he wandered off to many places, finally one day, committing suicide. So, at the end, viewers understand that their suspicion was true that Mithun and all the talks between Rahul and Mithun were nothing but the imagination of Rahul's sensitive mind. Rahul continues to be a doting father. The film has several fantasy-like characters appearing several times. The old flute-seller, Idrish, and his son, Abdul, are such a pair of characters. Rahul once met them in his childhood. However, the duo appears several times in the film, especially in the moments when there is a voice-over of Mithun, or when Rahul is reliving some old memories. Masked troupes of village dancers also make several appearances. ===== (P. Mukherjee), marries a young woman, Anjali (Shankar). When the former rebel learns that Anjali is a single mother, he leaves her. He also refuses shelter to a Naxalite on the run. The lonely teacher forms a relationship with a working-class woman and her insane mother, but class differences prevent this from going any further. In the end, he finds that the woman he rejected is mature enough to accept him as a friend and their relationship shows renewed promise as he tries to shed his prejudices. The film continued the Bengali cinema's fascination with the Naxalite uprising of the late 60s and 70s, often using symbolic imagery as in the opening shot of a newly paved VIP road and the commentary linking the annihilation of ‘troublemakers’ with the ‘beautification’ of the city. The film recalled aspects of Ray's 70s Calcutta films in its extensive use of silence and its consistently lyrical emphasis on the protagonist's subjectivity. ===== Based on a short story by Bengali writer Prafulla Roy, the central idea developed by director Dasgupta, tells the story of a girl, Lati (Samata Das), whose mother Rajani (Rituparna Sengupta) is a prostitute living and working in a brothel in rural India. Rajani plans to offer her daughter to an older man, a rich husband and protector to her daughter. Lati, however, wants to return to school and finish her studies. Unwilling to pay such a price for material success, she runs away to Calcutta. The discovery of this new world is described parallel to other stories of emancipation, such as that of three young prostitutes, of an aged couple going nowhere and man's landing on the moon. In a surrealistic approach typical of the director, a clumsy cat and an intelligent donkey are also present in the film. Ganesh (Tapas Paul) works full-time as a driver for wealthy Bengali-speaking, Natabar Paladhi (Ram Gopal Bajaj), who lives in a mansion with his wife, children and grandchildren, and runs 'Anjali Cinema' He has Ganesh use his vehicle as a private taxi cab. Amongst Ganesh's customers are a woman named Bakul (June Malia), who alights near a town of Gosaipara to take up prostitution with Jamunabai; an abandoned elderly couple who are in need of hospitalization -- there is none in the vicinity, and they end up secretly riding with Ganesh all the time; while Natabar uses this vehicle to travel to Gosaipara to visit a prostitute named Rajani and negotiate with her so that he can have her 14-year-old daughter, Lati, as his mistress. Things get complicated when Lati rebels against her mother so she can return to school, and a prostitute is about to get killed by her vengeful husband. ===== When a Kolkata surveillance specialist and his roommate install a small camera in the home of their beautiful neighbor, they somehow become terror suspects in director Buddhadeb Dasgupta's cutting commentary on CCTV society. Yasin (Amitav Bhattacharya) and his roommate Dilip (Prosenjit Chatterjee) are smitten with their beautiful new neighbor Rekha (Sameera Reddy). Innocent pining becomes silent obsession, however, when Dilip decides to install a surveillance camera directly over Rekha's bed. At first Rekha remains blissfully unaware that her privacy has been invaded, but when she finally realizes she's being spied on, her nosy neighbors are forced to go on the run. Little do Yasin and Dilip realize that across town a terrorist cell is plotting their latest attack, and now the local authorities believe that Yasin may be a key part of their diabolical plans. ===== Paresh (Prosenjit Chatterjee), the protagonist in Swapner Din, cannot afford the luxury of reaching out for the unexplored. For him, travelling in an official jeep across the state is a matter of keeping alive, a business he is forced to do. He screens badly put together family planning films in villages that fall along his predetermined route, often meeting with unpleasant responses from his target audience. His faith in life is sustained by his love for his dream girl -- a beautiful actress he saw crying away in a film five years ago and has been haunted by. He has never met her. She accompanies him on his daily sojourns through a sticker of her picture pasted on the projector box he carries along. Chapal (Rajesh Sharma), the proxy-driver Paresh is saddled with, carries a stolen passport that has his picture under a different name. His dream is to reach Dubai and land a cushy job to end what he thinks is an apology for living. The pregnant and pretty Amina (Rimi Sen) is running back to her homeland Bangladesh. Her husband, an illegal immigrant, was killed in the Gujarat riots. Her dream is to give birth to her child in her own country, as a legal citizen rooted to his land. Along the journey, the three share their food, their sleep and their dreams trying to help each other get that much closer to the fulfillment of their respective dreams. No one falls in love, no one attempts to molest Amina, not even the goons who take away the jeep at gun-point and leave them in the wilderness of nowhere, and no one comes to their rescue when their lives, along with their dreams, are threatened by the real danger of death. ===== Nabin Dutta (Subhendu Chattopadhyay) was a 47-year-old dentist. He had a son Kushal who was studying in Darjeeling. His wife was not satisfied with him and wanted to be separated. Nabin thought he had some acute disease, but it was nothing serious. Every moment Nabin felt a lack of satisfaction. He compared his situation with his driver Dinu who had two wives, Sukhi (Nandini Maliya) and Maloti (Indrani Haldar). Dinu's wives were satisfied with him and they had no complaints about Dinu. Nabin tried to understand himself. Most of the time he thought about his childhood in Cherrapunji and the red coloured gate which he thought obeyed him. His mother said that the gate had a huge tolerance and Nabin compared himself with the red coloured gate. Ultimately, after departing from his wife and son, he raised his tolerance to a maximum stage and started to live alone with himself. ===== Set in 1988, Mark Walsh (Colin Farrell) is a photojournalist who has earned a reputation for working in some of the most unforgiving locations on Earth. When his editor Amy (Juliet Stevenson) asks him to cover Saddam Hussein's campaign against the Kurds, Mark takes the assignment and thinks little of it. His wife Elena (Paz Vega) is considerably more concerned. Mark and his friend and fellow photographer David (Jamie Sives) head off to the war full of confidence. Mark takes photographs of brutally injured soldiers and of a doctor who shoots them dead to spare their suffering. Later on, Mark is seen mildly injured in what he claims to be an accident in the river and he then comes home alone after being separated from David. Elena notices that he is like a different person, gaunt and unable to relax. Elena can't get Mark to talk about what he saw that left him so traumatized, so she invites her grandfather Joaquin (Christopher Lee), a veteran psychoanalyst with military experience, for a visit to see if he can help. Joaquin struggles to get Mark to open up. The grandfather's presence ignites an old conflict between him and Elena; the doctor was a supporter of Franco during the Spanish Civil War. He had helped Franco's soldiers recover from the guilt of the atrocities they had committed in warfare. Elena had never been able to forgive him for his actions. The second half of the film depicts Joaquin's patient persistence in getting Mark to face his own memories. Joaquin is particularly curious as to why Mark is more concerned with bringing bodies back to their families rather than survival or death. While Mark is drawing a picture of the area he and David were situated, Diane (Kelly Reilly), David's pregnant wife and Elena enter the apartment and Joaquin tells him he has to come clean with what happened. A flashback reveals that Mark followed David when he decided to leave early. While walking back to the Kurdish camp, they were shelled, which resulted in David losing both of his legs. Mark tried to carry him back. After he tells them this story, Diane begins labour, and is taken to the hospital, where she delivers a baby girl. Mark, Elena, and Joaquin visit Diane in the hospital. Unable to tell Diane the "end of the story," Mark walks up to the roof and considers jumping. Joaquin and Elena follow him and he tells them that he had jumped in a river with David's arms wrapped around his neck and that once in the water, he could no longer breathe. He released David from his grip and let him go. He tearfully admits that he felt guilty about not bringing him home. Elena embraces him and the film ends with Plato's quote: "Only the dead see the end of the war." ===== Factory is the story of four guys who grew up together in the same small town, who drank a lot of beer, and dreamt of one day making a name for themselves. The four guys are still friends and still drink a lot of beer, only now they all work in the town's local factory. When not figuring out new ways to avoid doing their jobs, the guys are usually trying to appease their wives and girlfriends, without great success.Spike TV Website Factory Page ===== The plot focuses on a field trip by Professor Ernst Prell to investigate Yeti sightings, along with four graduate students: Keith Henshaw, Karen Hunter, Tom Nash and Lynn Kelly. The night before the trip, the professor invites Keith to dinner at a restaurant, where he samples an exotic dish named "gin sung." The rest of Dr. Prell's students attend an off-campus party where they encounter a former student, turned alcoholic groundskeeper, named Spencer St. Clair, who is there with his wife April. St. Clair proceeds to tell everyone within earshot the story of Prell's last Yeti-seeking field trip, which only he and the professor survived. After the party, Spencer continues to drink, and upon returning home fights with his wife and cuts her throat with an electric carving knife. Afterwards, he climbs into the bathtub fully clothed. He is killed by his not quite dead wife, who drags a toaster into the bathroom and dumps it into the bath, electrocuting him. In the morning, the professor travels by van with his students to Boot Island, where his friend Dr. Karl Werner lives. Werner has recently seen the Yeti on his island, and conjectures that he was marooned there by melting winter ice. He introduces the others to a mute Native American manservant named Laughing Crow. The group have dinner, which is again "gin sung," then go to sleep after one of the students, Tom, sings a song about the Yeti. The next day, the professor and his students begin their search in the woods of the island. Tom sneaks off to go hunting and is killed by the Yeti. The rest of the group look for Tom the next morning. Karen finds only his rifle and his severed leg. Meanwhile, Lynn goes into Dr. Werner's greenhouse and sees something that frightens her; she runs into the woods and is also killed by the Yeti. At the house, the remaining students find that the phone is out of order. The professor decides to use Tom's leg as bait to lure the Yeti into a trap. The plan fails, however, as Prell returns to the house claiming he was knocked down by the monster, who escapes with the leg in its jaws. Prell then decides to try again, using Lynn's body as bait. Karen tries to hide the body in the greenhouse, where she discovers the rest of Tom's body, and passes out. When she awakes, Dr. Prell tells her it must have been a dream as she was asleep for quite some time. Karen doesn't believe him, leading them all back to the greenhouse where they uncover Lynn's body. Disgusted that Dr. Prell is going to use their friend's body as bait, Karen reluctantly agrees to help out by taking photos, under the condition that they leave Boot Island whether they succeed or fail. Both Dr. Prell and Keith agree, and Karl wishes them good luck. The professor ties Lynn's body to a tree and the trap is set. The Yeti appears and Keith chases it into the woods. He tracks it by the sound of its heartbeat, but makes the discovery that the sound is actually coming from a speaker attached to a tree. Someone knocks him out with a branch. Back at the house, Laughing Crow is shown listening to an LP record of the Yeti's heartbeat. It turns out that Dr. Prell and Werner are cannibals, using the Yeti scam as a way to lure victims, and that the Yeti is actually Dr. Werner in disguise. While Karen is asleep upstairs, Keith returns to the house and discovers Dr. Prell and Dr. Werner discussing what to do with her. Werner thinks they should just kill her, but Prell says that the code calls for no body bruises and that she must be frightened to death. Keith pulls out a rifle and orders both men to put their hands up. They ignore him. He shoots at them, finding out that the shells are blanks. He is then knocked unconscious by Laughing Crow. Still asleep upstairs, Karen wakes to a growling noise. She looks out the window and finds the Yeti running full speed at the house. Karen flees through the house and ends up trapped in a bathroom. She opens a cabinet to find Laughing Crow holding a knife, and dies of fright. While setting up for their big breakfast, Keith wakes up and manages to sneak away. He tries to escape in the van, but it gets stuck in the mud while he tries to hide from the party guests' funeral procession. Keith then hoofs it down to the bridge where he manages to flag down a cop who takes him back to the house. At the breakfast, Prell and Werner salute the party guests and hosts, toasting the previous schemes which have provided victims. Keith returns with the policeman, only to find out that he too is a cannibal. Prell and Werner explain that the "gin sung" Keith has eaten is actually human flesh, and they invite him to join their cannibalistic society. They bring in Karen's body, and Laughing Crow, brandishing an electric carving knife, speaks for the first time, saying "Mr. Henshaw — white meat or dark?" Keith drools as the film ends. ===== Augustine Mulliner, a meek and mild young curate, arrives in Lower-Briskett-in-the-Midden to assist the vicar, the Rev. Stanley Brandon and falls in love with the vicar's daughter, Jane Brandon. The young lovers wonder how to approach the fierce vicar about their love when a package arrives from Augustine Mulliner's aunt containing a tonic, Buck-U-Uppo (it works directly on the corpuscles). Mulliner takes a tablespoonful as recommended by his aunt and becomes more confident and assertive. The next morning, after another tablespoonful, he rescues a visiting bishop chased up a tree by a dog and firmly ends a quarrel between the bishop and the vicar, receives the vicar's blessings for his love for Jane, saves the bishop from being forced to wear thick winter woolies, and becomes the bishop's secretary. On returning to his rooms, he finds a letter from his cousin Wilfred Mulliner ("A Slice of Life") explaining that the tonic, mistakenly sent to Augustine, is meant for steeling the nerves of elephants in India ("too often elephants, on sighting the tiger, have turned and galloped home," he writes). Augustine promptly writes for three cases of Buck-U-Uppo. ===== The local nurses' union for the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital is on strike. Jeff, the husband of one of the nurses, collapses while walking the picket line. At the emergency room, House suspects Jeff's extreme niceness and inability to get angry is a major symptom of an underlying condition. After various tests, the team suspects his niceness is a personality change resulting from syphilis. At the same time, House is annoyed because he is not able to spend enough time with his friend, James Wilson. He attempts to negotiate with Amber, Wilson's girlfriend, about conditions under which they can both have Wilson's company. They are at a standstill, thus House seeks Lisa Cuddy's (Lisa Edelstein) resolution. However, she will only lay out the conditions if House does his team's performance reviews. House relents and Cuddy sets the rules, although House has Foreman do the team reviews instead. House manipulates the team, Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), and Chase (Jesse Spencer), by swapping his own blood sample, leading them to believe he too has syphilis, perhaps the cause for his misanthropic personality and unfriendliness. Meanwhile, Foreman believes he isn't getting the respect he deserves from Kutner, Taub (Peter Jacobson) and Thirteen (Olivia Wilde), when he tries to do their performance reviews, which he believes is due to House frequently humiliating him. After House violates one of the conditions set by Cuddy, Amber informs the team of House's ruse of faking syphilis. This discovery leads Kutner to suspect that Jeff's positive syphilis result might really be the result of Chagas' disease, which he contracted while working in the jungles of Costa Rica years ago. The parasite embedded itself in Jeff's brain during his stay in the country, thus causing the shift in his personality and giving him the inability to be angry. With the case solved, House hands in the reviews to Cuddy, who discovers they are all the same. As punishment for not doing his team's reviews properly, and for breaking the rules she set between him and Amber, Cuddy has the two of them cleaning up bedridden patients together while outside in the corridor, Wilson smiles to himself, amused at the scene. ===== Mark (Doherty) is an actor living in a basement flat below his writer friend Pierce (Moran). Residing with his girlfriend, Sally (Huberman), Mark struggles to find work whilst caring for his paralysed brother, David (O'Doherty). Desperate to avoid paying overdue rent, Mark continually eludes landlord Jack (Allen), meaning he is also unable to inform Jack of the flat's dilapidated state. Discovering that Mark wasted money meant for the overdue rent, Sally finally decides to end her strained relationship with Mark, informs Jack of the repairs needed, and arranges to move out. The damaged state of the flat reaching its peak, Mark witnesses two consecutive freak accidents; a bookshelf falls and kills his dog, and the living room chandelier collapses and crushes David. Reeling in horror from the events, Mark looks on as Jack appears to repair a high lightbulb atop a wobbly stool, only to fall and pierce his throat with his screwdriver. Pierce then arrives and discovers the corpses, causing him to panic. Hiding in the bathroom, Mark and Pierce plot to control the situation, only for Sally to return. Discovering David's body, Sally faints and impales herself on Mark's clarinet stand, killing her too. Realizing the absurdity of four consecutive, fatal accidents occurring in one place, Pierce concocts a plan to move Jack's body to an alternative location, as they both had a strong motive to murder him. Shooing Sally's father when he arrives, a police officer (O'Sullivan) then arrives due to an unrelated noise complaint, causing Pierce to panic and take her hostage. Unable to kill the officer, the duo ties her up and attempts to reason with her. Left unattended, she attempts to escape through a faulty window, only for it to close and crush her head. Now surrounded by several corpses, Pierce finally formulates a plan; placing David, Sally, Jack, and the dog in his car, they drive it to a secluded area and cause it to explode, leaving minimal forensic evidence. Additionally, since three immediate deaths of Mark's acquaintances can place suspicion on him, Mark places his jewellery and clarinet on David's corpse, faking his own death. Finally moving the officer to the neighbour's garden, Pierce fakes her death as caused by a falling plant pot. Cutting Mark's hair and dressing him as David, the two attempt to pass Mark as his disabled brother, and give Pierce an alibi as his carer in Mark's absence. A closing epilogue then shows Pierce has written a script based on the film's events, and is currently directing it whilst Mark continues to pass as David. ===== A beautiful Chinese woman visits Mr. Wong late at night but is murdered before she can tell him why she needs his help. Wong discovers that she is Princess Lin Hwa, the sister of a powerful Chinese general, and that she was killed with a poisoned dart fired from a Chinese "sleeve gun." As with some of his previous investigations, Wong is given important information by the leader of a powerful tong (Chinese secret society). The tong leader tells Wong that the princess had come to the United States with almost $1-million to arrange the secret purchase of airplanes that were to be smuggled into China. As Wong continues the investigation he learns that all the money that the princess deposited in a local bank has been paid out—and that the signature on most of the checks is a forgery. Wong becomes the target of a killer, and is aided in his investigation by a blonde, beautiful and energetic newspaper reporter. Was the princess killed by enemies of her brother to prevent the shipment of the planes to China? Or was she killed to hide the fact that there actually were no planes and the whole scheme was a scam? Wong's careful conversations with the captain of the ship the princess traveled on, the owner of the aviation company that owned the planes she was going to buy, and the president of the bank where the princess deposited her money, result in him uncovering the identity of the killer. ===== In the second part of the two-part season finale, House remains affected by injuries sustained in a bus crash that has also left Amber Volakis rapidly deteriorating from a mysterious condition. Clues inside House's head hold the key to Amber's condition, and House's friendship with Wilson is tested as murky memories from the bus accident threaten to change their lives forever. The episode begins with House and Wilson at Princeton General Hospital, where the eight overflow victims of the bus crash that weren't taken to Princeton-Plainsboro ended up being taken, including Amber, who up until now was only known as Jane Doe #2 due to a lack of ID on her. The attending physician at Princeton General cannot explain Amber's sudden onset tachycardia, but explains that whatever is causing this condition isn't from the bus crash. House demands that she be moved via ambulance to Princeton-Plainsboro, which the attending initially refuses, until House says that her "husband" Wilson can demand she be moved, which Wilson does. While being moved via the ambulance, Amber's tachycardia degenerates into v-fib. House goes to shock Amber to stabilize her heart, but Wilson demands he stop and put her into protective hypothermia. He tells House that if he restarts her heart now, it will keep racing, shoot off free radicals, and kill her brain. In an attempt to buy more time for a proper diagnosis, Wilson figures protective hypothermia along with dialysis is her best option. House agrees; however, during the further testing that follows, Amber develops multisystem organ failure, including liver and neurological damage. In an attempt to remember exactly what he saw that caused his initial concern and help definitively diagnosis Amber, House decides to undergo deep brain stimulation with Wilson's urging, with House asking Wilson if he is willing to risk House's life in the process and Wilson reluctantly answering affirmatively. During the stimulation, he recalls the symptom which presented in Amber before the bus crash. House also remembers the events that led up to him and Amber being on the bus to begin with: he got drunk at Sharrie's bar, and the bartender (Fred Durst) took his keys away, so House called Wilson for a ride, but he was on call so Amber came instead. House angrily stormed off after Amber wouldn't drink with him, and boarded a bus. Amber followed him to give him his cane, which he had forgotten as he left her to pay his tab at the bar. House recalls that, during the bus ride, Amber sneezed, reached for a Kleenex, and complained that she had the flu. He then recalls what caused his concern; after she wiped her nose, she reached into her purse and pulled out prescription pills, which turned out to be amantadine. She took a heavy dose of two or three amantadine pills, right as the garbage truck plowed into the bus. The crash caused such extensive anatomical and physiological trauma (especially the blood loss and shock from her leg injury) that she ended up suffering from acute kidney failure. This damage to her kidneys made them unable to adequately filter out the amantadine, causing her to overdose and thus causing injury to her organs and all of her unexplained symptoms. Wilson suggests dialysis as a treatment, but House tells him during the memory of the moments leading up to the bus crash that unfiltered amantadine binds to the proteins in the body; therefore, it is too late for dialysis. House and Wilson begin to cry, and House goes into a seizure while still connected to the deep brain stimulation equipment. The seizure makes the equipment shift, causing House's brain to bleed, leading to him falling into a coma. The team confirms House's diagnosis of Amber. With all of her organs damaged, she is unable to qualify for a heart transplant, and so there is nothing they can do to treat her. Wilson weans Amber off anesthesia in order to spend her last moments alive with him. The team comes in one by one to say goodbye to Amber, and after Wilson himself says goodbye, he shuts off Amber's bypass and she dies. An unconscious House has a vision of Amber, who persuades him not to give up on life and die, telling him that he "can't always get what he wants". Back at the hospital, Thirteen discovers she has inherited Huntington's disease, and House awakens with Cuddy at his side. Taub crawls into bed with his wife, Kutner watches TV alone, and Chase and Cameron meet Foreman in a restaurant. Wilson visits House, but the two just silently stare at each other as House awakens. Wilson returns home and finds the note Amber left him in their bedroom saying she went to pick up House and would return home soon, causing him to break down in tears. House lies awake in his hospital bed, staring blankly into space with a sleeping Cuddy holding his hand. ===== Dr. Gregory House is getting a lap dance in a strip club. When he leaves the club, he sees that the bus he was traveling on has crashed. Back at Princeton- Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, House is diagnosed with a concussion and post- traumatic retrograde amnesia and orders his team to check the bus driver for a possible seizure that precipitated the crash. While the team investigates the bus driver's condition, House overdoses on Vicodin and starts to hallucinate. He finds himself back on the bus, where he sees a woman who was not on the bus. However, before House can speak to her, Wilson awakens him to do an MRI on him. When House returns to the bus hallucination, Cuddy is with him. As they discuss the bus driver's possible diseases, House realizes they are in his head and tells Cuddy to accompany the discussion with a striptease. The woman from House's earlier hallucination returns and introduces herself as "the answer". She tells House to look at the bus driver's shuffling feet, which House believes to indicate Parkinson's disease. When the bus driver needs to be intubated due to a possible clot from a pulmonary embolism, House notices the driver's recent dental work. He reasons that an air bubble being accidentally injected into the patient's bloodstream through the gums would explain all the symptoms. House believes the case to be over, but a dream that night causes him to realize that the bus driver is not the patient he saw suffering from symptoms; the crash merely dislodged the air bubble and caused the driver's problems. In a renewed attempt to retrieve his memory, House has his team re-enact the bus crash. House overdoses on physostigmine and his mind flashes back to the bus scene before the accident. "The answer" keeps asking House what her necklace is made from, until he realizes that it's made of amber. "The answer" transforms into Amber Volakis, and when Wilson and Cuddy manage to resuscitate House from his overdose-induced cardiac arrest, he immediately informs Wilson that Amber was on the bus with him, and was injured in the crash. ===== House (Hugh Laurie) is convinced that one of the actors on his favorite soap opera "Prescription: Passion" (guest star Jason Lewis) has a serious medical condition after observing his symptoms on television. House decides to intervene, kidnaps the actor and convinces him to run a test, but both the actor and House’s own team dismiss House’s assessment and do not believe there is anything wrong with him. However, the actor develops more symptoms: His leg goes numb preventing him from leaving the hospital, and after subsequent tests and more symptoms he eventually goes into a coma. The team gives him antibiotics for a possible infection, but when this has no effect House has an epiphany and administers steroids for a floral allergy. The steroids work but the floral allergy test comes back negative. Not until after the actor has been discharged does House realize that he is allergic to quinine from the tonic water in the fake gin and tonics that he has to drink on set. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) tries to keep up appearances when an inspector makes an unexpected visit to Princeton-Plainsboro. House takes advantage of this, threatening not to cooperate if he doesn’t get what he wants (like the flat-screen from the doctors’ lounge). When Cuddy says: "Me keeping my job is good for you," House simply replies: "Yes, but it’s better for you." Meanwhile, Amber (Anne Dudek) and Wilson’s (Robert Sean Leonard) relationship develops. They go mattress-shopping, and when they each want a different mattress, Amber leaves it up to Wilson. On advice from House, Wilson chooses Amber’s preference, but it turns out Amber was testing Wilson: she wanted to see if he’d take care of himself first – that’s what she wants him to do because that’s what she does herself. So Wilson exchanges the mattress for the water bed he has always wanted. In the end, however, Wilson finds that he hates the water bed and cannot sleep on it, forcing him to sleep on the floor. He and Amber decide to return the bed. ===== As the morning starts, Betty, still missing Henry after two weeks, fights her attraction to Gio, and even the family, who have come down with the cold, thinks that she should move on, especially Hilda and Ignacio. At the Deli, Gio tries to convince Betty to admit that she does have feelings and as he kissed her, Betty slapped him and accused him of being the "rebound guy". At work, the thoughts (and e-mail pictures sent by Marc and Amanda) of Gio would consume Betty as she is asked by Claire to write an article for Hot Flash. Meanwhile, Hilda tries to get Coach Diaz to notice her, but thanks to that cold, those efforts are hampering her attempts as she tries to ask him out for a date at the middle school Justin attends. Later that evening, Betty convinces Hilda that she shouldn't go because of the cold so Hilda gets Justin to spy on the coach, but Justin needs a chaperone, so Betty takes Hilda's place. At the school, Betty tries to get interviews, only to strike out, and when she finally gets one, its Antonella who recognizes her, as she discovers that Gio is also chaperoning at the dance. As the evening goes by, Gio shows Betty how to open up about herself and hopefully convince her that she can move on. While it may have worked wonders, it wasn't enough to convince Betty that she had feelings for Gio, even as he asked her to dance, for which she would turn him down. As Gio followed Betty to the lobby, he cheered her up by daring her to take her 1998 Good Citizen Award out of the trophy case. Unfortunately, the trophy case crashed and out come the school principal, who Betty learns still works there as he was her principal during her middle school year. As the night winds down, Betty and Gio, along with Justin and Antonella, returned to the Suarez residence. However, as Gio thanked Betty for a great evening, Gio told her that he didn't want to be the "rebound guy", he wanted to be "the guy" and he walked away, leaving Betty confused. As for a prince, while Betty was spending her time with Gio, Hilda kept calling Justin, who told her that he was there and was chaperoning. Justin would later go up to the coach to tell him that Hilda liked him. Hours later Tony showed up at the Saurezes to see Hilda and the two agreed to a date. In other scenarios, Amanda agreed to do a reality show with her dad, KISS rock legend Gene Simmons. As Marc stops by to reconnect with his partner- in-fashion crime, Amanda is excited to see him but after he sees the project he wants in but Amanda says no and goes as far as to keep him away from the set but to no avail, as Gene invites him onto the show. Marc told Amanda that her relationship with Gene is not as genuine as Amanda thinks. Later on, as they are taking a break, Amanda notices Gene's Tweety Bird tattoo fading off his back. When she confronts him, Gene admits that he is not Amanda's father and that the reality show was a publicity gimmick. Later that evening, Amanda stopped by to see Marc to apologize and the two made up. Finally, the Meades learn that Wilhelmina can return to Mode because of the unborn child and therefore can own a third of Meade Publications. As the family and Betty prepare to greet the new part owner, Daniel feels the heat when Wilhelmina makes her triumphant return to Mode amid a media frenzy, prompting Daniel to become very suspicious of her and he should be: It appears that Wilhelmina is using her comeback to divide the Meades. First, starting with a meeting to discuss the upcoming issue, when Daniel gets upstaged by Wilhelmina, who sits in and afterwards tells him that Elle Magazine already had done one, and after he returned from the bathroom to contain his composure, Wilhelmina had already done her dirty work by winning over the staff and Alexis with her concept. Even his attempt to counter Wilhelmina backfires after his appearance on Larry King Live when a picture of him shoving Wilhelmina pops up along with a phone call that exposes his true feelings about his rival. Then there's Claire, who gets a "suggestion" from Wilhelmina about having free advertisers to help with her "Hot Flash" launch. All this would come to a head when Alexis tells her mother and brother that she will reinstate Wilhelmina as creative director. The ploy of course worked as Wilhelmina later thanked Marc for leaking that doctored photo and making that fake Vermont phone call. ===== ;Act 1 A large family of British plantation owners on the Pacific island of Samolo, the Stirlings, are hosting a party. The father refuses to extend an invitation to a visitor to the island, the young opera singer Elena Salvador, but one of the sons, romantic- minded Kerry, finds this unreasonable, believing that she has been the target of malicious gossip. A carriage accident happens near the Stirlings' home, and Elena is the victim. She and Kerry become acquainted, and he invites her to the party, as they express affection for each other. ;Act 2 At the party, the six Stirling daughters and their boyfriends who work at Government House are poking fun at the Governor. The Stirlings withdraw their objections to Elena's presence when they learn that she is a friend of the Governor's wife. Elena and Kerry entertain the guests with a native song, but when she kisses Kerry, in front of the guests, they are scandalised. A week later, at Elena's house her chaperone warns Elena not to fall seriously in love. Sadly, financial considerations force Elena to leave Samolo to resume her career, and both Kerry and Elena are heartbroken. ;Act 3 Elena returns a year later to find that it is the wedding day of young Mr. Stirling; she is despondent. But it turns out that it is not Kerry who is getting married, but his practical brother, Rollo; Kerry is the best man. When Kerry finally sees Elena, they fall into each other's arms at once. ===== Yunpeng (Yang Fan) and his servant stay at a country inn one dark evening to escape potential robbers and ghosts. But Yunpeng chances into something far more dangerous when he accidentally happens upon the comely Anu (Xing Hui) naked in bed. To atone for his rudeness, he has to marry her. Because of her beauty, the request is not too difficult to fulfill...until she is introduced to his aunts and uncles, who notice her ghastly green glow and deduce that she's a spirit from the netherworld. But there's something even darker about her appearance, and it may be revenge on his in-laws. ===== The episode begins with the aftermath of the events of "Sandcastles in the Sand": Barney and Robin are in bed together after having sex and she proposes to pretend it never happened. Barney agrees but feels quite awkward and uncomfortable around Ted at MacLaren's later in the day. Hoping to find an excuse for his and Robin's actions, Barney seeks out Marshall to help him find a loophole in the Bro Code, a book listing the rules and philosophies of Barney's life as a "bro". Allegedly written by Barnabas Stinson in the 18th century when Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were too busy to write it themselves, the Bro Code proves to be a very tight document that Ted has followed flawlessly and Barney fails in finding a loophole. When Marshall's nervous behavior reveals to Robin that Barney told him, she tells him that Ted is never finding out. That night, when Barney picks up Ted in a limo, he attempts to give Ted an ultimate 30th birthday by flying him to Las Vegas, which includes staying at the Bellagio, steaks at Boa, and a boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and a grizzly bear. Ted reveals that he knows Barney and Robin had sex together, because Robin told him right after she warned Marshall. Ted, at first, seems calm, and Barney is relieved, but Ted screams at him, angrily declares they're no longer friends, and hails a cab to take him home. Barney then sadly sits in the limo alone all night. Meanwhile, Lily rescues a goat named Missy when a farmer (Farmer Frank, played by Alan Fudge) brings it to her kindergarten class and horrifies her students by going into great detail about what will happen to Missy when she visits the butcher. Lily plans to give the goat away to animal control, but becomes attached to the goat while waiting for Ted to arrive at his birthday party. Older Ted reveals at the end of the episode, after hinting at the destruction the goat would do, that he had the story wrong: Everything involving the goat actually takes place during his 31st birthday, at which point – Older Ted also reveals – Robin is living in the apartment. ===== The story opens as two New Englanders, John Branner and his friend Griswell, are travelling in the South and spend the night in a deserted plantation manor. Griswell awakens from a troubled sleep to see Branner walking up the stairs in a trance. He is horrified when Branner returns, no longer alive but an animated corpse gripping the bloody axe that had split his skull. Griswell flees the house in a blind panic and runs aimlessly into the woods. In his headlong flight he meets the county's sheriff, Buckner, who investigates the house and finds Branner cold and motionless on the floor. Griswell is implicated in his friend's murder, but the sheriff gives him the benefit of the doubt and doggedly attempts to clear him. Buckner is inclined to give some credence to Griswell's bizarre tale due to the ominous reputation of the manor. It was once the residence of a family from the West Indies, the Blassenvilles, who were known for their cruelty. One night in 1890 the last of the Blassenvilles, Elizabeth, fled from the house and never returned. The manor has lain deserted ever since and is shunned by the local black folk. The pigeons of the story's title are ghostly birds that sometimes flock mysteriously about the decaying manor. Legend has it that they are the souls of the Blassenvilles let out of Hell. The following evening Buckner and Griswell go to the hut of an ancient voodoo man, Jacob, seeking information about the house and the Blassenvilles. Jacob tells of the extinct family and of Celia Blassenville, who mistreated her mulatto maid Joan. He then begins to ramble incoherently about voodoo, the god Damballah, and about zombies and their female counterparts, zuvembies. Finally he tells how "she" participated in voodoo rites. While reaching for firewood, Jacob is bitten by a venomous snake, meeting the very fate he feared would overtake him for revealing the secrets of Damballah. Buckner and Griswell mistakenly conclude that Joan transformed herself into a zuvembie to exact vengeance on Celia Blassenville and her nieces. They resolve to spend the night in Blassenville Manor to learn the truth. ===== The episode begins with a montage of Robin from her time as bubblegum pop star Robin Sparkles. At MacLaren's, Robin announces that her former boyfriend, Simon (James Van Der Beek), will be meeting her there later. Robin describes their break-up: after she loaded his band's equipment into their van, he dumped her. The group agrees that every time exes reunite, there is a clear winner and a clear loser. They begin to tally the points for Robin and Simon, awarding Robin five and Simon zero. Robin agrees she will be the clear winner, unless Simon got more attractive. Simon arrives and it is clear he has not: he is balding, overweight, and unfashionable. Despite this, Robin is clearly still smitten with him. After the reunion, the group retires to Marshall and Ted's apartment. They criticize Simon's personality and how Robin handled the meeting. The group learns that Robin and Simon met after he starred in the music video for her second single, "Sandcastles in the Sand", which the group was previously unaware of. Barney immediately leaves, claiming he will not sleep until he finds the video. When Robin attempts to defend herself, the group discusses how being around someone from your past can cause you to revert to the person you were when you knew them, a phenomenon Marshall dubs "revertigo". Marshall and Ted tell Robin that Lily suffers from this; as proof, they invite Lily's high school friend Michelle to hang out with them. At MacLaren's the next day, Robin tells the group that Simon came to her apartment the night before to reconcile, which she accepted, to the group's dismay. Michelle arrives, and she and Lily begin speaking like excitable teenagers. Michelle, a Ph.D. student in behavioral psychology, identifies this phenomenon as "associative regression". Mirroring their original break-up, Simon once again has Robin assist him with loading his van, then dumps her. The group attempts to console her, but fail. Robin drinks alone at MacLaren's until Barney arrives, complaining that he has yet to find a copy of her video. Realizing what Robin is upset about, Barney consoles her. She invites him to watch the music video at her place. They watch the video over and over, making fun of it, and eventually begin kissing on the couch. ===== This is a family drama which is portrayed on a background of Durgapuja, West Bengal's biggest "Utshob" (Festival). The story is about a cultured Bengali family, different members of which have gathered in native house on the occasion of Durga puja. Bhagbati (Madhabi Mukherjee) has four children; two sons Asit (Pradip Mukherjee), Nishit (Bodhisattva Mazumdar) and two daughters, Parul (Mamata Shankar) and Keya (Rituparna Sengupta). It is the festival time and all the children are at the main house to celebrate the festival. Meanwhile, Shishir, (Deepankar De) a relative who is also a big real estate agent, is interested in buying the house. Most of the family members want to sell the house. The old and traditional house is not a place for everyones interest and they have individual problems to solve with money. None of the sisters are looking forward to the family reunion as they all are more concerned about their own problems. ===== A gambler agrees to help an old friend defeat a crooked gambler that uses rigged dice. ===== 13-year-old Minerva Clark lives in Portland, Oregon and is being raised by her three brothers. She is a typical insecure teenager, but when she is struck by lightning, her personality changes – she becomes outgoing and confident overnight. And when she senses a mystery she cannot resist investigating. ===== Doomsday Machine A spy (Essie Lin Chia) discovers that the Chinese government has created a doomsday device (the "key" to which, "only Chairman Mao has") capable of destroying the Earth and it will be activated in 72 hours. Soon after, Astra – a two-year return mission to Venus by the United States Space Program – has its time of launch speeded up and half of the male flight crew are replaced by women shortly before take-off, including one Russian. Shortly before blastoff military alerts are put into effect. After leaving Earth, the seven crew members of Astra deduce that they have been put together to restart the human race should the Chinese activate their device. Shortly after this, the device goes off and Earth is destroyed. As Astra continues to Venus, the crew realizes that a safe landing on Venus is impossible unless the crew is reduced to three. One of the crew members tries to rape another, at which point she accidentally gets them both blown out of an airlock. Two more crew-members—Danny and Major Bronski—are lost as they head out to repair a fault with the spaceship. However, they notice another spacecraft nearby and jump to it. The second craft proves to be a lost Soviet ship that disappeared piloted by a close friend of the Russian crew member. Though its pilot is dead, Danny and Bronski successfully power up the Soviet ship. Before the two ships can rendezvous, contact with Astra is lost. A disembodied voice cuts in, claiming to be the collective consciousness of the Venusian population. The voice informs the survivors (whom the Venusians refer to as the "Last of Man") in the Russian ship that Astra no longer exists (presumably destroyed somehow by the telepathic Venusians), and that no humans (due to their "self-destructive" potential) will be allowed to reach Venus. It gives a cryptic message regarding the prospect of starting new life in a "very strange and very great" place, somewhere far "beyond the rim of the universe," before the ship suddenly blasts off, apparently by the power of the Venusians, and the movie abruptly concludes. ===== At the beginning of Part I, Tyler addresses the general audience. His intention for telling the story of Mala is in hopes that the book will eventually reach Asha Ramchandin, Mala's long-lost younger sister. Mala is an aging, notoriously crazy woman suspected of murder. She was ordered to Paradise Alms House after the judge found her unfit to stand trial. Part I opens with Mala arriving to Paradise Alms House. She is heavily sedated and kept under physical constraint. All of the nurses are afraid to attend to her because she is rumored to be a murderer. Tyler, being the only male nurse in the nursing home and a subject of gossip and scrutiny for his alternative sexuality, is immediately drawn to her. He cares for her and slowly gains her trust. The first sounds that Mala makes are perfect imitations of crickets, frogs, and species of birds. However, she does not speak. Then Tyler begins to tell the story he heard from his Cigarette Smoking Nana about Mala's father, Chandin Ramchandin. Chandin's father was an indentured field labor from India. At an early age, Chandin became the adopted son of Reverend Thoroughly, a white man, in exchange for his parents’ conversion to Christianity. The Reverend also wanted to adopt an Indian child in hope to have closer connection with the Indians in Paradise. Growing up, Chandin found himself madly in love with Lavinia, the daughter of the Reverend and, therefore, his "sister." Attractive and beautiful, Lavinia brushed off all attention from boys and remained in the company of one girlfriend, Sarah, who happened to be Indian and the only other girl in the seminary school. When Chandin grew into a fine young man, he decided to confess his love to Lavinia. Lavinia firmly rejected his love and announced that she would be leaving for the Shivering Northern Wetlands in three days. Later, Chandin had heard the news that Lavinia was engaged to her distant cousin in Wetlands. Heartbroken yet trying to conceal his feelings, Chandin announced that he was in love with Sarah and wanted to marry her. Chandin traveled around paradise with the Reverend, spreading the gospel and encouraging more conversions to Christianity. Sarah gave birth to two daughters, Pohpoh (Mala) and Asha. In the meantime, Lavinia had returned to Paradise with the news that she had broken off her engagement. Lavinia visited Sarah often and one day, Pohpoh caught Lavinia and Sarah in a moment of intimacy. Eventually Chandin also noticed the unusual affection between his wife and Lavinia. He confronted Sarah and announced that he knew about her affair with Lavinia. In hopes of being with each other, Lavinia and Sarah decided to elope together with the children. However Chandin unexpectedly returned home early on the day of the planned escape. In the mist of confusion and screaming, Pohpoh and Asha were left behind with their enraged and demented father. After the news spread of his wife leaving her with another woman, Chandin gave up his religion, his God, and began to drink heavily. Then one night, he raped Pohpoh, his eldest daughter. Every night he would call one of his daughters into bed with him. During the day, the children went to school like other children but, at night, they lived under the sexual tyranny of their father. Pohpoh had a childhood admirer and friend, whom she called her Boyie. One day, she seduced him in his mother's house but stopped right before sexual intercourse. Back in the nursing home, Mala begins to have visitors, Otoh and his father Ambrose Mohanty. Ambrose was Mala's Boyie. Part II of the novel further traces the development of the relationship between Mala and Otoh, a plot line that interweaves with one of Mala's memories of Pohpoh. In the memory, Pohpoh sneaks out of her father's home, enters another house, and returns safely, all the while being “protected” by the adult Mala. The memory is rich in detail about the nature that Pohpoh feels, smells, and hears, since the entire time she is covered in darkness. At the same time that Mala is reflecting on her quite vivid recollections of Pohpoh, Otoh begins to work up the courage to come see her. His father Ambrose had taken up an almost constant sleep and only awoke once a month to prepare provisions (a source of contention with his wife), which Otoh would then deliver to Mala. During one such delivery, Otoh dared to enter the Mala's yard dressed in his father's old clothes. Mistaking him for Ambrose, Mala dances with him and then takes him inside to show him the long-decaying body of her father. Terrified, he ran away and collapsed on the street outside. When he recounted what he had seen, the police came into Mala's house and investigated. Upon discovery of the body, they arrested her and prepared her for a court visit. However, before the police had a chance to retrieve the body from Mala's house, Otoh decided to make the rather decisive move (especially in comparison to his father) of burning down Mala's house. Parts III, IV, and V of the novel are all significantly shorter than the first two sections. Part III provides a flashback to the budding romance between Ambrose and Mala after he returned from studying in the Shivering Northern Wetlands, culminating in their act of making love. Unfortunately, it is that same day that Chandin realizes his daughter's affair and, as a result, abuses and rapes her severely. The next day, when Ambrose returns, there is a confrontation between all three. Ambrose runs away during the conflict, leaving Mala to lock her father's unconscious body in a room downstairs. Part IV of the novel includes the discovery that Ambrose's wife has left him and an explanation by Ambrose to Otoh that murdering her father had driven Mala mad. She attacked Ambrose anytime he tried to visit. Part V provides a sense of resolution to the novel with the discovery of several letters sent from Asha to Mala that were never delivered and the subsequent attempt by Tyler to contact Asha through this book. ===== When a martial arts expert discovers the existence of an illegal slave trade in the 1930s, he goes to great lengths to overthrow it. ===== In what is regarded as one of the most outrageous and taboo-smashing Shaw Brothers classics, sweet young Ai Nu is abducted and sold to the popular Four Seasons brothel run by lusty madam Chun Yi, who falls for her nubile charge and entrusts her with a number of martial arts secrets like "Ghost Hands," which allows a fighter to plunge into an opponent's chest. Soon murder erupts within the brothel, and a policeman must race against time to prevent a vicious revenge plot from reaching its blood-spattered conclusion. ===== Ted thinks that he has found the perfect girl, Cathy (played by Lindsay Price) and decides to take her to dinner along with the gang. During the dinner, Ted can see the group's hate for Cathy and their annoyance whenever she speaks to them. At first they refuse to give a reason so as not to "spoil" her for him, but eventually Marshall tells him that she talks too much. Ted refuses to believe it but when Marshall insist that he think about the dinner, Ted realizes that Cathy didn't allow the gang to answer her questions and continued speaking over them. Now that Ted knows, he cannot stand her garrulousness. The five friends then let slip each other's flaws until all are "spoiled", and thus are more annoying to those who had previously not noticed the flaws: *Lily: chewing everything, even cotton candy, loudly (pointed out by Ted to Marshall); *Marshall: singing about whatever he is doing at the moment, or nonsense (pointed out by Robin to Lily); *Ted: overcorrecting people on minuscule things (pointed out by Lily to Robin); *Robin: overusing and misusing the word "literally" (pointed out by Ted); *Barney: speaking in a falsetto, using catchphrases, and spacing out when his friends are talking to him (pointed out by Marshall, Robin and Ted to Barney, but ignored by Barney by his spacing out). Whenever one or more of the group has these quirks pointed out to them, the sound of glass shattering is heard. This represents the shattering of their illusions about one another. Meanwhile, Marshall's bar exam results have been released, but he cannot remember the password he needs to retrieve the results online (thus making him wait for three months for a notification by mail). Barney offers to help but this is only a ruse to make him watch a video of a dog pooping on a baby – something Marshall is furious at him for putting a disgusting video over his friends future, and, with Marshall angry at Barney and the whole gang annoyed with one another, the arguments reach a climax. The argument is halted when the group mockingly sings one of Marshall's "nonsense" songs (Apple Orchard Banana Cat Dance 8 6 6 3); the song was actually a mnemonic device to help Marshall remember his password (aobcd8663 – it is not shown if it has upper or lower case letters) for the bar exam results website. He enters it and proudly announces "I'm a lawyer". The group then celebrates with champagne at MacLaren's with each sliding back into their bad habits (Lily crunching loudly on bar snacks, Ted making a correction on a comment, Robin using "literally" incorrectly, Barney saying "law-suit up!" in a high-pitched voice, and Marshall singing his own praises) which they all let go. At the end, in a time leap three years forward, Ted runs into his overly loquacious ex-girlfriend with her deaf fiancé Daniel, and uses sign language to announce how Cathy talks too much. Even though the man is deaf and it does not affect him, Ted has "spoiled" Cathy to Daniel, and a subtitle displays "(Glass shattering)" as Ted walks away and Daniel looks on in despair. ===== Marshall is thrilled when he learns he got the job he's always wanted at the Natural Resources Defense Council. However, Lily urges him to keep his interview with the corporate, polluter-defending Nicholson, Hewitt, & West. Marshall is surprised at how young and understanding his interviewer, Jefferson Coatsworth, is, and agrees to go to dinner with him. Barney asserts that Coatsworth is trying to seduce Marshall, but Lily still insists that Marshall should still go to the dinner. While Marshall enjoys his fancy dinner (and is excited by an encounter with Patrick Swayze, one of NH&W;'s clients), Robin discovers why Lily actually wants Marshall to take the high-paying corporate job: Lily has dozens of credit cards and is very much in debt, owing to always shopping when she is upset about something. Robin is upset and asks her to confess to Marshall so that he takes the higher paying job. Although Marshall agrees to take the job, he regrets it the next day (with a little help from Lily, who eventually urges him to work at the NRDC) and goes to tell Coatsworth that he changed his mind. Coatsworth takes him to an amusement park and tells him that they will be his only client, at which point Marshall decides that he will definitely take the job, even to the point of saying that the amusement park was the "least evil place in the world", although Older Ted mentions that the amusement park was found in violation of several safety standards, three people died and an E. coli outbreak was traced back to the park's corndogs. Barney has discovered a pornographic movie entitled Welcome to the Sex Plane featuring a porn star named Ted Mosby. While Ted is at first amused to discover the reason behind strange encounters with his doctor and a magazine interviewer (and also discovering that Wendy the Waitress watches porn), he then becomes uncomfortable and confused upon learning that porn-star Ted Mosby is from the same town, Shaker Heights, Ohio, as Ted. He and Barney go to an adult video convention to confront "Bizarro Ted". They find out that Ted's double idolized him as a child, and honored him by taking his name. Ted wants "Bizarro Ted" to change his name, so he tells him the person who he really idolized was Lance Hardwood. Bizarro Ted instead makes a new movie entitled Lance Hardwood: Sex Architect (starring Ted Mosby). The guys watch the new movie in Ted's apartment, until they find out that it was filmed in the very same apartment, with a little help from Barney, who helped with the location of the porn. ===== On the way to perform at the opera in Naples, a famous singer is accosted by an outlaw leader who then proceeds to let her go with robbing anything. Later she believes she recognises the man as the Count of Sant'Elmo, although he indignantly denies this. She later discovers that he is in fact the leader of band of Carbonari fighting for Italian unification, battling the local chief of police Baron Cassano. ===== Nora Cotterelle, a woman in her 30s is caring for her ill father, Louis Jenssens. While Nora tries to present a facade that all is well with her life, she is twice divorced and has a son, Elias, whose father is dead. Elias has behavior problems caused by autism. Nora's present relationship is not going well, and she is soon to marry a businessman, while Elias is becoming increasingly withdrawn. A parallel storyline follows her former lover and second husband, Ismaël Vuillard, a musician, with whom she had lived for seven years. He is given to strange behaviour, and as a result he has been committed to a mental hospital, from which he is planning to escape. Nora learns that her father's digestive problems are actually cancer, and facing her father's death, Nora desperately seeks out Ismaël to ask that he reconnect with Elias, but he has mixed feelings about adopting her son. Moreover, he has met Arielle, another patient. ===== Gwen Taylor (Gail Patrick) is a famous Hollywood film star and about to become more famous. On her manager's advice, she has concealed from the press the fact that she's a widow with a fourteen-year-old daughter, Gloria (Deanna Durbin). Gloria lives in a girls-only boarding school in Switzerland. Gloria never sees her Mother and never knew her Father, who died when she was just a baby; he was a navy pilot during wartime. She has invented a fictitious 'father', from who she receives letters, which she writes herself. But the other girls are getting curious and Gloria decides to kid them that he's about to visit her. Felice (Helen Parrish), another girl at the school, is suspicious and tries to prove that her father doesn't exist. The girls often meet the boys from a nearby boarding school. One of them, Tommy, (Jackie Moran), has a crush on her, and she likes him as well. At a church service, Gloria sings, "Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod)" with a boy's choir. Gloria needs to quickly find someone to act as her father for a day. She goes to the train station to meet her "father" and the man she picks at random is Richard Todd (Herbert Marshall), an English composer on holiday, accompanied by Tripps (Arthur Treacher), his valet/secretary. Amused at her presumption, he decides to play along, and comes to her school, acting like he really is her father. Gloria discovers that her mother will be visiting Paris and that Richard is also planning to visit Paris on business. She stows away on a train and manages to persuade Richard to pay her fare. In Paris, Richard discovers who Gloria's mother is and decides that it's about time for a reunion between her and Gloria. At a press conference, Gwen admits to having a fourteen-year- old daughter. Mother and daughter are tearfully reunited and Gwen is grateful to Richard for bringing Gloria back to her. A budding romance between Gwen and Richard is now obvious and the movie ends with Gloria singing, "A Serenade to the Stars" while the girls from her school, her mother and Richard sit happily together. ===== Ryden Malby graduates from college in the middle of the late-2000s recession and is forced to move back in with her parents, because her dream job has been given to her arrogant college nemesis Jessica Bard. Ryden and her best friend Adam, who has had a longtime crush on her, must find a job for Ryden before she loses hope for her future dream as an editor of a big publishing company, but her ambitions for getting a job blinded her from noticing that Adam was giving up going to New York in hopes that one day she will feel about him the same way he does for her. After a while, Adam gives up and goes to Columbia and Ryden gets her dream job, but realizes she isn't really happy and quits her job to go and live with Adam. ===== In the Soviet Union, groups of potential Soviet spies are trained in a town made up to pass for "Indian Springs", Nebraska. The denizens of the town speak perfect English and go about their days as Americans to train the cadets to fit into American society. One of the trainers in this town, KGB agent Cameron Smith (Charles Martin Smith), feels that the training is substandard as the town has failed to develop culturally since its inception and is stuck in the 1950s. In order to rectify the situation, Smith hires New York City club-goers (and aspiring club-owners) Travis (John Travolta) and Wendell (Arye Gross) to teach modern ways to the outdated town under the auspices of opening a nightclub. The two are drugged en route and wake up in Russia unaware they have left the United States. Travis and Wendell are bemused by the quaint ways of the town and dismayed when they see the location Smith has procured for them (a 50s-style tiki lounge), but they set to work remodeling the club, begin to make friends around the town and even start to date a couple of the trainees, Bonnie (Kelly Preston) and Jill (Deborah Foreman). At the urging of Travis and Wendell, Smith brings in a shipment of top-of-the-line accouterments and entertainment to modernize the town. This doesn't sit well with town leader Jones (Brian Doyle-Murray) and the town's minister Sparks (Rick Ducommun). After a Fourth of July party in which the young people of the town (trainees and residents alike) trespass at a local lake to have a party at Travis and Wendell's urging, the two get lost and stumble upon a military base where everyone is speaking Russian and realize they are actually in the Soviet Union. The two decide to go to Bonnie and Jill for help despite knowing that they are spies, each one asserting that their feelings are real. While Bonnie reveals she has fallen in love with Travis and agrees to help him, Jill promptly turns them in. While in prison the pair meet Yuri (James Keach), the pilot who flew the cargo plane that delivered the modern conveniences, and who was promptly imprisoned for it. Travis and Wendell are brought before the town, and under pain of death are made to renounce their country and democracy. When the two cannot bring themselves to do it and instead extol American life, they inspire the town residents, including Smith and Bonnie, to revolt and overthrow their leaders. After a shootout and subsequent chase (wherein Yuri has to go out on the wing as the plane taxis down the runway), the expatriates escape and make national headlines when they land in America and defect. Some time later the town's residents are living it up in New York City, but Travis is uneasy, thinking that they may be missing their old lifestyle. Realizing that there probably is a town in America just like the one in Russia, the whole group relocates to the actual Nebraska, and resume their lives as Americans, this time for real. ===== Loss and Gain describes the religious climate of Oxford University during the 1820s,The novel lacks specific dates but the text contains clues setting this during Newman's own time of study at Oxford, rather than the time of his conversion. See Part III Chapter 4, referencing the Catholic Relief Bill, adopted in 1829 as the Catholic Relief Act. The same chapter describes the main character, Charles Reding, as having started at Oxford four to five years previously. Thus the novel's beginning can be set at approximately 1823-24. a time of great contention between various factions within the Church of England. Some factions advocated Protestant doctrines, renouncing the development of doctrine through tradition and instead emphasising private interpretation of scripture. Against these and other liberal religious factions, the Oxford Movement, of which Newman was a leading member, advocated a Catholic interpretation of the Church of England, claiming that the Church and its traditions were authoritative. Amongst all of these thinkers, however, the Roman Catholic Church was despised as having abdicated its claim to doctrinal authority by introducing superstition into its practice. Accordingly, when Newman converted to Roman Catholicism in 1845, he met with vehement criticism. In Loss and Gain, Newman's first publication after his conversion, he expressed the intellectual and emotional development that led him to Roman Catholicism and the response his conversion elicited. Newman was in his 40s and was an esteemed theologian at the time of his conversion, but in the novel he displaces his experience onto Charles Reding, a young student entering Oxford and experiencing its intellectual climate for the first time. Although Charles attempts to follow a conventional path and avoid being influenced by "parties" (i.e. cliques advocating trendy sectarian views), he soon discovers that he is inclined towards Roman Catholicism. He struggles against this inclination but eventually decides he must convert, a decision that causes great consternation to his family and friends but leads to personal fulfilment. ===== Nero Wolfe (William Conrad) enjoys a life of refined self-indulgence in his comfortable Manhattan brownstone — reading, dining, spending regular hours in his rooftop plant rooms, and only reluctantly involving himself in the detection of crime. Famously sedentary, Wolfe relies on his legman Archie Goodwin (Lee Horsley) to collect the clues and the suspects in any case at hand, while he spars with his live-in chef Fritz Brenner (George Voskovec) and bickers with his resident orchid nurse Theodore Horstmann (Robert Coote, in his final role). Often assisted by freelance detective Saul Panzer (George Wyner), Wolfe and Archie customarily gather the suspects in Wolfe's office and present the solution to the exasperated Inspector Cramer (Allan Miller) of Manhattan Homicide. ===== The Kellers are a bourgeois couple living in a smaller German town whose daughter has married the Russian emigre writer Chorb. The distrust between Chorb and his father-in-law is deepened when Chorb and his bride escape from the formality of their wedding to spend their first night at a local seedy hotel. On the honeymoon, the bride accidentally touches a live electric wire near Nice and dies. Chorb now returns to recreate her image by visiting the sites they had been to together and to tell her parents. Arriving in the evening he only finds the maid at the Kellers' home as they have gone to the opera to see Parsifal. Chorb does not want to break the news to her and tells her that his bride is ill and he will be back in the morning. He returns to the hotel to spend the night in the same room he had been with his wife. Unable to stay in the room alone, he pays a prostitute to stay with him. When the Kellers get home, they are too alarmed to wait for the morning and leave for the hotel. There, during the night, Chorb sees his wife in the prostitute, screams, and the terrified woman is about to leave: at this moment the Kellers arrive. ===== The action of Imperial Bedrooms depicts Clay, who, after four months in New York, returns to Los Angeles to assist in the casting of his new film. There, he meets up with his old friends who were characters in Less Than Zero. Like Clay, they have all become involved in the film industry: his philandering friend Trent Burroughs--who has married Blair--is a manager, while Clay's former classmate at Camden, Daniel Carter, has become a famous director. Julian Wells, who was a male prostitute in Less Than Zero, has become an ultra-discreet high-class pimp representing struggling young actors who do not wish to tarnish future careers. Rip Millar, Clay's former drug dealer, now controls his own cartel and has become disfigured through repeated plastic surgeries. Clay attempts to romance Rain Turner, a gorgeous young woman auditioning for a role in his new film, leading her on with the promise of being cast, all the while knowing she will never get the part because of her complete lack of acting skills. His narration reveals he has done this with a number of men and women in the past, and yet often comes out of the relationship hurt and damaged himself. Over the course of their relationship, he is stalked by unknown persons driving a Jeep and is frequently reminded by various individuals of the grisly murder of a young producer whom he knew. As the novel progresses, Clay learns that Rip also had a fling with Rain and is now obsessed with her. When Clay discovers that Julian is currently Rain's boyfriend, he conspires with Rip to hand Julian over to him. When Julian is then found murdered, Rain confronts Clay about his role in the affair and is raped by him in response. He later receives a video of Julian's murder from Rip which has been overdubbed with an angry voicemail from Clay as a means to implicate him in the crime. The novel then depicts sequences of the savage sexual and physical abuse of a beautiful young girl and young boy, perpetrated by Clay. Clay experiences no feelings of remorse or guilt for this, or for exploiting and raping Rain. In the last scenes, it is strongly implied that Blair has been hiring people to follow Clay. In return for his giving her what she wants, she offers to provide Clay with a false alibi that will prevent the police from arresting him as an accomplice to Julian's murder. ===== Sandeep 'Sandy' (Allu Arjun) is a next-gen youngster who parties hard and has a modern outlook, but his ideas towards marriage are traditional. As he gets a job in the USA, his parents Vasundhara (Suhasini) and Raj Gopal (Ashish Vidyarthi), who got married against their respective parents' wishes, ask him to get married. He accepts and tells them that he will marry a girl of their choice in a ceremony that lasts five days. He also refuses to see his bride until the marriage. Everything is arranged according to his wishes, and his marriage is fixed with Deepthi (Bhanu Sri Mehra). At the ceremony, when Sandy and Deepthi see each other, they fall in love at first sight. Deepthi gets kidnapped by a local goon named Diwakar (Arya). Sandy's family tries to convince him for another marriage, but he refuses and tries finding his bride. He gets to know Deepthi's whereabouts. Diwakar kidnapped Deepthi to take revenge from her as she slapped him for misbehaving with her in public. The police gets killed by Diwakar and his men. Sandy takes law into his hands and kidnaps Diwakar's brother and gets his bride. In a scuffle, he challenges Diwakar for a fight on his marriage day, to which he agrees. Sandy and Deepthi get married successfully, this time with all the rituals. When they step out of the mandap, Diwakar attacks Sandy. A fight happens in which Sandy overcomes Diwakar and kills him. Sandy and Deepthi then live happily ever after. ===== The book starts with Grubbs fighting a demon alongside Beranabus and Kernel in the Demonata universe. After subduing and torturing the demon they are fighting, they question it about the Shadow, but learn nothing. Later, they meet up with Shark, Meera, Bec and Dervish. They discover that the Lambs were responsible for the attack on the Grady's home in Carcery Vale and it is decided that Grubbs should go after them to find out more. Shark assembles a team of soldiers he names the "Dirty Dozen". One of them is Timas Brauss, a computer expert, who finds the Lamb's Headquarters. Upon their arrival, they find a man named Antoine Horwitzer in charge, in place of the missing Prae Athim. Antoine explains that Prae stole around six to seven hundred werewolves from their breeding facility. They learn, through Timas' efforts, that Prae took all the werewolves to "Wolf Island" and Antoine accompanies them there. On the island, they find Prae a prisoner. It emerges that Antoine and Juni Swan were behind the assault. Juni Swan arrives shortly after and they are attacked. They manage to flee and attempt to escape on the helicopter they arrived in but it is destroyed. They try to escape from the released werewolves through a window, but are attacked before they can open one. Shark is left behind in the subsequent fight. Grubbs, Meera, Prae and Timas try to escape by sea since the werewolves cannot swim but ultimately find themselves surrounded. Grubbs becomes a werewolf and kills the leader of the pack, replacing him and assuming control of the werewolves. He makes the werewolves go back to attack Juni. Grubbs fights Juni but is eventually overpowered. Just as he is about to be killed, Juni has a vision. She says that Grubbs is tapping into great magic and that the world is being destroyed, informing him "the demons will not destroy the world, Grubbs Grady - you will." With that, she leaves. Grubbs later finds Antoine trying to escape by boat. Grubbs agrees not to kill Antoine if he calls his Lambs off their attack and has them escort Bec and Dervish to safety. Once this is done, Antoine asks Grubbs to keep his end of the bargain. Grubbs confirms he would not kill Antoine, "but that doesn't mean the pack won't". Antoine is savagely killed. On the way back to the docks, they see a man lying on his back in a boat. This is revealed to be a severely injured Shark, who fought and killed the werewolves he was left to fight with. When Grubbs gets back home, he finds Dervish has decided to stay and die instead of going to the Demonata world. A window opens and Grubbs, Bec, Dervish, and Kirilli prepare to fight. ===== Whilst on a family cruise in the Antarctic, Jo and Colin meet an iceberg called Ivan. He is slowly melting and pleads with the children to help him before it's too late. Their father makes a videotape recording of Ivan and the problems faced by himself and the glaciers which is then aired on Blue Peter. This initiates a nationwide contest amongst schools to devise better environmental ways, and the prize is to visit the Antarctic to find Ivan. Thanks to a host of clever ideas from the children and an enlighted head teacher, Jo and Colin's school wins a place on the amazing sea voyage. They manage to locate Ivan, who is pretty ill, in time to tell him that his appeal has not been in vain. ===== ===== The game begins with the Prince (which is only a nickname, the game does not actually mention whether he is from a royal family or not) in search of his donkey, Farah, in the middle of a desert sandstorm. He then runs into Elika, a princess of the Ahura who is fleeing from soldiers. The two fend off the soldiers, with Elika discovering her magical powers of light. The Prince follows her into a temple which houses Ahriman, a force of evil who is trapped within a tree known as the Tree of Life. Once inside the temple, the Prince and Elika are confronted by Elika's father, the Mourning King, who faces them in battle. After the fight, he uses his sword to cut the Tree of Life, setting Ahriman free. The Prince and Elika escape the temple, only to find a corrupted world outside. Elika tells the Prince that in order to restore the world and rid the corruption inhabiting it, they must heal all the Fertile Grounds in the kingdom. They then begin restoring the Fertile Grounds, encountering the Warrior, the Hunter, the Concubine and the Alchemist, four corrupted leaders Ahriman chose to set free. In the journey, it is revealed that Elika had died prior to the beginning of the game. Her father took her to Ahriman and asked him to revive her selling his soul in the process to Ahriman, thus making him one of the corrupted. Once Elika is revived she discovers she has new-found powers. After gaining even more powers, the two encounter Elika's father once again. After healing all the Fertile Grounds, as well as defeating all bosses, Elika and the Prince return to the temple to imprison Ahriman. Once inside, however, they are confronted by the king who is now a fully corrupted being. They defeat him, he calls his daughter's name, turns away from them and throws himself off the platform they are on. Ahriman rises from the corruption below. They battle him, but Elika must give up her very life to finish the spell which seals Ahriman away. She finishes the spell and dies. The Prince then takes Elika's body outside. There are four Fertile Grounds there, each with a tree, that according to what Elika had told him, channel the power of all the Fertile Grounds to the Tree of Life. He is given a vision which is the same one both he and Elika shared much earlier that shows her father's deal with Ahriman to revive her. When they shared the vision at that time she told the Prince that visions come from Ormazd, not Ahriman. The vision (just like the main debate throughout the game between Elika and the Prince was all about Destiny vs Free Will) is all about choice. The Prince re-creates the deal made by Elika's father. He destroys the four Fertile Grounds around the Temple and returns inside. He cuts down the Tree of Life and takes the light power Elika used to heal the Tree. The Prince returns the Light to Elika's body, and she returns to life. The game ends with the Prince carrying Elika across the desert while Ahriman's darkness envelops the world and the Temple was gone. ===== Dr. Tim Mason (Roger Pryor), a medical researcher experimenting in "frozen therapy" visits the deserted home of Dr. Leon Kravaal (Boris Karloff), the originator of the therapy, who has been missing for ten years. After discovering a secret passage in the basement, Dr. Mason and his nurse (Jo Ann Sayers) discover Kravaal frozen in an ice chambers. The doctor and nurse successfully revive Kravaal and Kravaal explains in flashback how he and five other men came to be frozen. One man is found dead. However, the other four men are located and revived. Because of closed-minded prejudice against science, one of the four men destroys Kravaal's formula for "frozen therapy." In an act of rage and self preservation, Kravaal isn't able to stop the man in time from destroying it and shoots and kills him. Not having memorized the formula as of yet, Kravaal holds everyone captive in order to use them as guinea pigs, hoping to unlock the key to "frozen therapy" for a second time. ===== Amane Kamori lives in a rural village, isolated from modern society. She is a powerful medium, able to control living creatures and things through the use of its real name. Her main companion is Hyoue, her guardian demon dog, who she powers up through kissing. Forbidden from revealing her identity, she and Hyoue are allowed to move to Tokyo. Together they work to help both the living and the dead deal with various troubles, while also adjusting to high school society. Amane must deal with jealousy from classmates, who don't understand why the handsome Hyoue is so devoted to her, as well as with her own family attempting to force her to come home. The family even attempts to break her bond with Hyoue. Meanwhile, Hyoue devotes himself to his master, while struggling to hide the forbidden feelings he has for her. ===== Helen McNichol (Tania Raymonde), a high school senior, is in love with Stanford Prescott (Ryan Merriman), her jock boyfriend, and has decided to give it all up to him. At least until she learns that her name is written in the high school football team's secret Bang Book and it is Stanford's job to deflower her. The tables are turned and the battle begins when she and her two best friends Katelyn Chase and Trish Van Doren (Rumer Willis and Kristin Cavallari) form a pact to maintain their virginity, embarrass the team and foil the plot against them."Schneider, Raymonde, Willis, in 'Wild Cherry'," Entertainment Weekly (Apr 21, 2008). Helen gets Stanford by ramming him off of a go-cart track and then She along with Katelyn and Trish trick him and his two best friends (Who are also Katelyn and Trish's boyfriends) into accidentally making out with each other. Then eventually at a party they slip a sex pill into the punch and gives Stanford and his friends a Raging Boner. Helen then confronts Katelyn and Trish about the sex pills and blames them for everything and then visits Stanford at the hospital tries to apologize and make it up to him, but he turns her down and tells her to go away. Heartbroken about her breakup with Stanford, Helen at first decides not to go his football game, but after a talk with her father Nathan (Rob Schneider) about how people make mistakes in life, she changes her mind. At the football game Helen apologizes to Katelyn and Trish and they forgive her, however, Stanford's team is losing the game. During Halftime Helen takes the microphone and apologizes for everything and helps Stanford and his team into realizing why they are losing and Stanford forgives her. When the next match comes, Stanford and his team follow Helen's advice and beat the other team. Everyone then goes to the victory party where Helen and Stanford finally have Sex. The film ends with Helen coming home after the party and sees Nathan sitting on a closed toilet playing a trombone through the window in which she smiles at. ===== In 1968, François joins the civil unrest in Paris with his friends. He meets Lilie and falls in love with her. ===== Judith Poe Wells (Alice Faye) is a would-be playwright who has almost no money. As a result of ordering a meal in a restaurant where she cannot afford to pay, she meets George Macrae (Don Ameche), a musical writer with a lot of power. He offers her play North Winds to producer Sam Woods. He knows it isn't any good, but he has fallen in love with her and does it to win her over. ===== The setting is the Islaev country estate in the 1840s. Natalya Petrovna, a headstrong 29-year-old, is married to Arkadi Islaev, a rich landowner seven years her senior. Bored with life, she welcomes the attentions of Mikhail Rakitin as her devoted but resentful admirer, without ever letting their friendship develop into a love affair. The arrival of the handsome 21-year-old student Aleksei Belyaev as tutor to her son Kolya ends her boredom. Natalya falls in love with Aleksei, but so does her ward Vera, the Islaevs' 17-year-old foster daughter. To rid herself of her rival, Natalya proposes that Vera should marry a rich old neighbour, but the rivalry remains unresolved. Rakitin struggles with his love for Natalya, and she wrestles with hers for Aleksei, while Vera and Aleksei draw closer. Misunderstandings arise, and when Arkadi begins to have his suspicions, both Rakitin and Aleksei are obliged to leave. As other members of the household drift off to their own worlds, Natalya's life returns to a state of boredom. ===== At Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, a group of Marines have just returned to the US from Iraq. As the Marines leave, one Marine remains and makes his way towards the exit. The Marine's name is Jesse Rodriguez (Freddy Rodriguez). The film cuts to a house where a man, Edy Rodriguez (Alfred Molina) is on a ladder nailing up a welcome home sign for Jesse. The woman, his wife, Anna Rodriguez (Elizabeth Peña) gives him a rather disgruntled look before leaving to prepare for Jesse's return. Edy then travels to his store, a small neighborhood supermarket, called Bodega. Along the way, and even in the store, Edy appears to be quite popular with the ladies. Back at the airport, Jesse finally meets up with his friend and cousin Johnny (Luis Guzmán) and Ozzy (Jay Hernandez), who have come to pick him up. On the way to his fathers store, Jesse takes off his eye-patch to reveal that he can still see, but the area around his eye is badly injured. After some prompting from Johnny and Ozzy, he reveals that he was the lucky one, as his friend Lenny was not as lucky and Jesse feels some guilt for this. On the way, the three pass a park and Jesse tells them to stop. The park was their childhood playground and the three take a little time off to play a game of baseball and reminisce. While at the park, Ozzy spots Alexis (Manny Pérez), the man who killed his brother, recently been released from prison. Ozzy stares at Alexis, and Alexis stares back, however, before Ozzy is able to make his way to Alexis, both Jesse and Johnny hold him back then they make their way to Edy's store. Jesse's sister Roxanna (Vanessa Ferlito) arrives by taxi, although everyone assumes she came in a limo because they all assume that she made it big in Hollywood as an actress. Jesse's Brother Mauricio (John Leguizamo) also arrives, along with his wife Sarah (Debra Messing). Sarah greets Anna and it is evident that she is not exactly comfortable around her in-laws but she is making an effort, even speaking a bit of Spanish. However, the topic drifts towards children and Anna makes it very clear that she wants grandchildren, but Sarah is a very business driven woman and isn't ready for kids, this causes some tension between Sarah, Anna, and Mauricio. After things settle down, everyone sits down and begins to catch up and each persons story is brought up: Jesse has just returned from a three-year tour in Iraq and is being prepared by Edy to take up the family business; Roxanna is waiting on news regarding a new TV deal; and Mauricio is an attorney and Sarah is in finances and making a great deal of money, but don't have time for much else. The conversation moves towards Jesse's experience in Iraq, but he does not want to talk about it (important later). Soon after, Marissa (Melonie Diaz), her son, and her boyfriend Fernando (Ramses Jimenez) arrive. Marissa is Roxanna's best friend from childhood, and Jesse's ex-girlfriend. It is evident that Jesse still has feelings for Marissa and vice versa, but there is much tension in the air. After everyone has arrived, they all sit down for Christmas dinner. Everyone is digging into an abundant pile of food, chatting away, while Sarah sits there with a look of awe on her face as she has never experienced the holidays with Mauricio's family. Edy is about to give a toast to everyone but gets a call, it seems that Edy has been getting a lot of calls, and often runs out when he does which gets Anna suspicious that he is having an affair, and cheating on her again (there was one previous incident in the past). Well, when the phone rings during Edy's toast, he stops to answer the call, and having broken the last straw, Anna proclaims that she is divorcing Edy. At first everyone thinks this is a joke, but it is soon evident that Anna is dead serious. Edy reacts with little emotion, saying that if it is what Anna wants then he can't really do anything about it. Mauricio is vehemently against this and tries to get some support from Jesse, whose response is similar to his father's, which angers Mauricio further. At this time, Johnny, Ozzy, Marissa and Fernando excuse themselves as it is a family matter. After more arguing, everyone leaves to vent, except for Sarah, who stays at her seat and continues eating, sort of a gesture of comfort/support to Anna; and the two have a somewhat awkward yet endearing bonding moment. At night, Jesse is about to go to bed when Edy shows up, having been kicked out of the bed room and is now bunking with Jesse. Father and son have a conversation about Jesse's experiences but Edy can't really get much out of his son. Later that night, Mauricio is up in the attic thinking about the night's events when Roxanna shows up. The two share a drink and Jesse shows up. The siblings reminisce about their childhood and what the future will be like after their parents divorce. Both Roxanna and Jesse are relatively neutral on the matter, but Mauricio is very against them. Being the only one of the three to be married, he believes that after 36 years of marriage, their parents have to have at least some love for each other, and that there is always a chance to salvage what remains of their marriage and he says all this while in his underwear (humorous scene). In the morning, Jesse catches up with Marissa while she is walking to work. She still hasn't forgiven him for leaving her several years ago. As it turns out, Jesse didn't want to stay in town and follow in his father's footsteps and ended up enlisting in the Marines. While in Iraq, his unit was holed up in a building for the night, Lenny offered to take Jesse's watch so he can grab something to eat. While Jesse is getting some food, a rocket propelled grenade is shot into the building and Lenny is killed, while everyone else is injured. Ever since then, Jesse blames himself for Lenny's death since it was supposed to be his watch, and his life that would be lost. Marissa sympathizes and forgives him. Back at the house, Mauricio is attempting to get Anna and Edy back together by bringing over their priest, Father Torres (Manny Sosa). Anna returns home and Mauricio brings her into the kitchen. Anna is clearly drunk and is very upset. Another argument ensues and everyone is at each other's throats. Mauricio argues with Anna regarding having children, Roxanna reveals that shes not a star and can barely make ends meet. Both Mauricio and Roxanna think Jesse has it easy, since he gets the store to manage as soon as he returned. However, Jesse doesn't want to manage the store and his guilt over Lenny's death has been haunting him since his return. After more arguing, everyone leaves. Roxanna, Jesse and Mauricio end up in a bar to drink/party to vent off some tension. Sarah gets back to the house and finds out that everyone has left. Edy offers to give her a ride to the bar where everyone is. While driving Sarah to the bar to meet the others, Edy appears to have a heart attack and stomps on the brakes. Luckily, they skid into a parking area and no one is injured; Sarah is able to fetch Edy's medication from the glove box in time. As Sarah looks at the bottles, she realizes that Edy is really very ill and that that's the reason he's getting those phone calls (the doctor). Edy makes her promise to not tell anyone, since he doesn't want anyone to worry so they can enjoy the holidays. At the bar, everyone takes the chance to have some fun, drinking and dancing. Sarah gets hammered and starts dancing with Mauricio. Everyone is having a blast and Jesse takes the time to talk to Marissa. Roxanna, receives a call from her agent (with no actual news regarding the new part), goes outside to answer the phone and have a smoke. While Roxanna is out having a smoke, Ozzy comes out to talk to her. Ozzy likes Roxanna, but she is a bit apprehensive as she sees him as a gang-member type person, although Marissa has noted that he hasn't been part of that crowd for quite some time. Roxanna and Ozzy go to the local ice rink to talk, and Roxanna tells him that she really isn't much of a star since she has only had a few small roles on TV and in commercials and can't really get a big part. Ozzy assures her that she will get her big break, but she is not so sure. Roxanna mentions returning home since her career isn't going anywhere, and her mom may need her around during the divorce. Ozzy is happy that Roxanna may stay, but is supportive of her career. The next day, everyone prepares to have a little Christmas carol parade, where people travel from house to house caroling, and people join along the way until nearly the entire neighborhood has joined in. The parade ends with everyone arriving at the church for a big party/dinner. Everyone is dancing and having fun. Fernando goes off to get something to drink and Jesse asks Marissa for a dance. The two begins to get close and Jesse leans in to kiss her, just as Fernando lunges in and hits Jesse. Jesse pummels Fernando before his friends drag him off. While this is happening, Ozzy can't take it anymore and leaves to confront Alexis. Alexis is returning home with his mother and sees Ozzy. Knowing what Ozzy has come to do, he tells his mother to go into the house and make dinner, while he goes outside with Ozzy. Outside, Alexis tells Ozzy that he's ready to die, and has been for many years while in prison. Ozzy is visibly struggling to decide whether or not to kill Alexis, just then, his phone rings, it's Roxanna. Ozzy gives up, and lets Alexis live, and leaves to meet Roxanna. Ozzy and Roxanna go to the river, where he gets rid of the gun, and the two kiss. After midnight mass, Edy drives Anna home. On the ride home Anna confronts Edy about his affair, but all Edy will say is that all he wants is to have a good Christmas with the whole family, and that they should keep it together until the kids leave. Anna says that after the kids leave, there will be nothing more to talk about. Edy is now alone in the kitchen, drinking. Jesse and Mauricio return home and join their father, each drinking to their own little problems. Edy, decides to do one last thing for Anna and finally cut down that tree so the three go outside and secure the tree to a chain that is connected to the rear bumper of Edy's car. Edy guns the engine but the rear bumper comes off and he crashes into a parked car, injuring himself. Anna calls the ambulance and Edy is rushed off to the hospital. Before the ambulance leaves, Sarah runs out to Anna and hands her all of Edy's medications since she's the only one who knows how serious his health is. The whole family is at the hospital to check on Edy. It turns out that Edy has cancer, it's serious but he's being treated for it. Anna finally realizes that Edy was not cheating on her, and that the Susan that Edy was talking to was actually his oncologist. The couple make their peace and profess love for each other, and then Anna smacks Edy for being stupid and not telling her sooner. Having seen how frail life can be, Sarah decides to have children, and take the new position at work, and will try to balance both in her life with support from Mauricio. Back at the house, Anna is teaching Roxanna and Sarah how to cook with moderate success. Roxanna gets a call from her agent, and when she returns, it appears as she has not gotten the part. Outside the house, Ozzy comes by to talk to Roxanna and she reveals that she actually did get the part, but it wasn't a very big part anyway, and she thought it would be best to stick with her family during these times, so she turned down the part. Jesse visits Marissa to drop off some Christmas presents and to apologize for his behavior the previous night. She forgives him, but she has a relationship with Fernando now and a happy family life. Jesse concedes and wishes her a happy life. After leaving, Jesse sits on a park bench, making a call to Lenny's parents to tell them about their son and how he died so he can get closure and move on. After discharge from the hospital, Edy takes Jesse to his store, Jesse has decided to take up the family business instead of going back to Iraq. ===== Thirty years have passed since Alexandra Spofford, Jane Smart and Sukie Rougemont terrorized the Rhode Island town of Eastwick with their witchcraft and cavorted with Darryl Van Horne, possibly the devil. All three women had remarried, left Eastwick and gradually fallen out of touch. They begin to restore their friendship as they one by one become widowed, which is implied to be the work of Jane, the most aggressive of the witches and who had pushed for the death of their romantic rival, Jenny Gabriel, who died of metastasized ovarian cancer shortly after her marriage to Van Horne. After touring the Canadian Rockies (Alexandra), Egypt (Alexandra and Jane) and China (all three), they agree to revisit Eastwick, largely out of unspoken guilt for their role in Jenny's death. While conducting a white magic spell at their rented condominium (part of Van Horne's old mansion), Jane, who had earlier been complaining of odd electric shocks, suddenly dies of an aneurysm of the aorta. Alexandra and Sukie both learn that Jenny's brother, Christopher (who had also been Van Horne's lover) killed Jane using methods involving electrons and quantum physics he learned from Van Horne. He plans to kill the other two witches next but doesn't, possibly because Sukie seduces him. Alexandra returns to New Mexico, where she previously settled with her second husband after first leaving Eastwick, and Sukie moves to Manhattan with Christopher. The novel ends with the two women happily making plans to meet up for another vacation. ===== A boatswain finds himself stranded on an island. Surrounded by starving, poor islanders, the boatswain soon learns that the misery is not caused by the people themselves, but rather by a pack of blood-thirsty pirates. ===== In Stringer, Mississippi, inmates are being made to prepare and fortify a prison farm for a series of devastating tornadoes, which are due to pass through within the next few hours. An argument breaks out between Wilson "Pinker" Rawls (John Diehl) and another inmate, causing Pinker to pin the other prisoner's hand to a wall with a nail. After being reported to the warden for the incident, Pinker is made to sit through the tornado in a tiny outdoor shack. Afterwards, the prisoners and guards emerge from their shelters and discover that the shack has been totally destroyed. One of the guards later finds the warden's body split in half around the waist, propping his office door shut from the inside. Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) soon arrive to investigate. Scully performs an autopsy and concludes that the severing of the torso and severe burn marks could have been caused by the weather conditions at the time and that a substantial amount of the torso is missing from the severing. The guard who found the warden's body insists that it was the work of Pinker, but cannot bring himself to explain how he did it. Mulder finds that a wall in the office has become extremely brittle and crumbles at the slightest touch. Meanwhile, in Meridian, a woman named June Gurwitch is disturbed when she watches a news report on Pinker's apparent death. Elsewhere, Pinker is revealed to be alive. After breaking into a clothing store, he is confronted by a security guard and handcuffed. However, Pinker quickly slips out of the handcuffs and escapes in the security guard's car. Later, Mulder inspects the handcuffs and finds that they too have become brittle, crumbling into dust. Bo Merkle, an old friend of Pinker's, discovers Pinker ransacking his house, demanding to know June's whereabouts. Bo attempts to shoot Pinker, but the bullets merely pass through him. In response, Pinker burns off Bo's face and kills him. Mulder later discovers that the spent bullets, too, crumble into dust when compressed. He muses that Pinker, after being struck by lightning, must have developed the ability to pass through solid objects. Scully argues that he cannot possibly defy the laws of chemistry. Evidence leads the agents to track down June, while Pinker accosts her sister Jackie and her son Trevor. Mulder and Scully later discover Jackie, who tells the agents that Pinker has the ability to walk through walls. June changed her last name to avoid Pinker; the agents find her living with her new boyfriend and convince her to go into witness protection. Pinker, who was hiding in the agents' car, leaves a charred message on June's house wall, but the agents discover that glass, acting as an insulator to electricity, repulses Pinker's abilities. Scully deciphers a doctor's note and learns that Pinker is actually in search of his son, whom he has not yet met. June is placed in a motel by the Mississippi Highway Patrol. However, Pinker kidnaps her after killing the trooper assigned to guard her. Pinker discovers his child is actually Trevor, who has been living with Jackie for the past several years as her son. Pinker attempts to kidnap Trevor, but is confronted by Mulder, who is armed with a shotgun loaded with rubber bullets. Pinker manages to evade Mulder and continues to chase after Trevor and Scully, whom he quickly corners. Scully, using Mulder's glass insulator hypothesis, locks herself inside a telephone booth with Trevor. After failing to break into the telephone booth, Pinker sees his son trembling before him. Realizing that he does not want to scare his son anymore, Pinker decides to walk away. However, June appears and hits Pinker with her car; he passes through the metal components of the car, but not its glass windshield, and is cut in half and killed as a result. June insists she had to do it or else Pinker would have hurt Trevor. She asks what Pinker wanted, to which Mulder replies, "Maybe another chance", causing June to cry. ===== Phillip Padgett (John Hawkes), a fledgling author, sits at a desk, suffering from writer's block. He eventually retires to the bathroom to discard a spent cigarette. Without warning or concern, the man suddenly reaches into his chest and removes a bloody heart. Later, he walks down metal stairs into a cluttered basement, and opens the door of an incinerator. Noticing a beating heart amidst the flames, and unfazed by the vision, he nonchalantly tosses in a paper bag. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) later encounters the stranger as she walks into an elevator. Both ride in silence up to the fourth floor, with Scully somewhat unsettled by the experience. At Fox Mulder's (David Duchovny) apartment, Mulder and Scully begin discussing a case the pair are working on, wherein the heart of the victim had been removed with the absence of any significant physical evidence. Mulder believes the heart was removed with a technique known as psychic surgery. Meanwhile, Padgett, who is Mulder's neighbor, stands on a chair with his ear to an air vent, listening to the conversation. Later that night, two teenagers get into a fight in the woods. The girl, named Maggie (Jillian Bach), runs into the woods to be alone and Kevin (Angelo Vacco), her boyfriend, gives chase. However, he is attacked and his heart is removed. Meanwhile, the writer intensely transcribes the event on his typewriter. The next day, Mulder and Scully discuss this latest incident via phone. An unmarked envelope is discovered by Scully in the office containing a milagro, a type of pendant. While she examines the pendant, a voice-over from the writer describes Scully's most intimate feelings as she examines the unsolicited gift. Scully later runs into the author at a church. He admits sending Scully the pendant and discusses with her the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She leaves, visibly shaken. Scully meets Mulder and relays her most recent encounter with the writer to Mulder. Later, Padgett woos Scully into his apartment with more character revelations. Mulder bursts in and arrests him based on accurate descriptions of the case murders in his novel, which he secretly read after discovering it in the mail. While Padgett is in custody, Maggie is murdered in the same fashion as Kevin. This establishes a de facto alibi for the author. Lacking concrete and connective evidence to the murders, and hoping Padgett might lead them to his partner in crime, Mulder releases Padgett from custody. Back at his apartment, Padgett converses with the killer from his book, a deceased Brazilian surgeon named Ken Naciamento (Nestor Serrano). It is revealed that through some sort of psychic connection, Padgett's Naciamento has come back to life and has been removing hearts from victims. The two discuss motivations for the killings. Realizing that his novel prognosticates Scully's murder, Padgett heads to the incinerator to destroy his novel. Mulder intercepts him, thinking Padgett is instead simply destroying incriminatory evidence. Meanwhile, Naciamento accosts Scully. After hearing gunshots, Mulder runs toward his apartment and finds Scully on the ground, covered in blood but alive. The episode closes with a voice-over from the author, explaining his final actions. The stranger lies stricken on the basement floor in front of the incinerator, his beating heart in hand, having "... given what he could not receive". ===== Nicholas Hook, a forester and archer, feuds with Tom and Robert Perrill and their biological father, the priest Father Martin. He is compelled to participate in the hanging and burning of a community of Lollard heretics. One of them, an archer himself, asks Hook to protect his granddaughter, Sarah after he (the condemned man) is gone. But Father Martin decides to take the girl for himself, and in an unsuccessful attempt to shield her, Hook attacks the priest. Hook is then held for trial and anticipated execution. Father Martin and Tom Perrill rape and murder the girl, and Hook's guilt at failing to save her haunts him throughout the story. Hook escapes and joins an expedition to Soissons, in Burgundy, as a mercenary archer. Burgundy and France are in bitter conflict and the French attack, win easily, sack the town, and torture and kill the English archers as well as the loyal French citizens which shocks Europe. Hook manages to conceal himself in a house and save a local nun, Melisande, from rape. Hook believes he is guided in their escape by the voices of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, the patron saints of Soissons. Melisande becomes Hook's companion and lover. Later, he discovers she is the bastard child of the powerful French Lord Ghillebert, seigneur de Lanferelle (called the "Lord of Hell"). By returning alive from Soissons, and reporting the treachery of the English knight Sir Roger Pallaire, who conspired with the French and sacrificed his own archers, Hook earns good stead with his new lord, Sir John Cornewaille, and with King Henry V. Hook returns to France serving under Cornewaille with the royal army to win Henry the crown of France. The campaign starts horrendously with the siege of the port of Harfleur. The town's capture takes too many weeks, and disease decimates Henry's army. During a failed attack, Hook kills Robert Perrill by thrusting a crossbow bolt through the man's eye. During the siege Hook meets the seigneur de Lanferelle, who disapproves of Hook's relationship with his daughter, Melisande and claiming that he does indeed care for his illegitimate child vows to kill Hook and return Melisande to the nunnery. Sometime later Hook and Melisande are formally married. Henry, against the advice of his vassal lords, then decides to march his ragged army to Calais along the coast of France as a demonstration of his sovereignty (and an insult to the French king). The Hook - Perrill feud reignites during the march as Tom Perrill frames Hook's brother Michael for stealing a religious pyx. Henry hangs Michael in public for the crime. To reach Calais, the English army must cross the River Somme. But the far larger French army blocks the fords and the two opposing armies meet at Azincourt, on the day of Ss. Crispin and Crispinian. Torrential rain soaks the newly ploughed land, turning it into a treacherous morass, especially for the French knights in full plate armour. There are natural obstacles on both sides that narrow down towards the English. The battle (like Crècy) takes place on a slope going to the English. Before the battle Henry under the guise of 'John Swan' speaks with the men, Hook realises that it is indeed the king after noticing his distinctive scar and tells 'John Swan' that the king claims to be a religious man but is a sinner for killing an innocent man, Michael. 'John Swan' seems deeply affected by this and tells Hook the king will pray for Michael every day, which comforts Hook. The French foolishly allow the English to advance within range of the English longbows. The English are ordered by Henry to hammer sharpened stakes into the ground, forming an impenetrable wall to repel the cavalry, Hook and Tom Perrill agree to end their feud until the battle is over believing they will both be killed by the French anyway. The archers launch volleys as the French begin a difficult advance toward the English. The first attack is driven back by the English as they step back, behind the stakes and the French horses either bolt in terror or are impaled upon the deadly spikes. During the mayhem, Father Martin attempts to rape Melisande. Melisande kills Martin using her crossbow. The battle is also portrayed from the opposite side via the seigneur de Lanferelle who hopes to capture valuable prisoners including his rival and Hook's lord Cornwaille. The English repel the second attack through a combination of their remaining arrows and the surprising skill of the archers in hand-to-hand combat. The French decline to launch a third attack and retire, leaving thousands of French dead, and many French lords in captivity. Hook takes Lanferelle prisoner, and Lanferelle kills Tom Perrill as Hook had vowed to his friend and mentor Father Christopher that he wouldn't kill Perrill. The English claim a famous victory, and Hook returns to England with Melisande and his prisoner the seigneur de Lanferelle who now accepts and approves of Hook. Hook now a wealthy man after being promoted to command Cornwaille's archers as well the ransom from his prisoner, pays a priest to say prayers for the girl he couldn't save. ===== The novel concerns Lieutenant Commander Frank Jacklin who is blown up in a thorium bomb explosion while on the battleship Alaska. He awakens in the body of Winnie Tompkins who had perpetrated the explosion. As Tompkins, he learns of a plot by German agents to poison Franklin D. Roosevelt and he tries to warn the authorities. He continues to become involved in intrigue until another accident restores Tompkins to his body, leaving Jacklin in the body of a dog. ===== The novel concerns Henry Merwin, who after taking part in an experiment finds himself 12,000 years in the future. Taken captive by a giant race, he is forced to care for their insect pets. He falls in love with a fellow prisoner, Luellan, but his captors will not allow them to marry. Instead he is forced to go to war with his insect charges. The insects eventually grow to such a size that they take over much of the earth. Merwin returns to rescue Luellen, escaping to her home in Borneo. ===== A high school prom in Georgia is unexpectedly interrupted when a graveyard, next to a power plant, becomes the sudden source of resuscitated cadavers. As zombies march on the high school, a motley group of dateless teenage outcasts, among them Jimmy (Jared Kusnitz), Lindsey (Greyson Chadwick), Steven (Chandler Darby) and Kyle (Justin Welborn), take on the zombies and save the day. Lindsey breaks up with Jimmy the day before the prom and starts going out with Mitch. On the way to the prom, Mitch takes Lindsey to the cemetery to "loosen up" and makes out with her. Mitch is drawn out of the car and killed by a zombie then turns into one himself. Meanwhile, members of the school's SciFi club, Jules, Steven, Rod, and George, are investigating the cemetery when they are attacked. Rod is killed and the remaining three are rescued by a gravedigger who reveals that he was aware of the occurrences but kept it quiet to keep his job. He instructs them on how to kill the zombies before running off. The three get surrounded again, but Lindsey comes to the rescue and they all escape in Mitch's car. After making a pizza delivery and discovering that a family is now zombies, Jimmy finds a crashed truck with his enemy Kyle as the only survivor. Jimmy and Kyle run into a cheerleader named Gwen, and the three are attacked. They manage to kill all of the zombies with a bat they find and a gun Kyle carries in his truck. Unfortunately, Jimmy's truck is stolen by two zombies, leaving the three without a getaway vehicle. In another neighborhood, Nash Rambler (Blair Redford), Jensen and Dave the Drummer are in the middle of writing a new song for their band. Nash asks Jensen to open the garage door to let in some air because Jensen has been smoking pot, and they discover zombies when Jensen opens the garage door. The zombies attack, but the band members also accidentally find that the zombies like music and they keep playing to keep the zombies at bay, but also inadvertently attracting more. Mitch's car breaks down, and Lindsey, Jules, George, and Steven take refuge in a nearby house. Jimmy calls Lindsey to find her. He, Kyle and Gwen then make their way to the house through the town sewers. On the way, they discover a substance that the power plant dumped that they believe caused the re-animation of the dead. The house in which their friends are hiding turns out to be a funeral home. Fumes from the power plant re-animate the corpses stored there. Kyle and Jimmy kill them all, but not before Kyle is bitten in the neck and turns into a zombie and the others are forced to beat him to death. Gwen manages to retrieve the funeral home's hearse and the group escapes with the intent to rescue their fellow students from the prom. On the way to the school, the hearse's tires are shot out. The teens also discover their coach is still alive, and after telling him what has happened, he helps arm them. The group heads for the prom in the coach's Hummer. On the way, they find and rescue the besieged band. The band then joins the group to stop the zombies. At the school, they find all of the town's zombies have gathered there and that they've arrived too late to save everybody. The coach decides to use his explosives to blow up the school. While the coach starts setting up around the school, the schoolkids block all the doors so the zombies can't escape. While looking through the school, the SciFi club members find a small group of survivors, including the prom queen, and start to lead them out to safety. The coach accidentally drops the detonator into a chip bowl. Jimmy, however, is forced to go back for it, and Lindsey follows him. They sneak through the gym to get to the detonator but are noticed and attacked. Before they can be killed, the band starts playing "Shadows of the Night" to distract the zombies. Jimmy and Lindsey dance while looking for the remote. On the way out the others are attacked but manage to kill their attackers, while Gwen hides the fact that she was bitten. She pulls Steven, for whom she has developed feelings, into the bathroom. There she reveals the truth and the two kiss, but she turns into a zombie and bites Steven's tongue off. She kills him, which turns Steven into a zombie as well. The two zombies kiss again and then start to eat each other. In the gym, Jimmy and Lindsey are still looking for the detonator when a zombie accidentally pulls the plug on the band's instruments, stopping the music and causing the zombies to attack again. While the two hold off the zombies, Jenson tries to plug in their instruments. Jimmy and Lindsey are forced to hide beneath the bleachers, where they are attacked by Mitch, now a zombie. The two escape with Lindsey killing Mitch. The band manages to plug in their instruments and begin playing, allowing Jimmy to get the detonator. As the group attempt to make their escape, Jensen is caught and killed by the horde. The surviving four make their way out of the school through a window. The zombies are unable to escape out the locked doors, and Jimmy blows up the school - killing all of the zombies while kissing Lindsey at the same time, thus rekindling their relationship. The survivors, including a group that hid at the prom, take a bus to a pancake house for breakfast courtesy of the coach to eat and plan an attack to shut down the power plant and prevent the zombie plague from spreading. The gravedigger also survives and complains about the fact he has to clean up the mess. ===== ===== The story was written in 1915, and World War I, also known as The Great War, was already in progress. As the story opens, Tom is explaining his newest invention to his friend, Ned Newton. Just as Tom is in the middle of explaining the problems he is having, a fire erupts in one of the sheds, where explosives are stored. After the fire has been put out, careful investigation shows that the fire was set deliberately. In preparation for presenting his new airship to the United States Government, Tom has invited a Lieutenant Marbury, from the Navy, to review his ship. Marbury informs Tom of a possible plot against Tom and his inventions, past and present. Tom scoffs at the idea, but soon finds out otherwise, as his new airship is hijacked by foreign spies with an unknown agenda. ===== The narrator, Oscar Fitzalan, a composer, is hired by Richard Pride to assist him at his estate and study at Mordance Hall. Here, he meets Hough, Pride's secretary; Miriam, Pride's wife; the Prides' daughter Janet; and their dog Tod, a German hound. They are later joined by Ramón Del Prado, one of Pride's employees. Also in the household are two black servants, old Mamie and her fourteen-year-old daughter Sally. Pride brings Fitzalan to play music in order to awaken his memories. However, the household is devastated: Janet, Oscar's first love interest, elopes with Del Prado, and Pride's secretary, Hough, commits suicide. The dog becomes extremely aggressive and then his wife, Miriam, commits suicide as well. In the end, Pride is reduced to a dirty and ruinous state from the memory therapy, and he finally leaves the house, letting the winds destroy his files regarding the recovered memories. He goes off into the night and there, when his daughter returns and elopes with the narrator, he is found dead, along with his dog in the woods - both having killed each other. ===== The novel concerns Patricia Lane who is in love with Nicholas Devine, a quiet and gentle writer. Devine undergoes sudden changes, becoming cold and calculating. Frightened by this, Lane consults psychologist Dr. Carl Horker, who rescues her from Devine while under the influence of one of his spells. Devine again attacks Horker, and overcomes him. He is then shot by Lane and rushed to a hospital where a second brain is discovered and removed. ===== The evil and incompetent Dr. Hurtrider kidnaps an innocent young woman named Callista to conduct experiments on her to cure disease, even if she doesn't have any. Now it is up to her dimwitted sister, Janie to solve the obvious clues left behind and rescue her little sister. By reading the business card left behind, Janie figures out that Callista has been taken to a prison in the Philippines. So she kills a mentally handicapped man, and is sent to the prison, led by an equally inept warden. There she meets queen bitch Jackpot, and along with the stupid inmates, pathetic ninjas and a vast assortment of idiots, Janie figures out a way to rescue her sister and escape. The film was marketed as being filled with multiple shower scenes, girls running amok, kung fu food fights, ninjas, mutant zombies, evil scientists, genetic mutation, and mud wrestling.Prison-A- Go-Go! - INFO ===== Stephane Allagnon's crime comedy Before the Storm stars Jonathan Zaccai as Frank, a tech worker assigned to fix the aged computer system of a store after a weather incident knocked it out. During the work, he uncovers a piece of code that embezzled money from the company. When the number one suspect turns up dead, Frank finds himself trying to piece together who is responsible with the help of some quirky locals. ===== Azhagar Adhiyaman's (Saravanan) party wins in Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. His brother Azhagar Thondaiman (Anand), the senior party leader Aadhikesavan (Ponvannan), and Azhagar Adhiyaman discuss about the posts to be held. Discussions turn into gun- firing, where all three of them get bullet shots. Azhagar Adhiyaman dies, Azhagar Thondaiman gets into a coma, and Aadhikesavan is left with an injury. The state is brought under temporary Governor's rule until their party chooses the new CM. Sathya (Nithin Sathya) and his accomplice Azhagu (Daniel Balaji) are highly successful and petty thieves. Azhagu marries Kavyanjali (Lakshmi Rai) once for money (under mass-marriage programme). Kavya's father (Cochin Hanifa) tries to make money with his daughter. Azhagu realizes his mistake and tries to convince Kavya. Sathya cheats Aarthi (Manjari Phadnis) by saying he is a CBI officer and makes her fall in love with him. Sathya and Azhagu stay in an apartment opposite to where Krishna (Chetan) stays. The commissioner (Kishore) is appointed as the investigating officer for the case, and he finds that Krishna knows some information about the firing where Azhagar Adhiyaman was killed. He traces where Krishna stays and chases him. At the same time in the opposite apartment, Sathya, Azhagu and Aarthi host a birthday party for Kavya for Azhagu and Kavya to get together again. Krishna enters their house to escape from the police, and all five of them start running away from the police. While the police chases them, Azhagu, Kavya, Sathya, and Aarthi try to escape. Krishna also tries to get in the car and drops his laptop in their car. Four of them flee and seek refugee in a hideout. They take out the laptop to find that Aadhikesavan has shot Azhagar Adhiyaman and his brother, and he shoots himself. Azhagu calls up the commissioner to handover the witness, which fails because Aadhikesavan's men come and attack them in their hideout and Azhagu thinks that it is the commissioner's men. Later, he calls Aadhikesavan and demands ransom in exchange for the laptop. He also checks the commissioner's credit card transaction and mobile phone calls and finds that the commissioner has been getting a lot of money illegally from Azhagar Thondaiman, and he is appointed by him. In the climax, Sathya comes to collect money from Aadhikesavan, where the commissioner also turns up unexpectedly. Azhagu comes with Azhagar Thondaiman, who was in the hospital. Azhagar Thondaiman explains his side of the story, that he also tried to kill his brother and had worn a bulletproof jacket to avoid the bulletproof. Krishna was a man appointed by him to take videos of incidents happening. The commissioner kills Aadhikesavan. When Sathya and Azhagu try to escape with the money, other police officers encounter them. They shoot the commissioner and arrest Azhagar Thondaiman. In the meantime, Sathya and Azhagu escape with the money and wish the other police officers good luck with their career. ===== Guru (Madhavan) wants to be an MD for a company under his boss Krishna (Abbas). Krishna is a successful entrepreneur married to Sheila (Brinda Parekh), but his major problem is his playboy nature. Guru hopes that Krishna will make him an MD, so that he can also become a boss and make money. He tries to do everything to please him. Meanwhile, Krishna falls for a model named Seema (Mamta Mohandas), whom Guru also fancies. However, coming to know that his boss is interested, he decides to give up on his feelings for her so as to achieve his career goals. Krishna asks Guru to help him woo Seema, and Guru follows his every order. After a sequence of events, he realizes that he cannot forget his feelings for Seema. He soon starts to purposefully sabotage Krishna's attempts of becoming closer to Seema. Whether Seema feels the same way about Guru or Krishna wins her heart forms the rest of the story. ===== The film begins with a blissful wedding, but the young couple union explodes when a fit of jealousy unhinges Sandra and Lonnie's world. Generosity leads to spiteful reprisals as a metal-crushing, fire-spewing crescendo shows that mayhem can be an integral element in the high stakes of true love. ===== In 1947, a mixed group of black and white men play baseball in Roswell, New Mexico. A group of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members arrive on horseback, seeking one of the players: Josh Exley (Jesse L. Martin), a talented black baseball player. Men from the team fight back against the KKK, and when the mask of the clan's leader is taken off, the leader is revealed to be an alien. In 1999, FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) look through Roswell newspapers from the 1940s. Mulder spots an article showing a young Arthur Dales (Frederic Lane)—the original investigator of the X-Files division—Josh Exley, and the shape-shifting Alien Bounty Hunter (Brian Thompson). Mulder seeks out Dales in Washington D.C. but instead, meets Dales's brother (M. Emmet Walsh), who is also named Arthur. In flashback, Dales tells Mulder about first meeting Exley in 1947. Dales, a member of the Roswell Police Department, has been assigned to protect a hesitant Exley. Dales travels with Exley and his teammates on their bus, and one night sees that the sleeping Exley is reflected in a window as an alien. The next day, during a game, Exley is hit by a pitch and starts making utterances in a strange language before returning to his senses. Afterwards, Dales notices that a mysterious green ooze appeared where Exley's bleeding head had rested. Dales decides to investigate Exley's hometown of Macon, Georgia, and discovers that a boy with Exley's name had vanished about five years previously. That night at the hotel, Dales hears noises from Exley's room and breaks in, only to find Exley in his alien form. Exley tells Dales that he was forbidden from intermingling with the human race but fell in love with the game of baseball and remained on Earth. The Alien Bounty Hunter, who has been pursuing the renegade alien, takes Exley's form and murders a scientist who is investigating the green ooze that Dales found. Dales warns Exley that he is now wanted by the police, and Exley goes into hiding. The narrative returns to the events at the start of the episode. The KKK leader is revealed as the Alien Bounty Hunter, who has arrived to assassinate Exley. The Bounty Hunter demands that Exley revert to his true form before he dies. Exley refuses and the Bounty Hunter kills him. However, Exley bleeds red, human blood.Meisler (2000), pp. 25361. ===== Dr. Julian Blair is engaged in unconventional research on human brain waves when his wife Helen (Shirley Warde) is tragically killed in an auto accident. The grief-stricken scientist becomes obsessed with redirecting his work into making contact with the dead and is not deterred by dire warnings from his daughter Anne (Amanda Duff), his research assistant Richard (Richard Fiske), or his colleagues that he is delving into forbidden areas of knowledge. He moves his laboratory to an isolated New England mansion where he continues to try to reach out to his dead wife. He is aided by his mentally-challenged servant Karl (Ralph Penney) and abetted by the obsessive Mrs. Walters (Anne Revere), a phony medium, who seems to exert a sinister influence over him. When their overly curious housekeeper discovers the truth about their experiments, her death brings the local sheriff in to investigate. ===== A man whose fiancée and her family have died, reluctantly marries another woman. When the ghost of his fiancée visits him, he is tempted to join her in matrimony.Synopsis from ===== Boris (Andy Jones), a familiar blue collar worker, is issued his orders for a patient transfer: five mental health patients due at a maximum security facility by eleven o’clock. But when a patient with intense claustrophobia manages to overcome her illness by leading the way for the other patients to escape, Boris is confronted with an empty bus. With the clock ticking, he tries his best to recover the patients, but his attempts are foiled. So, in his compulsion to deliver, Boris decides to fill his quota by enticing some unsuspecting civilians onto the bus. ===== The novel concerns an African expedition. Swain, a member of the expedition, becomes demented and attempts to exterminate a peculiar species of African ape. The other members of the expedition are befriended by an intelligent ape called the Captain. The expedition discovers that the apes are in fact humans that have evolved in reverse due to exposure to a meteor and that the Captain was once human. ===== Lindsay Lohan guest stars as Betty's rival Kimmie. The story begins with a flashback to high school in 1999, in which we are introduced to Kimmie Keegan (played by Lindsay Lohan), who's a mean girl who torments Betty in a game of dodgeball by recruiting her on the team, only to be tricked when Kimmie has the girls get behind Betty, using her as a human shield. Flash forward to the present day when Betty tells Gio that because of that she won't participate in the charity softball game of the year: Mode vs. Elle magazine. Betty refuses to awknowledge Gio as a boyfriend and shrugs off his claim. At the same time she sees her first article in Hot Flash, but is upset that Claire would alter her story, in which Claire told Betty that she needs to go beyond the "safe" approach. During lunch, Gio tricks Betty into practicing. Gio makes Betty an incredibly romantic offer, which is a trip to Rome, of which Betty accepts. But at home, Ignacio is against the idea of her going to Italy. Ironically, out of nowhere, Henry pops back into her life with a proposal of his own; a wedding proposal and an offer to go to Tucson to work at a magazine. The confusion also had Ignacio upset over both offers and was against it. However, later that evening Ignacio showed up at Mode to show Betty a series of family photos, then told her that she should make her own decisions by looking inside her own heart. In other developments, the manipulation continues for Wilhelmina, in which she attempted to sabotage an ad campaign for a Dutch cosmetics mogul, since Daniel doesn't trust Wilhelmina as he tells Alexis. Unfortunately Wilhelmina's handiwork once again comes through for her, infuriating Daniel once again. Alexis is once again called out by Daniel for letting this happen but Alexis thinks Daniel should lighten up. Naomi Campbell guest stars as herself. However, Daniel's problems just got more complicated when an orphaned boy from France turns up at Mode with an amazing claim that is expected to bring more surprises to the Meade clan. As he showed up at the building, he enters Daniel's office and thanks to a translator, Daniel learned that the boy, whose name is Daniel Jr., is Daniel's son. Daniel thinks its all a scam conjured by Wilhelmina, who denies it (she is telling the truth as she tells Marc). But nevertheless, they decide to use this latest surprise to her advantage by befriending the boy. As the news leaks (courtesy of Wilhelmina, who uses the boy by making it look like Daniel disowned him and at the same time succeeded in sabotaging the aforementioned campaign), Daniel caves in to pressure from Claire and Alexis (who reminded her brother about that time in Paris when they went there and met the boy's mother at a party) and agrees to care for the boy until the DNA comes back. This would be the turning point in which Alexis decided that it was time for Daniel to take a leave of absence. Wilhelmina would later use this opportunity to manipulate Alexis into convincing her that she should take over the editor- in-chief job at Mode by reminding Alexis of how she helped her become the Meade CEO back when they were plotting against Daniel and Bradford. Thanks to Wilhelmina's "advice," Alexis thinks that Daniel should be reassigned to another position at the company. Hilda learns some shocking news about Coach Diaz, who shows up for their date, which left Hilda yearning for more. Later that night as Hilda was getting to know Tony, who was about to give her a necklace, Tony tells Hilda that his ex-wife has resurfaced, which made Hilda so uncomfortable that she got out of his car just as he was about to explain the reason why his ex showed up. At the Mode vs. Elle magazine game, the players are finding themselves having more drama off-base than on. For Betty, she is shocked that Gio would confront her when he asked her about the Rome trip, only to be shocked by Henry, who joined the team at the last minute. Betty tries to avoid both guys. Daniel, on the other hand, learned that Wilhelmina used Daniel Jr. to make him look bad, but Wilhelmina in turn tells him that he is out as editor-in-chief at Mode, a move that infuriates Daniel, who would later blast Alexis for turning on him, then walks away from the game with Daniel Jr. Wilhelmina then takes his place as the pitcher, as she strikes out both Joe Zee and Roberta Myers from Elle. After this, Elles star player, supermodel Naomi Campbell, gets a hit. Amusingly, before batting she gets a phone call from Bono and the moment she pulls it out of her pocket, the whole crowd gasp. She tells him that she's playing cricket and returns to the game. When she hits the ball, Betty, Henry and Gio also see it, only to have Betty run into them and she would be knocked out. She then wakes up and she's in bed as Henry makes breakfast to his "wife" in Tucson. As she walks out of the bedroom, Betty sees a hotel room in Rome and Gio's there! Betty can't believe this and as she sees Gio and Henry yelling at her to make a choice, Betty jumps out of her nightmare and wakes up to discover that she helped Mode win the game. That's when she made her decision about what she should do. As the episode ends, Daniel packs up his stuff as he vacates the office while he and Daniel Jr. watch Wilhelmina celebrate with the Mode staff, with Claire looking at Alexis with distrust and disgust, Hilda seeing Tony at the school playground, where the two would embrace each other with a kiss, and Betty packing her bags as she prepares to leave for the airport, destination unknown. Although her luggage displayed various landmarks in Rome, and when hugging Ignacio goodbye, Henry's ring was not seen on her finger, subtely hinting she might be either going with Gio or chose to go in a different direction, since she didn't give either guy her real answer as the final moment in the scene had Betty closing the door at her home, followed by a CGI background zooming away from Queens to show New York City with a plane flying off into the sunset.From The Futon Critic ===== The story is laid on the planet Mesklin as used in the author's novel Mission of Gravity, but set in an earlier period when the College established by the Terrestrials is still being set up and the teachers as well as the students are still learning. ===== The protagonist of the book is Steven Alper, a 13-year-old boy living in New Jersey. The Alper family consists of Dad, an accountant; Mom, an English teacher; Steven, an enthusiastic and talented drummer who is also a self-described "skinny geek;" and Jeffrey, eight years younger, whom Steven describes as cute, adoring of his big brother, and apt to blurt out really embarrassing remarks about Steven in public. When Jeffrey has a horrific nose bleed and goes to the emergency room, the Alpers are shocked to discover that he has leukemia.Unwrapping the gift of good reading, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 26, 2005 Mrs. Alper soon has to quit her job as a teacher while Mr. Alper shuts down, interacting minimally with Steven even when Mrs. Alper and Jeffrey are away in Philadelphia for Jeffrey's chemotherapy treatments. Steven becomes very shelled in, but no one can really tell, except for a piano-prodigy classmate, Annette Watson, who persistently tries to find out what is the matter. Steven does not tell her or anyone else at school. He stops doing his homework, and eventually his guidance counselor and teachers push him to open up about what is going on. His guidance counselor is a major help throughout the story. She advises him, "Instead of agonizing about the things you can't change, why don't you try working on the things you can change?" At one point, Steven's mom becomes sick, so Steven and his father have to take Jeffrey to his treatment. There Steven meets Samantha, a girl with leukemia. Steven has his practice pad with him and teaches her how to play, also lending her his drumsticks. She tells him how sad she is that her older sister has distanced herself from Samantha since her illness, and advises Steven to stay engaged in Jeffrey's life. Steven and Annette play in the All-City band and Steven is to perform the big drum solo for the spring jazz concert. One night at band practice, the high-schoolers learn they have to do community service, which will force them to quit the band. Annette think of a way to bring the service into the band by using the spring concert as a benefit concert to help the Alpers pay their medical bills, and she and Renee work hard to make this a success. The night of the concert the band members shave their heads in solidarity with Jeffrey. Right before Steven's big solo that night, Jeffrey gets a fever and has to go back to the hospital. Taking Samantha's advice, Steven goes with him instead of staying to play his drum solo. When at the hospital, he decides to check on Sam, and learns she has died. A nurse gives him a package in which Samantha has returned the drumsticks Steven lent her when they met before. At the end of the story, Jeffrey is in remission. ===== ===== The play concerns a worker who rebels against military control of atomic energy. ===== ===== The phrase "Shubho Mahurat" is associated with the beginning of shooting for a feature film. The first shot is marked by a grand reception. This Miss Marple-esque film begins with this event. An NRI producer, Padmini Chowdhury (Sharmila Tagore), has come to India to invest in a film. Her second husband Sambit Roy (Sumanta Mukherjee), an out-of-work director, is assigned the job of direction. The out-of-work director has a shady past. A witness to his shady past is an aspiring actor, who was subsequently thrown out of the acting circuit. This actor started a catering service for the film unit. The NRI producer insists on casting a retired actress, Kakoli (Kalyani Mandal) in a prominent role. Kakoli, a drug addict, subsequently dies under mysterious circumstances, on the day of 'Shubho Mahurat'. The journalist Mallika Sen (Nandita Das) is the only person present at the time of the death. The suspicion naturally falls on the husband of the actress, who reportedly has an amorous relationship with another lady. The unnatural death of the actress causes a police investigation. An IPS officer named Arindam (Tota Roy Chowdhury) takes up the investigation. During the course of investigation, Arindam befriends Mallika. Meanwhile, Mallika catches the fancy of a still photographer named Jojo (Anindya Chatterjee) who, incidentally, is closely related to the NRI producer. This NRI producer had a past no less interesting than the other protagonists. The NRI producer was an actress of repute in her heyday. She divorced her husband and left the country to settle abroad. Before that, she had given birth to an abnormal child. The course of the film reveals that she bore a grudge against Kakoli for spreading a contagious disease to her while she was pregnant, resulting in the abnormal child. Another amorous affair runs parallel to the main theme: The camera assistant was repenting for his past affair with the hairdresser. The hairdresser has her problems and she was extracting money very often from the camera assistant. All through the movie, the aunt of the journalist, Ranga Pishima (Raakhee), gives vital leads to the investigation through deductive logic. She is able to read the mind of the niece correctly. Her valuable inputs finally leads to solve the murder mystery. ===== A newly wed couple Romita (Rituparna Sengupta) and Palash (Abhishek Chatterjee) are attacked on the open road. The goons molested Romita, but nobody comes forward to help, except a schoolteacher, Jhinuk (Indrani Halder), who rushes to the spot to help. She is later hailed a heroine by the press. One day, Palash, due to misunderstanding in a feat of rage ends up raping his wife. Romita wanted to stay at her parents house, there, she met her elder sister, with whom she showed interest to leave the in-laws and to shift to Canada. Her sister wished to have a tour Romi-Palash both, but she admits that she needs to come alone. Depressed, Romita could not meet Jhinuk or couldn't reached her by telephone, so they did not know how to face the case in court together. Due to her conservative in- laws, Romita pressured much to leave the goons or to stop the case there; she admits unclear statement in the court. On the other side, Jhinuk also having requested from her fiancé, the family of the goons started to influence with many offers, even a promotion abroad to dominate Jhinuk personally. She was reluctant to face those proposals and an uneasiness had grown between them. Jhinuk was rigid in her decision to punish the criminals. She was honest in her thoughts. On the contrary, threats from the goons and lack of police support for the case was becoming tough. She was steady and clear about the criminals in the court, but faced insults by humiliating questions. The two different female characters lost the case, the criminals got release afterwards. Romi-Jhinuk have feelings towards their life in such different tests. They are not under the same light, but turn experienced about life, family and narrowness of the society. They became stronger enough to go on to the future alone in their own way. Romi wrote letters to her sister about her changed status. Jhinuk was determined to punish the assailants, and helped police. However, the experience of Jhinuk turns out to be a frustrating experience for her when the victim's family turn away, but the writer or the director wanted to show the leads are stronger than their past life. In Jhinuk's character, Indrani Halder did very realistic job, her performance is the lighted part to create an strength in audience mind, Rituparna Sengupta did another important performance that took all the sympathy from audience mind to make them re-think about the life-hell situation of a victim. Both the Director and Writer are successful to develop the thought-provoking story on- screen. ===== Will Lee ran from a life of Southern wealth and privilege to spend a peaceful summer on the coast of Ireland. But there is no peace in this beautiful, troubled land. Restless and dissatisfied, Will dreams of shipbuilding and sailing on crystal-blue waters. But an explosion of senseless violence is dragging the young American drifter into a lethal game of terror and revenge. For the fires of hatred rage unchecked in this place of lush, rolling hills and deadly secrets. Now Will Lee must run for his life from a bloody past that is not his own-and he will find no sanctuary on the rolling waves of the Irish sea. A breathtaking novel of suspense and high-adventure by New York Times bestselling author Stuart Woods. ===== Two explorers travel miles beneath Mount Rainier and discover a cavernous realm, filled with glowing mist, called Drome, which is home to a lost civilization and fantastic animals including bat-apes, snake-cats and tree- octopuses. ===== Rohini is found discussing with a person who is slowly revealed as her ex-boyfriend and asks if he remembered her. Although he says yes, she doesn't believe him and instead asks for the medicine box and takes 3 to 5 sleeping pills. Even after Aniruddha forbids her, she takes them all, saying that it should not affect him. The reason for this bitterness is revealed. Aniruddha had left her for another girl named Mrittika. Rohini was a famous film star and her love for her man was unblemished. She had brought Mrittika into the industry, and suffered Caesar's wounds when Aniruddha started an affair with her. When Mrittika and Aniruddha started coming close, Rohini had confronted Aniruddha several times to tell the truth but he always tried to hide the fact and that had hurt her more. While she was facing such turbulent times in her life and wanted to be all alone, she comes to know that her mother is hospitalized with high fever. Unaware of the deteriorating relationship among Aniruddha and Rohini, her father often asks help from him despite Rohini showing irritation. Neither she is able to vent out her emotions as she knows her father is also going through tough times, nor is she able to digest the fact that Aniruddha is called off and on. She tries to avoid him, as we see couple of times, she lies to avoid him and even does not pick up any call assuming it to be Aniruddha. On the other hand, on seeing a difference in Rohini's behavior her father is upset; he even finds her taking frequent sleeping pills and is worried about her. Ghosh neatly brings in the father-daughter relationship –he shows how the father worries about his daughter even after she has grown up. There is a scene in the movie which shows that, when there is a power cut, her father doesn't allow her daughter to move, going himself to fetch the torch to light up the place, similarly like a father showing light of right path to their children. He didn't think that he himself can be hurt, but only thought to protect his child from the darkness just like a shield. There are some more scenes where Ghosh brilliantly brought out the pure love of a Father for his daughter. In contrast, he also shows that even though her father is unwilling to take her money, he still has to depend on her, and this constantly bothers him, which is seen when he expresses his views to his wife that they are depending on her money completely. The film also shows how a husband loves his wife; he is not only worried about her but also sad at the same time that she is far from him and suffering from pain. Despite being old himself, he never missed to go to the hospital one single day, buying all the medicines and other necessary itinerary. Due to her daughter's fame, when he was allowed to stay longer during visiting hours, the happiness in his face explained his love for his wife. Even Rohini quotes several times that even after she got betrayal and disappointment from her relation, she keeps consoling herself when she sees her parents; their relationship makes her feel that love has not vanished from the society, it's still present. But destiny plays it role and we are unable to predict the future. The same Rohini who thought of her parents’ relation as pure, started doubting her father after her mother is attacked by fever again after the discharge from the hospital. They thought of taking second opinion and the doctor suggested for HIV test as he think this may be due to lack of immunity. The hatred was installed in her mind after getting betrayed by Aniruddha and she was unable to think rationally. She started thinking for the worst, repeatedly asking her father if the needles used were sterilized and on getting same answer from him every time (that he himself bought the disposable injections every time), her mind was shrouded in doubt that her father was the only source for her mother's illness. Ghosh, may be for the first time, brought in to the Bengali cinemas the awareness for AIDS and at the same time dealt with fear and anxiety in a sensitive manner. The rude behavior of the daughter brings a distance between them but still father's love for her daughter did not diminish. The blood test result revealed that her mother is not suffering from AIDS. At the end, Rohini realizes her mistake; she realizes that everything is in one's mind, and people themselves can control that. She vents out all her sorrow to her father, when he comes to know that Aniruddha has left her. Her father consoles her but asks is she the person who said in an interview that there is no more love and trust left in the society. She says nothing but begs pardon from her father. ===== There are three plots that the reader has to connect. The plots are: 1) run for election to the Georgia Senate seat vacated by his mentor due to a stroke; 2) act as defense attorney in the race murder trial of a white man accused of killing a black woman; 3) deal with gang style killings by a white supremist group being pursued by a former police officer. All three of these plots develop and come to a head at the same time with the election, shoot-out, and conclusion of the trial. ===== The First Chief: Will Henry Lee: The novel opens in 1919, when the growing town of Delano, Georgia hires its first police chief. The city council, led by banker and prominent investor Hugh Holmes, chooses farmer Will Henry Lee over Foxy Funderburke, an eccentric, wealthy, dog breeder and gun collector, for the job. Will Henry is unschooled as a policeman but is honest and determined to do the job well. Not long after he assumes his new responsibilities, the dead body of a young man is found naked at the bottom of a cliff. A medical examination concludes that the boy died from a broken neck as a result of his fall but also that he had been tortured—cuffed and beaten with a rubber hose—for some time before his death. The medical examiner tells Will Henry that the crime had a strong sexual component, and that while the boy had not yet been sodomized, the assault on him could have gone further had the boy not evidently escaped. Will Henry conducts a thorough investigation but is frustrated in his attempts to locate the killer, not least because the uncooperative Skeeter Willis, the sheriff of Meriwether County, of which Delano is a part, insists that the boy was killed by some of the many transients in the area at the time. Will Henry is unconvinced, but eventually runs out of leads. He believes that a second murder, taking place some four years later and just outside his jurisdiction, is connected to the first but has no real proof and no real authority to pursue the matter. Finally, Will Henry hears from Skeeter Willis about a young runaway who might be passing near Delano and also learns that someone with a Delano PO Box had attempted to purchase a pair of handcuffs from a police supplier. The box belongs to Foxy Funderburke, whom Will Henry had questioned after the two murders, since the bodies were discovered near Foxy's property. Other clues also point in Foxy's direction. Looking around the property, Will Henry notices the outline of what appears to be a freshly dug grave but is observed by Foxy. As he rushes to obtain a search warrant, Foxy follows, intending to kill him, and so is nearby when Will, diverted by a problem involving the Coles, a black family that had once worked for him, is shot and killed by the black father, who is in the grip of a malaria-induced delirium. Will Henry dies as the shooter's teenage son, Willie, is escaping to relatives in another town. The Second Chief: Sonny Butts: The scene shifts to 1946. After World War II, Delano welcomes home its returning veterans, including Billy Lee, the late chief's son, a young lawyer who served as a bomber pilot in Europe, and Sonny Butts, a decorated Army infantryman. Billy has become a protégé of Hugh Holmes and the two men decide to launch Billy into politics by having him run for Holmes's seat in the Georgia State Senate, from which the banker intends to retire. Sonny lands a position on the Delano police force, which now consists of a chief and two officers. He is a quick success as a police officer, but rumors of abuses at the police station are heard. When the chief dies, Sonny is named his replacement. Examining old police files, Sonny comes across Chief Lee's notes on the two murders in the 1920s. He also begins to track the last known sightings of a number of young men, likely runaways, in the years since and notices a geographical pattern in the disappearances: Delano is at their center. Seeing in Will Henry's notes a reference to interviewing Foxy Funderburke, Sonny decides to keep an eye on Foxy as a possible suspect. Sonny is undone by his virulent racism and propensity to violence. After he beats and kills a local black businessman, a grand jury is empaneled for the purpose of indicting him, though perjured testimony lets him off the hook. But Sonny was also observed beating a man at the county fair the evening before, and Hugh Holmes is determined to fire him. Desperate to hang onto his job, Sonny heads to Foxy's property and catches Foxy digging a fresh grave for a recent victim. Momentarily distracted by the chance to save his reputation, Sonny is attacked by Foxy, who shoots him and buries him in the new grave with his police motorcycle. The Third Chief: Tucker Watts: The time frame changes once again, this time to 1963. Billy Lee is now Georgia's lieutenant governor and is planning to run for governor in the next election. Hugh Holmes asks Billy's help in searching for a new chief, who will now supervise six officers. An integrationist, Billy is alerted to the résumé of Major Tucker Watts, a retiring Army MP, who is black. Mindful that Delano has yet to hire a black officer, let alone a chief, Billy decides to forward Watts's résumé to Holmes and recommends his hiring. Holmes makes a persuasive case for Watts at the city council hearing and he is hired as chief, setting off a media frenzy over the first black hired to head a police force in the South. Tucker assumes his duties as chief welcomed by many residents but scorned by others. He makes a good impression on the overall community, however, and at first seems able to weather the problems he faces. But Tucker harbors a painful secret: he is Willie Cole, whose father killed Chief Lee decades earlier and who, so far as Delano knows, died in an accident not long after fleeing. Tucker is deathly afraid of being discovered and nearly kills a man who recognizes him. After coming to his senses, he relaxes and, like Sonny Butts, begins to organize old police files. He, too, reads Chief Lee's report on the old murders and observes Sonny Butts's notations regarding the pattern of subsequent disappearances. Building on the work of his two predecessors, Tucker also begins to suspect the now-aged Foxy Funderburke and makes inquiries about him. A confluence of events distracts Tucker, including his own arrest on trumped- up charges and Billy Lee's race for governor, in which Tucker's hiring becomes an issue. These problems leave him inclined to do nothing about Foxy for the time being. Then John Howell, a reporter for The New York Times, convinces Tucker to take his evidence to the FBI and obtain a search warrant through them. Because Tucker's evidence is totally circumstantial, the FBI only reluctantly agrees to issue the warrant, which is limited to observation (no digging, prying up floorboards, etc.) When Tucker and federal agents search Foxy's property and find nothing at first, Tucker fears that he might have dealt a fatal blow to Billy Lee's campaign, but then one of the agents trips on what proves to be a motorcycle handlebar protruding from the ground. As Foxy emerges from the house, armed and intending to kill Tucker and the agents, he is distracted by John Howell and is himself shot dead. The ensuing investigation determines that Foxy had tortured, sodomized, murdered, and buried at least forty-three young men over the decades. John Howell discovers Tucker's true identity but decides to keep it a secret. The novel ends as Hugh Holmes, pleased for Billy's success in the election but crushed by the revelations about Foxy and the shame the murders will bring to the city he did so much to build, is suffering a potentially fatal heart attack. ===== The movie is about a 40-year-old married woman, Paroma (Raakhee) whose identity lies in the words like "bouma" (the daughter-in-law), "kaki maa" (paternal aunt) and "boudi" (brother's wife). Her well-settled, very normal and predictable life turns upside down when Rahul (Mukul Sharma), an expatriate photo-journalist working for a magazine chooses her to pose for a photo essay, "An Indian Housewife". It begins with a simple question, "What do you think, Paroma?". Through Rahul, Paroma rediscovers herself. His photographs of her make her look glamorous. Their affair or rather her discovery of herself, becomes a problem when some of the photographs, earlier admired by the family, are published in a journal (the semi nude photographs that were published were never shown to the family, Rahul deceived her by publishing those photographs without her consent). Paroma is rejected by her husband and has a mental breakdown. She tries to commit suicide cutting her vein but she ends up hitting her head in the bathroom. She has to undergo a surgery for which she had to cut her hair. She is taken care of by a nurse appointed by her family members. Though the family members decides to forgive her she is reluctant to go back to her old life. In the end, a doctor suggests prescribing psychiatric treatment and the family is willing to accept her back, but Paroma adamantly refuses any sense of guilt, turning to her friend and asking her if she can help her find a job. In the end she finally recalls the name of the flower which throughout the movie she was not able to recall. The movie closes with Parama and her daughter on the bed looking out through the window as a breeze comes into the room. ===== The novel concerns two corporations competing to develop the power of atomic energy. Independent Laboratories is working for the advancement of mankind, and Consolidated Power is working for personal gain. Nature goes berserk, and James Ferguson, the leader of Independent, discovers that Jevic, the Director of Consolidated, has achieved his goal. Nebulae in space are marked with a greenish glow and then are obliterated. MacRobert, who has previously refused offers from either corporation, is placed in charge of Independent. He disposes of Jevic in time to end the destruction. ===== The novel concerns the first real estate boom on the planet Venus. ===== The film opens with Colin Smith (Tom Courtenay) running, alone, along a bleak country road somewhere in rural England. In a brief voiceover, Colin tells us that running is the way his family has always coped with the world's troubles, but that in the end, the runner is always alone and cut off from spectators, left to deal with life on his own. Colin is then shown with a group of other young men, all handcuffed. They are being taken to Ruxton Towers, a detention centre for juvenile offenders, an approved school. It is overseen by the Governor (Michael Redgrave), who believes that the hard work and discipline imposed on his charges will ultimately make them useful members of society. Colin, sullen and rebellious, immediately catches his eye as a test of his beliefs. The boys live in a series of Nissen huts with no privacy. An important part of the Governor's rehabilitation programme is athletics, and he soon notices that Colin is a talented runner, easily able to outrun Ruxton's reigning long-distance runner. The Governor was once a runner himself, and he is especially keen on Colin's abilities because, for the first time, his charges have been invited to compete in a five-mile cross-country run against Ranley, a nearby public school with privileged pupils from upper- class families. The Governor sees the invitation as an important way to demonstrate the success of his rehabilitation programme. The Governor takes Colin under his wing, offering him outdoor gardening work and eventually the freedom of practice runs outside Ruxton's barbed-wire fences. This is shown interspersed with a series of flashbacks showing how Colin came to be incarcerated, beginning with one showing his family's difficult, poverty- stricken life in a lower-class district of industrial Nottingham, where they live in a prefab. The jobless Colin indulges in petty crime in the company of his best friend, Mike (James Bolam). Meanwhile, at home, his father's long years of toil in a local factory have resulted in a terminal illness for which he refuses treatment and dies, leaving Colin as the family’s jobless breadwinner. Colin rebels by refusing a job offered to him at his father's factory. The company has paid a paltry £500 in insurance money, and he watches with disdain as his mother (Avis Bunnage) spends what Colin considers an offensive sum. Colin symbolically burns some of his portion of the insurance money and uses the rest to treat Mike and two girls they meet to an outing in Skegness, where Colin confesses to his date, Audrey (Topsy Jane) that she is the first woman he's ever had sex with. His mother moves her lover, whom Colin resents, into the house; an argument ensues, and she tells Colin to leave until he can bring home some money. He and Mike take to the streets, and they spot an open window at the back of a bakery. There is nothing worth stealing except the cashbox, which contains about £70 (). Mike is all for another outing to Skegness with the girls, but Colin is more cautious and hides the money in a drainpipe outside his house. Soon the police call, accusing Colin of the robbery. He tells the surly detective (Dervis Ward) he knows nothing about it. The detective produces a search warrant on a subsequent visit, but finds nothing. Finally, frustrated and angry, he returns to say he'll be watching Colin. As the two stand at Colin's front door in the rain, the torrent of water pouring down the drainpipe dislodges the money, which washes out around Colin's feet. This backstory is interspersed in flashbacks with Colin's present-time experiences at Ruxton Towers, where he must contend with the jealousy of his fellow inmates over the favouritism shown to him by the Governor—especially when the Governor decides not to discipline Colin, as he does the others, for rioting in the dining hall over Ruxton's poor food. Colin also witnesses the kind of treatment given to his fellows who are not so fortunate: beatings, bread-and-water diets, demeaning work in the machine shop or the kitchen. Finally, the day of the five-mile race against Ranley arrives, and Colin quickly identifies Ranley's star runner, Gunthorpe (James Fox). The proud Governor looks on as the starting gun is fired. In the final mile Colin overtakes Gunthorpe while running through the woods and then gains a comfortable lead with a sure win, but a series of jarring images run through his mind: jumpcut flashes of his life at home and his mother's neglect; his father's dead body; stern lectures from detectives, police, the Governor and Audrey. Just yards from the finish line, he stops running and remains in place, despite the calls, howls and protests from the Ruxton Towers crowd. In close-up, Colin looks directly at the governor with a defiant smile, an expression that remains as the Ranley runner passes the finish line to victory. The Governor is clearly disappointed. At the end, Colin is back in the Borstal's machine shop, now ignored by the Governor. ===== David Karr, husband, father, White House press reporter, film producer, powerful millionaire, defense contractor, Corporate CEO, renaissance businessman... Soviet agent? A fast-paced, introspective look at the enigmatic life of a most influential ancestor. A clear-eyed, comedic take on the life of this complex character and the events surrounding his untimely demise, the film reaches to understand the forces that push an individual to immerse himself in a nefarious web of danger and infamy. ===== Victor Peñaranda and two other men torture a man known as "El Mellizo" (The Twin) in order to recover the money stolen from "El Orejón" (Big Ears), the leader of the underworld of Cali. Don Pablo, intermediary of "El Orejón" and the thugs, orders a search for the money around the house. Peñaranda finds the money and decides to steal it, claiming he did not find any money inside the house. Meanwhile, "El Orejón" attends the funeral of his godson William Medina. A devotee of witchcraft, "El Orejón" hires the witch Iris to put a curse on Medina's murderer. As Don Pablo failed to find the money, "El Orejón" calls Silvio Sierra to help with the task. Sierra pairs Peñaranda with Eusebio Benítez to complete the mission and they stay in a shared hotel room. While they wait for instructions, Benítez has sex with a woman and Peñaranda unexpectedly answers the call from a man demanding to know the whereabouts of a woman named Adela. Later, they meet Sierra and go to the funeral of the first "Twin", waiting to find the other "Twin". The "Twin" does not appear, and Don Pablo suspects Peñaranda has the money. Peñaranda denies and tries to call his wife secretly to use the stolen money to flee from Colombia with her and his daughter. Benítez began suffering from nightmares because of the curse put on him by the witch Iris, while he, Peñaranda and Sierra find the other "Twin". The "Twin" escapes but they capture and interrogate his lawyer. As he says that one of the assassins who had killed the first "Twin" could have stolen the money, Sierra murders the lawyer and throws him into a river. Meanwhile, Benítez is advised about the curse by a friend, who recommends him to remove an object from the right hand of the dead. Peñaranda is invited to a conversation with Don Pablo in a coffee shop. However, Don Pablo does not arrive and Peñaranda reads in a newspaper that his friends were killed and unsuccessfully tries to call his wife to communicate it. While "El Orejón" doubts the effects of Iris's curse, Benítez suffers from its effects. Peñaranda tries to call his wife to flee with the money but she does not want to see him after discovering the origin of the money. "El Orejón" interrogates Benítez who claims he knows nothing about Medina's murder and whether Peñaranda stole the money. The leader of the underworld laughs and demonstrates his power by killing a random man in the middle of a square. Peñaranda tries to escape alone with money but Sierra and Benítez arrive; while the latter locks himself in the bathroom, Sierra says to Peñaranda that "El Orejón" ordered Peñaranda to kill Benítez. That same night, Benítez goes to the graveyard and complies with what was recommended by his friend. The other day, Sierra tells Peñaranda and Benítez that the other "Twin" was captured. Sierra also answer the call from the man looking for Adela and says that she was murdered. While the three men go to a sand factory, Sierra tells Peñaranda and Benítez that Don Pablo had died the previous day. At the sand factory, the "Twin" states emphatically that Peñaranda killed his brother and stole the money, but Peñaranda denies it. In doubt, "El Orejón" instructs Peñaranda to dismember alive the "Twin" with a chainsaw. When Peñaranda kills the "Twin", "El Orejón" concludes that Peñaranda is really with the money and threatens him, saying he would kill his wife and daughter if he does not retrieve the money in two hours. As "El Orejón" leaves the place, Sierra orders Peñaranda to kill Benítez. However, Benítez beats Sierra, while Peñaranda kills one of "El Orejón"'s bodyguard. When Peñaranda is prepared to kill Benítez, Benítez asks him for a compromise so they can kill "El Orejón" together. Once they manage to kill "El Orejón", Peñaranda abandons Benítez and reaches the hotel, killing both a policeman and the hotel manager. However, he is beaten to death by the burly mad man who was seeking for Adela; this demencial man in turn is killed by Benítez, who fled with the money but dies tormented by the curse. ===== I. Geremio: Geremio and his coworkers are gruesomely killed on the job when the building they are working on collapses. Geremio is swallowed in concrete, which crushes him to death as it dries. Because this accident occurs on Good Friday, Geremio is the "Christ in concrete" of the title. II. Job: Geremio's pregnant widow, Annunziata, is left with no way to provide for their already-large family. Her brother Luigi promises to help, but soon he himself is injured at work and loses part of his leg. Geremio and Annunziata's oldest son, Paul, tries to find charity from local businesses and from the church, but with no success. He decides to take his father's place as brick-layer, and after a while is accepted by the other workers as having inherited his father's skills; yet, because of his youth, the company pays him only a pittance and Paul overworks himself. In this section, the word "job" is treated like a character and often capitalized. III. Tenement: Unable to work, Paul remains at home; di Donato uses this section to explore some of the other families in the tenement, including the Olsens, whose daughter Gloria attracts Paul, and the Molovs, Russian Jews whose son Louis befriends Paul after telling him about the death of his older brother back in Russia. Also in this section, Annunziata and Paul visit a psychic, who reassures them that Geremio is watching over and praying for them, and attend the hearing at the Compensation Bureau, which ends indecisively with the construction company blaming the workers for the accident and the insurance company claiming the accident falls outside the bounds of the policies they have with the construction company. IV. Fiesta: Paul gets a better-paying job as a bricklayer, and later gets a job working on skyscrapers. Luigi comes home from the hospital and eventually marries Cola, providing the fiesta of the title. V. Annunaziata: The Great Depression hits, and Paul helps his mentor Nazone get work, only to have Nazone fall to his death after a fight with the foreman. Distraught, Paul tells his mother that he no longer believes in God or in the afterlife, a confession that shatters her and for which he spends the final pages asking forgiveness. ===== The Telenovela follows Andrés Ferreira, who was born from a poor woman and went with a rich woman, and Brayan Galindo, who was born to a rich woman and went with a poor woman. After 30 years, Andrés went to the pensión where Brayan lived and met his true family; Brayan went to live with his real mother and his new fiancé, Fernanda Sanmiguel (who only wants him for his money, and is the lover of Andrés's cousin, Mateo). Brayan is now the owner of the Ferreira enterprise Mundo Express, and it is later revealed that Mateo, Brayan's cousin, is trying to steal his money as well as MundoExpress. ===== The telenovela deals with a woman, Marcia, who has been betrayed by her husband and decides to remake her life, looking for "the perfect" man and the man who she wants to be the father of her children (her biggest dream is to have a child). Marcia decides to "become" four different women, all of them called María (María Daisy, María Angelica, María Consuelo and María Magdalena). Each one of them manages to conquer a man, thus Marcia ends up dating four men simultaneously. ===== The daughter of an economically middle-class family fails to return home one night. Her family worries, make searches and evolves into a deep crisis, more so because she is the only bread winner in the family. Overcoming the economic and social constraints, the film has a deep underlining of hidden strength. ===== Filmed in roughly one month between the end of October and the beginning of December 2005, Mr. Sell's film is an honest portrayal of 'Defend New Orleans' creator Jac Currie’s life after Hurricane Katrina and one of his first trips back to the Gulf Coast after being stranded in New York City. It shows Defend New Orleans’ transition to a valid social aid project and features some of the earliest produced footage of post-Katrina Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans. 'No Place Like Home' features a moving soundtrack made by musicians personally connected with the subjects and interviews with friends who survived Katrina in New Orleans. All proceeds from DVD sales go directly towards Gulf Coast restoration funds. ===== The films opens with young Taro training, trying to hit moving targets with his specium beam. Meanwhile, on a faraway planet, Zoffy battles Tyrant. Later Antlar awakens in Baradhi. Ultraman arrives to battle him. Even later, Alien Borg attacks, and Ultraseven battles him in stock footage glory. The kaiju are defeated, while Taro continues to train. While training, he runs into Dokkun. The two of them come to a scuffle and the kaiju runs the ultra up a cliff. Mother of Ultra soon arrives and puts a stop to the fight. Father of Ultra arrives and the two explain to Taro that not all monsters are bad, and shows Taro stock footage of Eleking vs. Miclas. They take him into space and give him inspirational speeches. Taro later trains more and grows, battling flying saucers in space. He lets his guard down and talks with Ultra Father while Jack battles Twin Tail and Gudon in more stock footage. Father of Ultra tells Taro he must take his training more seriously before departing. He flies up with Mother of Ultra watching him. She and Father of Ultra talk about Taro as he trains. When Taro gets back he watches the story of Ultraseven. He then practices Ultra Psychokinesis. Father of Ultra arrives and explains to him how to use the skill which he completes successfully. The two then watch the story of Ultraman Jack and the other Ultra Brothers while he continues the training. While training out in space, Taro gets an ultra message. He goes to Father of Ultra, who tells him it is time for him to go to earth. Then they watch Alien Mefilas vs Ultraman, and how Mefilas said he'd return to earth. Eleking awakens, controlled by the alien. Taro flies to earth in his travel sphere and defeats the kaiju. The next day he defeats Mefilas as well. However, his training is not over; he must also learn Leo and 80's techniques. He then takes a sleep in a light shower and has a strange dream, in which a monster threatens him. Father of Ultra is disturbed by this, and tells him to begin his final training: absorbing dad's energy beam. If he can, he will become a super ultra. Meanwhile, on earth, 80 was battling Baltan. When the Baltan is destroyed, it calls out "Juda!" Father of Ultra and Taro are still training when they get 80's Ultra Sign. Juda has returned. Father of Ultra reveals he fought Juda 50,000 years ago, and that he was born from the distortions of space. In order to defeat him Father had to undistort the distortions. He says that the only reason he had enough energy for that was because of the training of his dad. Juda revives and sends Alien Hipporito to earth. Ace engages him but is turned to stone. Seven, Ultraman, Zoffy and Jack arrive, but are also turned to stone. Taro manages to absorb Father of Ultra's beam. Mother of Ultra brings news of the Ultra Brothers' fate to him, and he leaves to earth, telling Taro he still has some training to do. He sacrifices himself to revive Ace, who destroys Hipporito and revives his brothers. They take Father back to space. Taro manages to absorb Mother of Ultra's beam. Juda awakens and sends out Emmargo, and Taro goes to fight him. While Taro is battling the kaiju, Juda summons Grand King. The ultras see him coming and lure him to another planet. While the Ultra Brothers are completely decimated by Grand King, Father of Ultra awakens and says Taro is the only one able to defeat it. Mother of Ultra tells Taro this and he defeats Emmargo before he flies to the aid of his brothers. Mother of Ultra then tells them they must channel their energy into Taro's horns. They do so evolve Taro into a Super Ultra. In this form he easily defeats the monster but Juda vanishes. Taro and the fellow Ultra Brothers return to the Ultra Star where Father of Ultra has recovered. ===== The story focuses on a boy named Harry Ashfield who is brought to a Christian revival meeting by his babysitter, Mrs. Connin, a Christian who believes in faith healing. Harry is about four or five years old, and has a troubled home life. When he hears he is going to meet the young evangelist Bevel Summers, he tells Mrs. Connin that his name is Bevel. For the rest of the story, Harry is referenced as Bevel. While at the revival, Bevel is baptized in the river by the evangelist who tells him he has a father in heaven who loves him, and that he is counted among the saved now—that he "counts." When the boy returns home, his family still ignores him despite the fact that he tells them that he now counts. In the morning, young Bevel returns to the river to re-experience the events of the preceding day and drowns while attempting to find the Kingdom of Christ.Richard Giannone, Flannery O'Connor, hermit novelist (University of Illinois Press, 2000) When Bevel returns to the river, a gas station owner named "Mr. Paradise" who sees Bevel wandering about, follows him to the river and dives in after him, but is unable to save him, emerging from the river 'empty-handed,' 'looking like some ancient water monster'. Mr. Paradise, who was afflicted with cancer behind the ear, was a regular participant at the river revivals, but only to act as a skeptic and show off his cancer which is never healed by the evangelist. Mr. Paradise uses Bevel's innocence to further mock the evangelist, who is humiliated publicly while praying seriously for Bevel's 'sick' mother, when Bevel reveals with childlike innocence that her 'sickness' is actually a hangover. Mr. Paradise 'guffaws' at this embarrassing revelation, saying 'Haw! Cure the afflicted woman with the hangover!' Mr. Paradise is curiously named; 'paradise' is evocative both of the Garden of Eden and Heaven; While Bevel is promised Heaven and Salvation by the evangelist and the river, the river baptism cannot cure Mr. Paradise's cancer, cannot improve Bevel's life in any way or make him 'count' to his mother or his family, and instead of leading him to heaven, the river in fact sweeps Bevel away to his death; the River promises a Paradise it cannot deliver, while a man who is actually named 'Paradise', who has observed the river baptism with skepticism and mockery throughout the story, and might be said to represent a rationalist skepticism, is also powerless to save Bevel. Does the man named Mr. Paradise represent some actual hope for paradise, as opposed to that offered by the Evangelist and Mrs. Connin? If so, clearly that hope is something beyond both the belief of the evangelist and Mrs. Connin, and the unbelief of Mr. Paradise, since neither are able to save Bevel. While Bevel's drowning in the river that promised him baptism and eternal life, that promised him that he would 'count' for something, is a grotesquely humorous irony, typical of O'Connor's stories, it might be pointed out that Bevel does indeed seem to experience an 'epiphany' of sorts as he is swept away to his death; 'for an instant he was overcome with surprise; then, since he was moving quickly and knew that he was getting somewhere, all his fury and his fear left him.' Baptism in christian theology has long been associated with death and christian detachment; in baptism a christian enters into the death of Christ, undergoing a 'dying to sin' and a 'dying to self.' It is perhaps this dying to self that Bevel is experiencing as 'his fury and fear leave him' and why 'he knew he was getting somewhere.' ===== The story begins as Ruby Hill, a woman who has lately been suffering from minor illness, enters the door of her apartment building after shopping at the grocery store. Ruby begins to work her way up the stairs to her apartment, stopping frequently to catch her breath. Along the way she reflects on aspects of her life, including her younger brother Rufus, who has recently returned from fighting in the European Theater and is now living with Ruby and her husband. She thinks disparagingly about her brother, and his failure to change much from their rural upbringing. She also thinks about her husband, Bill Hill, a salesman for "Miracle Products" who has seemed particularly happy lately; about her age of 34; and about her general dislike for children. When she sits down on a step to catch her breath she accidentally sits on a toy pistol, which she recognizes as belonging to Hartley Gilfeet, an unruly six-year-old boy who lives in the building. She also thinks about Madam Zoleeda, a fortune teller who has recently read her palm and claimed that "a long illness" would lead to "a stroke of good fortune." On the second floor Ruby is accosted by Mr. Jerger, a 78-year-old former teacher who asks her if she knows whose birthday it is. When she does not, he drags her into his apartment and shows her a book about Ponce de Leon and tells her about his search for the legendary Fountain of Youth. When she excuses herself from Mr. Jerger, and continues up the stairs, she becomes out of breath after only five steps and wonders for an instant if she has cancer. By the time she reaches the apartment of her friend Laverne Watts on the third floor she is nauseated and disoriented. After Ruby enters her friend's apartment and collapses into a chair, Laverne begins to tease her about being pregnant, and asks after her brother Rufus. Ruby does not like Laverne's interest in her brother, and denies the possibility that she is pregnant, claiming that her husband would never "slip up". Finally, however, Ruby begins to admit to herself the possibility that she is pregnant. Suddenly, she is startled by a loud noise coming from below, and when she peers down the banister she sees Mr. Jerger fighting and yelling with Hartley Gilfeet. As she stares down the stairwell, she says the words "Good Fortune, Baby" and feels a little roll in her stomach. ===== Bo (Stephy Tang) is an expert on dating boys, explaining her strategy to her friends at Wing (Sammy Leung) and Ching's (Linda Chung) wedding. During the wedding Bo sees Bik Lin, her "love rival". Bo also meets Michael (Philip Ng) for the first time and soon asks him to drive her home. After the wedding, the newly weds head back to their house along with Siu Mo (Terry Wu), where it is seen hinted that Siu Mo likes Ching. Three months later, while Bo is shopping she sees Wing with Bik Lin across the street, Bik Lin puts eye drops on Wing's eye. Bo goes to Ching's house for dinner that night, waiting for Wing, who comes home late and said he had eaten outside, Bo becomes angry. The next day, Bo meets one of her previous boyfriends, Ryan (Alex Fong). Ryan was very calm and it was him that had come up to Bo first. During the flashback that followed, Bo and Ryan were seen happily together, Ryan confesses his love and asks if Bo likes him too, Bo says yes. Then skipping to the night where they break up, Bo's new boyfriend, Vincent, whom she was trying to get to through Ryan, pushes Ryan to the ground. Ryan angrily gets up and yells at Bo that "karma will get you!". Following the breakup, Bo encounters some bad luck, believing it was Ryan's curse that was responsible. A few days later, she sees Ryan and talks to him, Ryan leaves after taking a phone call but explains it was his sister. Wing meets up with Bo later and confessed that he does have an affair, with someone that she knows. After that, Wing keeps pestering Bo, confiding his problems to her. Bo was deeply in thought about Wing's affair and the reappearance of Ryan while washing the dishes when she accidentally squirted detergent into her eyes. Her friend Mon (Miki Yeung) rushes Bo to the hospital. Bo was forced to sit down and wait. She was squirting detergent everywhere from the bottles she had brought when a doctor comes forward and amusingly replaces them with a box of Dragon's beard candy. The next day while Bo was getting her medications, someone comes up and says that he sees her eyes are better. Seeing whom it was, she lights up with recognition, the "dragon's beard candy!". The doctor introduces himself as Joe (Hins Cheung) and he asks Bo out for dinner that night. After dinner, Joe plays a piece on the piano at Bo's house. When he finishes, Bo and Joe prepares for a kiss. The scene then changes to when they both rush out of the house, and then goes to a nearby 7-Eleven, Joe goes in to buy the "preparations" for when they get back. Bo was waiting outside when Ryan turns up. Bo tries to get him to go away, when Joe comes back, the cashier from 7-Eleven follows out saying that Joe had left the most important "preparation" item and the moment turns awkward. Bo leaves. She was trying to hail a taxi when Ryan drives over with his car, Bo gets into his car. While walking Bo home, Ryan and Bo kisses and Joe sees, who came back to give Bo her bag. Bo sees Bik Lin at a karaoke, when Ching arrives, she creates an opportunity for Bik Lin to leave as Bo believes she was meeting Wing there. Bo wakes up on another morning when she finds that she's been "cursed", appearing disheveled, because of seeing Ryan again. She gets called to an outdoor mountain event, where Ryan also appears. Bo was running away from Ryan when she falls down a slope, Ryan comes down to help her and asks her what is wrong. Ryan dismisses the claim of cursing Bo. The others find them and Bo was happily telling Ryan they were going to be saved when Ryan says "Bo, you never believe anyone, you'll never find true love". A few days later Bo goes to Ryan's house to confess her love when she sees another woman in his house, she then leaves, she has not seen Ryan since. Bo, Ching and Mon then heads to a hotel believing Wing and the woman was there, although Bo sees Joe with another woman and she gets angry, Bo texts Joe that she hates him and never to find her again. It was shown what she didn't see was the girl was Joe's friend's girlfriend. They charge up to the hotel room, only to find Bik Lin and Michael was in there, Bik Lin explains that she only didn't want Bo to find out Michael had chosen her and not Bo. Ching blames Bo, saying that she lied to her, and slaps her (Siu Mo had followed Bo and Ching had originally thought Bo was the other woman). Heading home, Bo realises that Mon was the other woman, Mon confesses, but shows no remorse, Bo says she has lost two friends that night, one was Ching, the other was Mon. One year later, she meets Ching on the streets again, after Ching explaining that Wing had come back and the past should be forgotten (as well as Siu Mo dying of brain cancer), Bo goes to Ryan's house. She confessed that she loved Ryan and could he forgive her for what she has done, Ryan does not speak and Bo leaves. Ryan rushes out after a few mins, Bo was sitting on the stairs, Bo cries and says that she was selfish before and could they start again, Ryan agrees. Ryan said that he had wanted to tell her that the woman she saw one year ago was his sister. The movie ends when Ryan meets up with Bo at a restaurant, Ryan's sister was at another table, her boyfriend asked if Ryan was her ex and if the woman was his new girlfriend. She says no, the person with her ex is his sister, revealing Ryan was a player who had lied to both of them that the other was his sister. The final scene shows Ryan and Bo holding hands, in a voiceover Bo saying that love is all about lying and deceiving, thus showing true to the statement Bo had made in the beginning of the movie, "sometimes the things you see might not be real and the things that are real you might not see". ===== Discontent leads to a daring escape plan in a women's prison where the inmates are all lingerie-clad models and the lesbian warden demands unusual favors for early parole.Internet Movie Database ===== As the movie opens, a woman writer with a recently bestselling novel is being questioned about a murder. The story cuts to a young woman abandoned by her traveling companion at a roadside rest stop. A helpful man offers to give her a ride. The story turns on a series of mysterious identities. There is an escaped rapist-killer with a penchant for magic tricks. There is a man who has abandoned his family. And there is a writer's assistant. Which of these three is the helpful stranger? He is especially suspicious as he begins secretly dictating into a recorder a story about a woman in danger. The man and woman travel from the rest stop to her parents’ home, where her daughter is also living. (The woman herself lives in Paris and claims to be a hairdresser.) The man bonds with the daughter and disappears with her for several hours... By the end of the movie, the plot threads come together and the audience identifies each of the three mysterious characters, as well as the role of the woman writer. ===== A despondent Vietnam veteran in danger of losing his livelihood is pushed to the edge when he sees Vietnamese immigrants moving into the fishing industry in a Texas bay town. He teams up with other fishermen and the KKK to terrorize the Vietnamese fishermen in a campaign of violence and intimidation based on true historical events that took place in Texas in the late 1970s and early 1980s. ===== The 427th Light Maintenance Battalion of the Imperial Space Marines is sent to an uninhabited planet to set up a base, but is forgotten when the Empire collapses in civil wars. Generation after generation for 500 years, the soldiers stubbornly hold onto their mission, training to repair starships that never come. Their equipment gradually wears out and to all outward appearance, they seem to be primitive savages, living by hunting and farming. Periodic visits by the Inspector General (actually the battalion commander hidden in a still-working "battle suit") maintains the fiction that there is still a functional Empire. A ramshackle Galactic Protectorate eventually emerges from the rubble of the Empire, though incessant power struggles keep it weak. Leaders strip subordinate commanders of trained personnel to strengthen their own positions while discouraging any ideas of rebellion. As a result, space fleets receive inadequate maintenance, and the level of civilization ebbs. The current Lord Protector tries to purge the second most powerful man, General Carr, but he escapes. Pressure is put on sector and base commanders to find the fugitive. Conrad Krogson, head of War Base Three, takes his fleet out to search star systems that have not been visited in living memory. Meanwhile, Colonel Marcus Harris, commander of the maintenance battalion is overthrown by his executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Blick. He and a loyal Second Lieutenant Kurt Dixon are jailed. When Dixon escapes, he has to hide in a battle suit to avoid detection. He accidentally activates it and is propelled into outer space. There, he is captured by a scout and taken to Krogson. Believing he has found Carr's base, Krogson prepares to destroy it. However, the circuits designed to coordinate the guns of all his ships malfunctions on a test firing. Dixon volunteers to fix the problem and manages to rewire them so that an attempt to fire would result in the fleet's destruction. A Mexican standoff ensues. Harris, restored to command to deal with the unprecedented situation, tries to negotiate with Krogson, but neither man is able to find a safe way out of their dilemma. Harris will not surrender his unit to Krogson, nor can he take a vastly larger force prisoner. Then Krogson receives news that Carr has overthrown the Lord Protector and that he is now on the list of those to be purged. This breaks the deadlock. Harris proposes that his men whip the fleet into shape and make it an unbeatable force to take over the Protectorate. Krogson agrees, making it clear that he intends to set up a less cutthroat form of government. Then, Conrad Krogson, "Inspector General of the Imperial Space Marines", lands to inspect his troops. ===== Three high school buddies, Stu (Luke Perry), Tommy (Dan Cortese) and Gus (David Hewlett), decide to go on a pleasure cruise through the Bermuda Triangle. Stu's fiancée, Julia (Polly Shannon), insists on attending. When they arrive in Bermuda, Gus and Tommy stumble across a voodoo sacrifice. Gus takes a photo, causing a voodoo priestess to utter a curse under her breath, so they leave. When Tommy, Gus, Stu and Julia get to the dock, they find that their chartered boat is a wrecker run by Captain Morgan (Dorian Harewood) and Charlie (Olivia d'Abo). They agree to go out. While diving, Julia sees the ghost of a little boy and begins to drown. A heavy fog engulfs the boat and the electronic equipment on board begins to malfunction. Suddenly a large ship, the RMS Queen of Scots, appears on the horizon. Everyone agrees to board the vessel in order to try and salvage parts to fix Morgan's boat. They quickly find the captain's log, and they realize that the Queen of Scots was experiencing similar technical difficulties. Morgan insists that he can repair it, and everyone splits up to search for the ship's power source. Morgan and Tommy discover an elevator that is running without power descend to their level. When the door opens, a cricket ball rolls out. They find that Morgan's boat has drifted away. Captain Morgan decides to go back down to the engine room and try to get the engine running, and they split up again. While in a room, Gus sees the same ghost that Stu's fiancée saw, and suffers a fatal heart attack. Stu encounters a vault filled with money and an old cricket bat. He is gathering money when Julia intervenes and tries to stop him, but he kills her in a fit of rage. Tommy and Charlie both awake from the same nightmare, and discover Gus's body. They frantically search for Stu, but they only find Julia's bloodied flashlight outside the ship's vault. Stu sneaks up on them and throw them in the ballast, locks the door, and begins to flood the compartment with ballast water. They discover the ballast contains the skeletal remains of the ship's passengers and crew. They also find Julia's body and realize that Stu killed her. Captain Morgan is still working in the engine room and doesn't hear any of the previous commotion. Stu confronts him, and Captain Morgan is mortally wounded. Before he dies, he tells Tommy that Stu is acting like one of the original passengers on the final voyage of the Queen of Scots, who went crazy and killed everyone with a cricket bat. Tommy and Charlie attempt to escape, but Stu pursues them. Tommy pushes Stu through a pane of glass, and he and Charlie cover the boat with petrol and attempts to board the small dinghy that originally came from Captain Morgan's boat. Charlie boards the dinghy, but before Tommy has the chance, he is attacked by a bloodied Stu. Charlie loosens the pulley while the cords are entangled around Stu's feet causing him to be pulled off the ship and hanged. Tommy escapes to the dinghy, and the ship suddenly comes back to life and begins to pursue them. Tommy shoots a flare at the Queen of Scots, igniting the petrol and causing it to explode. Their dinghy is discovered by patrolmen, and Tommy and Charlie tell them their story. The patrol men are shocked to learn that they are survivors from Captain Morgan's ship, and just before the credits roll a radio broadcast is heard that reveals that Captain Morgan's boat was lost at sea over four years ago, while the movie seemingly transpires over a single day, implying that the Bermuda Triangle is a wormhole. ===== Caught up the fervor of the Chinese Revolution, she abandoned her plans to study at university and took a job at the Gansu Daily newspaper. Her husband, fellow journalist Wang Jingchao, wrote several critical essays at the height of the Hundred Flowers Campaign. With the launch of the subsequent Anti-Rightist Movement, Wang was attacked for these statements, and she was condemned by association. The two were sent to separate labor camps, where Wang eventually died. He Fengming was released, briefly imprisoned again during the Cultural Revolution, and finally rehabilitated. In the early 1990s she published a memoir, My Life in 1957. ===== The story opens in 1955, where the printing firm of Salinger & Holbrook (mainly Holbrook) is interested in becoming major shareholders in Strix, a magazine of commerce. Donald Salinger, Jude Holbrook, and Somerset Lloyd-James all have trouble with women: Holbrook and Lloyd-James are both unhappily married; Salinger gets engaged to the promiscuous Vanessa Drew who tries to restrict her sex life (to only a few places and not with people Salinger knows or even knows of). Various subplots are woven throughout the book, with many characters participating across multiple plotlines. The novel culminates chronologically with the Suez Crisis. Category:1964 British novels Category:Novels by Simon Raven Category:Fiction set in 1956 Category:Novels set in London ===== The film begins with Ina Montecillo (Ai-Ai delas Alas) at the funeral of her fourth husband, Eddie (Padilla). She and her best friend Rowena (Domingo) then work as a stunt doubles for a film directed by her former employer, Bruno. Four of her children are Overseas Filipinos: her eldest, Juan (Agustin), migrated to New Zealand with his girlfriend, Jenny (Abad). Tudis (Valdez) settled in Canada, where she meets her future husband, a house painter, who in Ang Tanging Ina Mo (Last Na 'To) is Troy (Rafael Rosell). Portia/Por (Evangelista) left for India after her breakup with Jeffrey (Prats), and there she joined GMA (Global Missionaries of Asia). Six to (Acueza) migrated to United Kingdom to work as a nurse. Of her eight remaining children, Tri ( Aquino), is a law student by day and a call centre supervisor at night. Pip (Uytingco), her out gay son still pursues his dream; queuing for what he thought were auditions for PBB, a soldier gave him a bag of rice from what was actually a rolling store called Pila ng Bigasang Bayan. Seven (Magdayao), is the one in charge of her younger sibling and doing household chores. Cate (Dalrymple) has a dignity to stop everything. Shammy (Manio) is doing something bad instead of studying, but he can be a businessman. Her deaf-mute son Ten-ten (Kadooka) is very quiet while her twin daughters Connie and Sweet (Bianca and Janelle Calma) are quite naughty. Ina had her eatery business, which became bankrupt because of Rowena. On the night of her 46th birthday, she prepared a surprise for her children, but none of them remembered. She decided to study in a university as a working student, taking on a series of odd jobs. Her first stint was as a waitress, but she was fired after removing her uniform in front of patrons due to the heat. She next decided to work in an ice plant, but she resigned after Rowena visited her. After that, she continued her studies. Rowena and Ina went to Malacañan Palace to seek employment. They refused the positions of governess to the Presidential children (thinking it meant governor) and chambermaid (thinking it meant a selector of chandeliers), they got jobs as maids. They catch a glimpse of President Hillary Dafalong (Díaz), and they scrambled to greet her but were stopped by the Presidential Security Group. They tried and failed to speak with her several times until Ina eavesdropped on Vice- President Bill Bilyones (Durano) discussing a plot to assassinate President Dafalong. At a public function, Ina and Rowena tried to inform the President of the plan but failed because of the absent-mindedness of the crowd, and President Dafalong is killed. As a result of the sudden death of President Dafalong, Ina is forced to blow the whistle on Vice-President Bilyones, who immediately calls for a snap election in which he loses to Ina by a landslide. While settling into her new role as President Montecillo, Ina's relations with her family become increasingly strained. Her twins, Sweet and Connie, are then kidnapped by terrorists after the girls thought they could ease things by leaving the Palace. They eventually retrieve the girls and subdue the terrorists, and Ina then decides to resign after realising the value of her family. Ina hands over the reins of power to her Vice-President, Ren Constantino (Picache) who accedes as the new President of the Philippines. On her 47th birthday, Ina wakes up and thinks that her family forgot again. They fete her with a surprise party to also compensate for forgetting her 46th birthday. As the closing credits roll, now-President Constantino roams around her office in the Palace, looking at the official portraits of past presidents. The last portrait shows Ina as President Montecillo, surrounded by her entire family. ===== The action takes place at the beginning of 20th century. Unemployed and homeless Babbs Baberley (Alexander Kalyagin) is being chased by the police who attempt to arrest him for vagrancy. Babbs finds himself in a rich house, where he encounters Charlie and Jackie. Babbs' unsuccessful attempt to disguise himself as a woman gives Charlie and Jackie an idea. By threatening to surrender Babbs to the (successfully bribed) police, they force their unexpected visitor to dress once again as a woman and pass himself for Donna Rosa d'Alvadorez, Charlie's millionaire aunt who is expected to arrive with a visit from Brazil. Charlie and Jackie want Babbs to seduce Judge Criggs (Armen Dzhigarkhanyan) with the irresistible charms of a millionaire widow and to trick the Judge into giving his nieces, Annie and Betty, a permission to marry Charlie and Jackie. Complications to the scheme ensue. First, Jackie's father Colonel Chesney (Mikhail Kozakov) decides to help his shattered finances by marrying the rich widow and joins Judge Criggs in courting the fake Aunt Rosa. Next, the real Donna Rosa arrives with her ward Ela. Upon encountering the impostor, Donna Rosa decides to remain incognita that gives her a great opportunity to observe and understand all the participants of the scheme. Babbs falls in love with Ela and is tortured by impossibility to reveal himself. In the end, the fake Donna Rosa refuses to marry Colonel Chesney, and acquiesces to the courtings of Judge Criggs. The marriage permission for Annie and Betty is secured, and Babbs reveals himself to the company dressed as a man. Judge Criggs is incensed, but Donna Rosa reveals herself as the real aunt. The Judge and the Colonel rush to court her anew. Everyone exits the stage; Ela, despite being enchanted by the transformed "aunt", reluctantly follows. Babbs tries to follow the crowd only to see the door shut in his face. He starts desperately knocking on the door—only to wake up on a park bench pounded by a constable's club. Interesting facts: Dzhigarhanyan originally auditioned for the part of Colonel Chesney, whom he played in the theater adaptation. However, the film director Viktor Titov saw Dzhigarkhanyan in the role of Judge Criggs. ===== The film begins with Shelby (Mischa Barton) driving at night while crying and smoking a cigarette, which she drops and then hits someone who was standing in the path of the car. Mike (Matt Long), Shelby's ex-boyfriend, and his new girlfriend, Elizabeth (Jessica Stroup), are preparing to go to Mt. Bliss, Mike's hometown, because the football team is going to be retiring his jersey. Shelby has problems with the bank about the bowling alley she inherited when her mother died and still believes that she and Mike are still an item. After the football game Mike and Elizabeth decide to go to Shelby's bowling alley. When Shelby sees Mike she kisses him, but Mike tells her that he has a new girlfriend. Shelby befriends Elizabeth and after a few tequila shots, a drunk Elizabeth says she is going to meet Mike's parents after. Shelby then tells her that Mike's parents are over-judgmental, making Elizabeth nervous. Wanting to give a good first impression to Mike's parents, Elizabeth decides to go to a motel and sleep her intoxication off, so gets driven to the nearest one from Mike's policeman cousin Billy. As she arrives at check-in, the man behind the counter tells her that there are not any rooms left because of the homecoming football games and the nearest motel is four miles away. Mike goes home to see his mother, who tells him that one of her friends said his new girlfriend got drunk at the alley. Mike tells her that since Elizabeth wanted to make a good impression, she decided to stay at a motel. Mike's mother questions him why Elizabeth would think that, implying that Shelby lied to Elizabeth. Elizabeth begins to walk up the road, looking for someone to drive her to the motel. While driving, Shelby is now crying and smoking a cigarette as seen at the beginning of the film. Elizabeth tries to flag the car down and becomes the person Shelby hits. After the crash, Shelby takes her home with her. At her house, Shelby cares for Elizabeth by using some medical supplies left over from when her mother was sick. The next morning Mike tries to call Elizabeth but her phone goes to voicemail. Elizabeth then wakes up in Shelby's house. Confused, she asks Shelby what happened. Fearing that she would go to jail for hitting Elizabeth, Shelby tells her that she found her in the road as a victim of a hit and run. Elizabeth suffered extensive bruising and a broken ankle. Shelby tells Elizabeth that she left a message on Mike's voicemail telling him where Elizabeth was, which is a lie. Shelby then sedates Elizabeth. Shelby then walks to her bowling alley to get Elizabeth's car. Elizabeth wakes up and manages to get out of her bed with her injured ankle and hobble to Shelby's bedroom. She finds it covered in pictures of Mike and Shelby when they were still together with "SM + MD" written everywhere. Shelby returns and Elizabeth hobbles back to her room but accidentally detaches a photo strip of Shelby and Mike from the wall in her haste. Shelby finds it and realizes Elizabeth has been in her room. As a punishment she dislocates Elizabeth's bad foot. Mike and Billy go to the motel where Billy dropped her off and the receptionist tells him that Elizabeth never checked in. They then go to the bowling alley where Elizabeth left her car and see that is no longer there since Shelby stole it and hid it in her barn. Shelby looks through Elizabeth's suitcase and takes a gift that was intended for Mike, planning to give the gift to him as her own. Billy later tries to convince Mike to take Shelby back, since she still loved him even after he rejected her numerous times. Mike does agree, however, to go out for drinks that night. At the bar, Mike sees Shelby there and follows her to the bathroom. Shelby and Mike begin to passionately kiss, but Mike says that he cannot cheat on Elizabeth even though she seems to have deserted him. He leaves Shelby in the bathroom where she begins to cry. The next day, Mike, thinking Elizabeth left him for her ex-boyfriend, gets a text from Shelby on Elizabeth's phone saying too much is happening too fast. He lies on the couch looking at his phone's display of "No New Messages". Elizabeth finds herself locked in the bathroom. After rummaging around, she discovers taped to the inside of the cistern lid Polaroid pictures of Shelby's mother dying, revealing that Shelby had killed her. There is also a paper titled "Poisonous Plants" and a form showing that no autopsy had been performed at Shelby's request. Fearing her own murder is approaching, Elizabeth scours the bathroom looking for a way out. She finds a screwdriver and uses it on the door to escape. Shelby gets home from visiting Mike to give him his jacket and opens the bathroom door to find the room empty. She turns around to be met by the cistern lid in Elizabeth's hands. Elizabeth takes Shelby's jacket and hobbles down the stairs, out the front door into the barn, where she finds her locked car. In frustration, Elizabeth hits her car causing the alarm to sound. Shelby runs to the barn and subdues Elizabeth. Shelby calls her a "stupid bitch" and pulls the car keys from the jacket's pocket. She then ties up Elizabeth with duct tape. While she's lying on the floor, Elizabeth tells Shelby that she knows about her mother. Elizabeth tells her that her parents are rich and promises to run away and not tell anyone if Shelby will release Elizabeth and accept money from her parents. Shelby ignores her and uses pruners to cut out Elizabeth's Achilles' tendons. Shelby then gags Elizabeth and locks her in the basement. Mike prepares for his big ceremony to retire his football jersey, wearing the jacket that Shelby gave him. Billy stops by Shelby's house to see if she wanted a ride. While Shelby is talking to Billy, Elizabeth manages to shut off the power. Billy offers to fix it, but Shelby dismisses his offer, saying she shall do it later. Billy insists and enters the basement with his flashlight, seeing Elizabeth bound and gagged. Shelby creeps down behind him, strikes him in the chest with an axe and takes his gun. She shoots him dead, puts his body in a barrel and burns it. At the high school where Mike is being honored, he stands in the bathroom and takes off his jacket, only to see Elizabeth's initials on it. Realizing that Shelby had stolen the jacket, he thinks that Shelby must also be holding Elizabeth captive. He runs to her house to confront her where he hears Elizabeth in the basement and goes down to her. After a short standoff, Shelby shoots him in the leg. An altercation follows, resulting in Shelby fainting. He carries Elizabeth upstairs and stops to rest in the kitchen. Shelby comes up and after more fighting is attacked by Elizabeth with Mike's football helmet. He tells her to stop, and when she does, Shelby reaches for her gun. Elizabeth then continues to beat her with the helmet. After that, Mike picks Elizabeth off her feet and carries her out. The film fades to a home video of Shelby and Mike kissing and laughing about turning off the camera. The final shot is of Shelby's eyes opening, revealing that she is still alive. ===== Pelíšky is a bittersweet coming-of-age story set in the months from Christmas 1967 leading up to the ill-fated 1968 Prague Spring. Teenager Michal Šebek (Michael Beran) has a crush on his upstairs neighbor, Jindřiška Krausová (Kristýna Nováková). Michal's family is headed by a stubborn army officer who is a firm supporter of the communist system and who believes that communist technology will eventually triumph over 'western imperialist capitalism', while Jindřiška's father is an ardent foe of the Communists and a war hero, who has been imprisoned several times because of his outspoken opposition to the regime; he believes that "the Bolsheviks have a year left at most, maybe two". In contrast, the younger generation couldn't care less for politics. Instead, Michal sports a Beatles mop-top while Elien (Ondřej Brousek), the local hipster whose parents live in the USA, runs a local film group specialising in Hollywood and pre-war French films, while Jindřiška becomes Elien's girlfriend. After a wedding that unites the families, the film ends with the news breaking of the invasion of the Warsaw Pact. A dispute in the film illustrates the tension between the nationalistic and stalwartly anti- Communist father and Jindřiška, who is more apolitical. Jindřiška dares to suggest that her mother’s dumplings are closer to Italian gnocchi than traditional Czech knedliky (translated as "Viennese dumplings" in the English subtitles), sending her father into a rage. The plastic spoon on the poster refers to the gifts, miracles of "socialist science", that a Šebek uncle keeps sending the family and which always fail to perform as promised, humiliating Mr. Šebek. Both cases foreshadow how the political hopes of the fathers are destroyed by the coming Soviet invasion. ===== Jagannathan (Sarath Kumar), fondly known as Jaggubhai, is an upright, straightforward, and tough Indian police officer with sharp methods. His way of dealing with the criminals strikes terror in the underground world. Jaggubhai is sent to Australia on an important mission to deal with antisocial elements there. In Australia, he meets Ilavarasi (Srisha), and they fall in love with each other. Jaggubhai fails in his mission for which he came to Australia, and the brief romance with Ilavarasi also ends abruptly. Jaggubhai returns to India as a dejected officer, failing in both his official duty and personal life. However, fate had something in store for him. 20 years later, or as he says it 21 years later, he gets a call from Australia stating that Ilavarasi is dead and has left him a will. He reaches Australia and is shocked to know that the brief encounter with Ilavarasi had resulted in a daughter named Monisha (Shriya Saran), who is now a teenager. Jaggubhai realizes that he has left behind his daughter and her wish that he should protect her. Monisha thinks he is her mother's friend and tries to act cranky. The threat comes in the form of some antisocial elements who want to eliminate Monisha. These thugs were the same ones who had tricked Jaggubhai 21 years earlier and who had killed Ilavarasi. Now, it is Jaggubhai's duty to save his only daughter and settle old scores with the thugs. He now meets his former colleague Kaaliyappan or MIB (Goundamani). With his help, he kills the thugs and their leader Hamid Ansari (Richard Raj). Monisha then accepts Jaggubhai as her father. ===== As recorded in a film magazine, Jessie Curtis elopes with artist Jack Dexter. Her wealthy father, in a fury, disinherits her. He repulses all of his daughter's attempts at reconciliation, and ten years pass. Jack has been very ill and the family is penniless. The three children dress themselves as a gypsy, Indian, and sailor and with face masks, and go out to sing in the street. They make their way to their grandfather's house and sing below the windows. the old man is having one of his unendurably lonely hours, filled with regretful dreams of Jessie. When he hears the children singing, he calls them in, listens to their story, and promises that he will give them money for their sick father. Suddenly one of the youngsters rushes across the room to a portrait of Jessie that had been painted by Dexter at her father's order from a photograph of her when she was seven years old. "Why is my sister's picture in your house?" the small boy asks as he removes the mask from his sister's face. The grandfather learns the truth. He returns with the children to the rescue of his daughter and her husband. ===== As recorded in a film magazine, Maggie, the daughter of Pat Gallagher, a brutal saloon keeper, to escape from being forced into a marriage with a bully and protégé of her father, takes refuge in a shop in Chinatown that is just around the corner from her father's resort. The Chinese merchant Hop Woo, who has given her shelter, at last persuades her to marry him, resulting in a repugnant life for her. Years later finds Hop Woo the merchant selling his daughter Ah Woo into slavery. Ah Woo's brother, overhearing his father bartering with the highbinder, who is a member of the powerful Hip-y-tong society, runs for help to Jack Donovan, who keeps a gambling hall on the border of Chinatown. The brother shoots and kills the slave trader. Hop Woo is suspected of the crime and visited with blood atonement by the Hip-y-tong. The brother and Donovan, who loves the Chinese-American girl, rescue her from an underground passage below Chinatown, and Donovan shoots dead the highbinders. Maggie, the mother has committed suicide. Donovan sells the gambling hall and buys a ranch, where he takes his bride Ah Woo and her brother. ===== Francis the Talking Mule and his sidekick Peter Sterling visit Colonel Travers and his granddaughter on their family horse farm. Peter soon finds himself involved in the world of horse racing and a crime boss and his men trying to "fix" races involving the Travers' horses. ===== Bumbling former World War II serviceman Peter Stirling is sent to the U. S. Army's military academy at West Point as a reward for stopping a plot to blow up his government workplace. After enrolling, he is privately tutored by his old army friend Francis, which gets him into trouble when he reveals that this tutor is one of West Point's very own mule mascots. ===== Peter lands a job at a big New York City newspaper and while on assignment gets framed for a murder. ===== In 1960 Eva Adler, who is a widow, has a vacation home in the Catskill Mountains, in New York, across a lake from a resort. Her daughter, Lili Adler, is a socially awkward 20-year old who feels trapped by her mother's constant attention. Lili meets Nick Lockridge, an aspiring architect who is engaged to a woman from a wealthy family. Lili and Nick develop a romantic relationship over the course of the summer. Eva, Lili's controlling mother, is against any relationship and works to discredit Nick. ===== Francis Joins the WACS concerns Peter Stirling's return to the U. S. Army. A computer error assigns junior officer Stirling by mistake to the Women's Army Corps. Peter's old friend Francis once again helps him through his various military and personal problems, including several familiar stays (once again) in the base's psychiatric ward! ===== The film opens as the films protagonist, a gunfighter known as "Angel Face" or Ringo, kills four men in a gunfight. He is then arrested for manslaughter and locked up in the city jail where he awaits trial. Meanwhile, Major Clyde and his daughter Ruby are celebrating Christmas with several guests on their ranch. They are interrupted by a bandit gang who storm the hacienda and take them hostage. The bandits have narrowly escaped from a bank robbery in which their leader Sancho has been wounded. In a desperate attempt to deter their pursuers, they decide to hold the family hostage threatening to execute two a day until they are allowed to go free. The house is surrounded by a posse led by the town sheriff, however he fears for the safety of the hostages, including his fiancée Ruby, if he attempts to free the hostage by force. He decides to enlist the aid of Ringo, who agrees to infiltrate the gang and free the hostages in exchange for his freedom and a percentage of the stolen money. He manages to successfully join up with the gang, posing as a fellow outlaw on the run, however Ringo's plans quickly become complicated as Sancho begins ordering the execution of hostages as well as the tension within the house as Delores, Sancho's woman, encourages Major Clyde's romantic feelings while one of Sancho's men begins making advances towards Major Clyde's daughter, Ruby. He at first seems to double-cross the sheriff, however he succeeds in deceiving Sancho and allows the sheriff and his posse to storm the hacienda freeing the hostages and defeating Sancho and his bandits. ===== The novel describes the origins and events of the Russian Revolution, interwoven with the experiences of Arthur Ransome, then a journalist in Russia. He becomes acquainted with the leading Bolsheviks and begins a romance with Trotsky's secretary Evgenia who will become his second wife. He also has close contact with people working for the British government and must decide where his loyalties lie. ===== A soldier must pilot a new plane. He suffers an accident and is injured. He is interrogated and the army does not believe he is from Argentina. They mistake him for a spy. He calls his friends and nobody recognizes him. He cannot explain the situation, but a friend of his, the author, helps him. The author discovers the truth: the soldier has travelled to a parallel universe, a little different from this one. Category:Single-writer short story collections Category:Argentine short story collections Category:1948 short story collections ===== Karigan G’Ladheon, a member of the King’s Green Rider messenger service, finds her life increasingly tangled in the third book of the Green Rider series. King Zachary, for whom Karigan has feelings, has admitted his feeling for Karigan but is being forced into a political marriage with Lady Estora of Coutre. This causes difficulties for all three as Karigan and Zachary cannot be together and Karigan is now jealous of Estora and ceases to show friendship to her former friend. Soon Karigan is sent on several messenger errands as Captain Mapstone attempts to separate her from King Zachary. Accompanied by rider-in-training Fergal Duff, she delivers several messages, the last one a decoy message presented to her old school nemesis, now lord-governor Timas Mirwell, in an attempt to contact Rider Beryl Spencer. Meanwhile, Riders Alton D’yer and Dale Littlepage’s attempts to mend the wall at the Blackveil Forest are met with failure, and the wall’s strength continues to wane. “Grandmother,” the leader of the Second Empire, plans to overthrow Sacoridia in the name of the Empire. She is a member of Second Empire, a remnant of those who came to Sacoridia from Arcosia with Mornhavon the Black. By using her magic and a book that can only be read "by the light of the High King's tomb", Grandmother plans to destroy the D’Yer Wall. This book, written by one of the last great mages, contains the secrets of the D'Yer Wall; how it was built and how to maintain it. It is a race between Second Empire and the Green Riders to obtain the book to either destroy or repair the great wall. After delivering her messages, Karigan discovers that Lady Estora has been kidnapped by men working with Second Empire. She offers herself as a distraction, trading clothes with Estora, to allow the King’s betrothed to escape safely and return to Sacor City. Karigan is captured but escapes with the aid of Lord Xandis Amberhill. Knowing Grandmother’s plot, Karigan travels back to Sacor City to thwart Second Empire and gain possession of the book. When she arrives, Karigan joins a band of Weapons (guards highly committed to guarding the King and the tombs of dead royalty) who enter the tombs to stop the Second Empire from reading the book. Karigan successfully recovers the book, with the help of the god Westrion. In the aftermath of these events, Karigan is knighted by King Zachary and a translation of the book is given to Alton D'Yer in the hopes that he can discern the secrets in repairing the breach in the wall. Grandmother and the members of Second Empire journey through the breach into Blackveil hoping to "awake the sleepers". The author has confirmed that there are more books to come. The fourth book in the series, "Blackveil," was released in February 2011. ===== The Wall around the world fascinates 13-year-old Porgie Mills. He wants to know what is on the other side, but it towers over 1000 feet, glassy smooth and higher than anyone can fly on a broomstick. His obsession affects his magical schoolwork. His teacher Mr. Wickens informs his uncle and aunt, with whom he lives, but no amount of discipline can diminish the boy's interest. Mr. Wickens himself warns Porgie not to follow in the footsteps of his father, taken by the Black Man for writing a paper on forbidden technology. He even briefly shows Porgie his father's work; Porgie glimpses a sketch of an airplane and is inspired to secretly build a crude glider. On his 14th birthday, Porgie is ready. He launches his contraption, with his broomstick attached to the frame to provide additional lift. Along the way, he encounters his bullying cousin "Bull Pup" flying below and takes the opportunity to taunt him, but when the glider loses altitude, Bull Pup grabs hold of a fragile wing and shakes it. With a supreme effort, Porgie telekinetically makes Bull Pup's broomstick jerk around erratically and the attack stops. Porgie then sets his sights on the Wall. When he gets high enough, his broomstick stops working, but Porgie pilots his glider laboriously upward until finally he is over the Wall. He manages to land on its top just before his mistreated glider breaks up. While he is resting, he spots the Black Man flying toward him. In his panic, Porgie falls off the Wall, but is caught by the Black Man, who reveals himself to be Mr. Wickens. The schoolteacher informs Porgie the world outside is based on technology. The Wall was built and people put inside in order to develop their mental abilities. Mr. Wickens then takes Porgie to be reunited with his father. ===== Arakkalam Peeli, a veteran thief, adept in creating different masks was killed by Eapen with an indirect support from the former's son Arakkalam Kuttappan. Kuttappan's son, Baby, who happens to witness the murder runs away from the village. He later becomes a smuggler and robber. Several years later Kuttappan is sent to prison by a cunning Eapen who is then a rich businessman over an issue related to loan. This causes Baby to return to his village. He gives him gold biscuits to settle the matter and bails out his father. That night Baby manages to steal the same biscuits from Eapen's house by pretending to be his eldest son Thommi. He uses a mask just as his grandfather used to. After handing over the biscuits to Mumbai-based gangster he decides to settle in his village. He stays with Meenakshi, his late grandfather's ex-lover, and seldom meets his father (as he is unable to completely forgive him due to his involvement in his grandfather's murder). He vows to destroy the wealth of Eapen and how he does it forms the rest of the story. ===== Lakshmi Krishna Devaraya aka LK (Srihari), is a famous advocate, always fights on behalf of criminals and helps them win their cases. However, LK believes that he was the envoy of God and implements the real justice after the court acquits them by killing the accused in the name of cosmic justice. His sister (Suhasini) always encourages him in every case. In fact, LK's parents committed suicide after not receiving justice in the court for the rape of their daughter, which motivated LK to be a vigilante. Sri Mahalakshmi (Shamna), an MBBS student, is the daughter of a teacher Sambamurthy (Sri Tilakan). She is killed by some nine NRI girls who call themselves as the Mirchi Girls. Their parents meet LK and urge him to save their children who were fixed in a murder case. LK makes a thorough research on the subject and gets the girls acquitted. During the trial it is proved that Sri Mahalakshmi is an adopted daughter. But in his personal inquiry, LK finds that the hostel matron Olga Rose Mary (Sana), medical college principal Bhogendra Bhalla and public prosecutor Janardhan (Sayaji Shinde) were behind Sri Mahalakshmi's death. It is Janardhan and Bhalla who raped the girl which led to her death but imposed the case on the NRI girls. Finally LK implements the cosmic justice by killing all three of the accused. ===== The game begins with the Hero on a boat with its captain, Travers. He'll ask a series of questions of which determines the color of the Hero's apparel. Once he arrives at his destination, the Hero visits the local hotel on Vivosaur Island, where the manager gives him instructions on how to work the basic game mechanics. Soon after the manager finishes delivering her instructions, she sends the Hero to a trial Dig Site for first-hand practice. Such practice includes a Fossil Battle against a young boy named Holt. Once he completes the required training, he gains access to his first official Dig Site, the Greenhorn Plains. Upon arriving at said location, a man called Medal-Dealer Joe steals everyone's Dino Medals. The Hero encounters a young girl named Rosie, whose medals have also been stolen (she described the police captain two medals, one of Lambeosaurus, and the other of Edmontosaurus). She informs him that his medals are still safe and that he must fight the criminal in a Fossil Battle. A victory results in Medal-Dealer Joe being arrested, and everyone's Dino Medals being returned safely. Rosie takes interest in the Hero, and decides to accompany him on his journey. Once the duo return to the Island, it is announced that Level-Up Battles have begun. Both Rosie and the Hero successfully complete their battles, bringing them one step closer to becoming a Master. Soon after they level up, a new Dig Site, known as Knotwood Forest, becomes available. This particular location is home to a tribe called the Digadigs. They plea that the Hero must defend their treasures from the wretched BB Bandits. When investigating the Digadigmid, the Hero encounters a woman by the name of Nevada Montecarlo (a reference to Indiana Jones). The two later team up and take on Vivian, the leader of the BB Bandit Trio. In the meantime, Rosie becomes cursed and is only able to speak in a similar manner to those of the Digadigs. This curse will last throughout the majority of the game. Once the villains flee and peace is restored, Nevada and the Hero, who found a mysterious but tacky idol, part ways. He and Rosie then head back to the Island to compete in their second Level-Up Battle, in which both emerge victoriously. The Hero then visits the Rivet Ravine site where a Fighter's Seminar is taking place. The fossils will now be seen in different colors depending on the type. A man named McJunker is trying to fix mine carts. The Hero brings him his tools from the BB Bandits and he reveals that Holt is his apprentice. Holt gives the player an Electromonite for McJunker after a battle. After the mine carts are fixed the Hero goes deeper into the cave battles the BB Bandits again, and finds another idol. After leveling up again, the Hero is now able to visit Bottomsup Bay, with a diving mask. He is tasked with getting a ribbon for a pirate ghost. An eccentric man named Nick Nack has it but he'll only give it for a molted bug shell, a sandal fossil, and dentures of a denture shark in return. The BB bandits try to stop them, but the Hero and Rosie succeed in giving back the ribbon and get yet another idol as a reward. A mysterious girl named Duna appears to be following them. The next day, Rosie is kidnapped. She is taken to the BB bandits hideout and the Hero is told to bring the three idols he found if he wants Rosie back. After battling Rex, Snivels, and Vivian, the BB Bandits leader is revealed to be Police Chief Bartholomew Bullwort. The Hero succeeds in getting him arrested and saving Rosie. However, Rosie's grandfather, Mr. Richmond, suspects there is something exquisite about the idols and believe the bandits were hired to steal them. After another level-up tournament, Rosie thanks the Hero for saving him so many times. Dr. Diggins, who has been examining the idols, asks the Hero to go find one more at Mt. Lavaflow. The Hero encounters large lava rocks blocking his path, Duna arrives to get rid of them. After he finds the idol, she demands him to give it to her. Suddenly the lava heat disrupts Duna's "holographic transformation technology" revealing herself to be some sort of dinosaur-like alien. After attempting to attack the player, Duna gets crushed by a lava rock from an earthquake. The Hero saves her by using his digging tools, much to her confusion. After Duna runs off, Rosie meets up with the Hero, but when they return they find that Vivosaur island has been taken over by the BB bandits. Bullwort somehow got his hands on the legendary Vivosaur known as the Frigisaurus. It freezes the Hero and Rosie and they are put in a jail cell. Rex, Snivels, and Vivian help them escape to Dr. Diggins as they no longer want to take orders from Bullwort. The Chieftain of the Digadigs reveals that the Frigisaurus was rivals with another legendary Vivosaur known as the Ignosaurus. So the Hero, with the help of Rex find the Ignosaurus fossil at Mt. Lavaflow, but Bullwort uses his Imperva-Ray on it making the fossil indestructible. Duna reverses the effects and the Ignosaurus is soon revived, it defeats the Frigisaurus and Bullwort is arrested. After defeating the champion Fossil Fighter, Saurhead, Duna reveals to the Hero that she is a Dinaurian, an alien race that believes humans were a mistake. The next day, when the Hero and Rosie go to see how her grandfather is doing with the idols, Duna and another Dinaurian named Raptin arrive to take them. They reveal the idols to be Sub-Idolcomps and are going to be used to wipe out the human race! Raptin turns Rosie into a Triconodonta, knocks the Hero out and escapes with Duna. Rosie was able to get Raptin's device that transports people their spaceship. After getting masks from Saurhead, the Hero and Dr. Diggins infiltrate the ship. The two find the Sub-Idolcomps connected to a much larger Idolcomp. Suddenly, the two hide as Duna and the king of the Dinaurians, Dynal, come in. He reveals that their plan is to use the Idolcomp to revert all humans on Earth to amoebas and start over, the plan is called Project: Mother Planet. Dynal tells Duna to press the switch but she refuses, she has come to accept that humans and just as intelligent as Dinaurians. Dynal is furious that she wants the plan shut down as he doesn't see it the same way, so he goes to do it himself but the Hero jumps in his way and battles him. Despite losing, Dynal manages to press the switch on the main Idolcomp. But Dr. Diggins manages to disconnect a Sub-Idolcomp so it wouldn't work. It also ends up sending him back in time to the Jurassic period, but the Sub-Idolcomp was with him. King Dynal attempts to kill the Hero and Duna but the two teleport to safety. Duna reveals to Mr. Richmond that the plan of Project: Mother Planet is to recreate the Dinaurian home planet. After it was destroyed by the giant and unkillable planet devourer, Guhnash, the Dinaurians searched outer space for a new home. When they found Earth, they used their DNA to create seeds to plant on the planet. However, the seeds took a different evolutionary path: humans. So the Idolcomp was created to monitor the evolutions and regress humans back to amoebas so they can evolve into Dinaurians. But the Sub-Idolcomps got lost in an accident and ended up on Vivosaur Island. They didn't know about human society so they hired the BB Bandits to look for them. They all agree they have to find the Sub-Idolcomp before King Dynal. Rosie is back to normal as the portable regression ray Raptin had was weak, but excitement still triggers the effects. The Sub- Idolcomp got shattered into five fragments while traveling through time, after gathering them all Duna reveals that it's still missing its core processor. Mr. Richmond remembers a secret island that the spaceship was found on, the technologies found inside were used to revive fossils. Richmond and Diggins hid the Secret Island away to prevent the technology from falling into the wrong hands. When the Hero and Duna enter the dinaurian starship, the latter finds out that the scout ship on the first exhibition to Earth was attacked by Guhnash. In the main control room is a human with the last idol fragment in stone-sleep. Suddenly, Raptin appears and attacks the Hero to get the fragment, but the latter manages to win the battle causing Raptin to exit saying humans are flawed despite Duna's protests. The two revive Dr. Diggins back in the Fossil Center, he found the stone-sleep technology in the old ship. Returning to the Richmond building Mr. Richmond has Rosie and the Hero assemble the Sub-Idolcomp to make sure it's real, he's actually King Dynal! He stuns all of the Hero's friends causing the latter to chase him. Back on the spaceship, Dynal is impressed when he loses another battle against the Hero. After Duna arrives, the Hero suggests that the humans and Dinaurians could live on the planet together. Raptin, still seeing humans as their mistake, was against the idea and presses the switch, but then the Sub-Idolcomps suddenly speak. They reveal that the seeds the Dinaurians planted actually perished in the ocean and that humans originated from their own planet. They agreed to just watch them grow but the main Idolcomp wanted to destroy them. Since the machine was only built for regression, it sent broadcast signals to Guhnash who didn't have the coordinates of Earth until the Sub-Idolcomps were returned! Both Raptin and Dynal were shocked at this and they all return to Earth. Dr. Diggins reveals that he found a sample of the monster when he went back in time, Guhnash can only be defeated by taking out its three brains. Dynal sets the teleporter to the mouth of Guhnash, it can only send one additional person for support, the Hero has the option to bring either Rosie or Duna. The two are successful in saving Earth, but the teleporter is interfered by the leaking of energy from Guhnash who is about to explode. So the two use a portable stone-sleep inducer to turn them both to stone in order to protect themselves and head back to Earth. As soon he gets back, the Hero is revived but the girl he took with him met with a more unfortunate fate: if Duna was chosen she turned to stone permanently and if Rosie was chosen she lost her memories. Either way, the chieftain of the Digadig Tribe comes to help, he claims he had a dream from the Fossil God who told him that the Hero and the girl he took saved the Earth. The Hero performs a hip-shaker dance gathering the power of the land and restores the girl back to normal. During the credits, the player sees what all the characters in the game are doing now. Afterwards, the Hero can take part in a series of side quests that include helping Dr. Diggins build and use a time machine. ===== The story is about Nick and Bill and takes place at Bill's father's cottage, where the two get drunk. The story begins with Nick walking around the orchard near the cabin. He picks up a Wagner apple and puts it in his pocket. Nick climbs the stairs to the cottage and Bill meets him at the door, telling Nick that Bill's father is out in the woods with his gun. Bill and Nick stand together, looking out across the fields. They discuss the wind for the first time, with Bill saying “it will blow like that for three days.” After they go inside the cottage, they decide to drink. The two begin to discuss a variety of topics while drinking, such as different books they're reading. Bill likes G. K. Chesterton, while Nick prefers Hugh Walpole. They also discuss baseball; apparently, the two of them are both fans of the St. Louis Cardinals, but Nick thinks that some of the games they lose are rigged, claiming “there’s always more to it than we know about.” They continue to drink and add logs to the fire. The topic of conversation moves onto their fathers and their differing occupations. Nick's dad is a doctor, while Bill's is a painter. Finally, after many drinks, Bill mentions Nick's recent break up. At first it seems to bother Nick a lot, claiming that everything was finished and gone and that he would never see her again. However, the two decide to “get really drunk,” and Nick changes his mind, claiming that “nothing was finished.” He resolves to go to town on Saturday because “there’s always a chance.” ===== An urban legend has been circulating about a nameless, cursed role-playing video game for the fictional Twin Screen (TS) handheld game system. According to the rumor, anyone who plays this and does not complete it within seven days will die. The player assumes the role of a college student at Nanto University, Tokyo. The player has started playing the cursed game, sent to them by classmate , who has been absent recently. , Odaka's girlfriend requests that the player go to Odaka's apartment. The player obliges, but makes a horrific discovery: Odaka has mysteriously died of drowning, with his TS system in his hands. The player also discovers that Odaka hadn't sent the game to the player, as he was trying to stop it from "spreading and killing others". The next day, a distressed Riko dies on the Nanto Express subway, having received the cursed game six days before the protagonist. On the player's third day, Nanto University professor calls the player to his office. An IT expert on digital information with an interest in folklore, Ooyama confirms that a "killer curse" is a very real possibility, and sees the nameless game as an opportunity to conduct research on its mysteries. He first directs the player to investigate , the abandoned location of the cursed game's domain. Partway through, Ooyama has the player look for a medical chart for , a man who died in a similar fashion to Odaka. The player soon discovers that they are being pursued by spirits devoid of eyes or mouth, and discovers Riko as one of them. Riko's "spirit" appears after the player obtains Yutani's chart and receives a disturbing game update, and chases them out of the hospital. On the fourth day, Professor Ooyama and the player learn that Yutani was the president of a video game company called Uta-Soft, located on the fourth floor of the Nakano Broadway shopping center; Ooyama directs the player there, warning them to avoid the spirits, which he dubs "Regrets", while exploring. Along the way, Ooyama sends the player information on Uta- Soft, including the fact that the company has gone bankrupt, with most of its workers missing and presumed dead. At the abandoned office, the player collects various pieces of information, including a plan for the unnamed game and an employee roster, before escaping the Regrets. On the fifth day, Ooyama finds that only one person from Uta-Soft is still alive: , the creative director of the unnamed game. The player travels to the abandoned Ikuta residence, where they find a near-catatonic Ushio in the closet. Almost immediately after, a game update takes the player into a flashback of events inside the house. Yutani, constantly stressed from work and jealous of Ikuta's love for his family, brutally murdered his wife Tomoka while Ikuta was at work. Ikuta's daughter Asahi, who hated video games (as they kept Ikuta from spending time with the family), came home to find an indescribably bloody scene, with Yutani splattered in blood and grinning madly. Luckily, Asahi was able to escape the house before Yutani could catch her as well. After the vision ends, Ikuta utters Asahi's name, and gives the player her picture diary. On the sixth day, Ooyama explains to the player that after Tomoka's death, Ikuta continued to work on the cancelled game, angering Asahi into running away from home. From the information in the diary, Ooyama guesses that Asahi may have gone to the capeside ; he directs the player there, telling them he would meet them there later. When the player finds Asahi's body there, she communicates to the player through the game, asking why they came for her despite her attempts to kill them, before vanishing. The player leaves the hotel to meet with Ooyama, but is forced to flee upon making a shocking discovery: Ooyama has been turned into a Regret (most likely from freezing to death). Asahi again communicates to the player, declaring that her actions were to avenge her mother, and that she will never forgive her father, video games, or even the player. Later, a delayed e-mail message from Ooyama asks the player what the drawing in Odaka's apartment stood for. Realizing that it was the located nearby, the player heads there. On the seventh and last day, the player arrives at the lighthouse. There, they learn that Asahi is the true source of the game's curse, having committed suicide by jumping from the top of the lighthouse. The player then heads for the nearby cliff (depicted many times in the cursed game) to reach Asahi before daybreak, in 3 minutes. Along the way, they must speak to the now-harmless spirits of the curse, in reverse chronological order, through the cursed game. Ooyama's spirit explains that he became a Regret because he wanted to see what would happen if one received the game, but never played it. Having received the game one day before the player, that makes Ooyama another victim. Ooyama explains that he now understands Ikuta's reason for working on the nameless game: to show that video games can be used to show someone how much they love them. After talking with Riko, Odaka, and the three missing Uta-Soft employees, the player speaks to Yutani, the curse's first victim. Acknowledging that he was the reason the curse began (by murdering Asahi's mother), Yutani tells the player to speak with Asahi and help her realize what she had in terms of family and love. When the player communicates to Asahi, they show her the happy memories that she and her family shared. Suddenly, Tomoka's spirit appears through the game, telling Asahi that she is sad that her daughter had died, and also closed her heart. When Tomoka mentions Ikuta directly, the player finds Ikuta standing next to them in the real world, having been led here by Tomoka's spirit. He explains his good intentions for creating the game, and apologizes to Asahi. In the game, Asahi responds, saying ; and the scene fades to white, before returning to the player, sitting at the cliff and very much alive. Ikuta, who notices the player, asks if they have met before; the player confirms this, before asking how the nameless game ends. Ikuta, taken aback by the player's interest, decides to complete the game's story to make amends to his family. Afterward, the game credits play, revealing the name of the nameless game: "Road to Sunrise". ===== After the American Civil War, ex-Union soldier Keoma Shannon, part-Indian and part-white, returns to his home town to find his half-brothers in alliance with a petty tyrant named Caldwell. Caldwell and his gang rule over the town with an iron fist. With the help of his father and George, an old Black friend, he vows revenge. Keoma also shows compassion when he saves a pregnant woman from a group sent by Caldwell's group to be quarantined in a mine camp full of plague victims. Keoma is constantly visited by the apparition of an older woman ("The Witch") who saved him during the massacre of an Indian camp. ===== The film tells the story of Chandrama Singh (Bobby Deol), who was raised by Baba (Danny Denzongpa), a Naxal leader based in the southern interiors of Bihar, after his family was brutally murdered. He later gets picked up under a covert Governmental program jointly conceived by RAW and Intelligence Bureau to carry out political assassinations. He falls in love with Shubhi (Priyanka Chopra), a kindergarten teacher, and decides to lead a reformed life but a chanced encounter entangles him in the world of crime once again. ===== In Capital Crimes, Will Lee finds himself in the middle of a tangled web of intrigue and danger, politics and power. Now at the pinnacle of his career, serving as president of the United States, Lee is faced with a most unusual task-that of marshaling federal law enforcement agencies to catch an assassin who is picking off some of the nation's high-level politicos. When a prominent conservative politician with a shady reputation is expertly killed at his lakeside cabin, authorities can come up with no suspects and even less hard evidence. But then, within days, two other, seemingly isolated deaths-achieved by very different means-are feared linked to the same ruthless murderer. With the help of his CIA director wife, Kate Rule Lee, Will trails the most clever and professional of killers before he can strike again. From a quiet D.C. suburb to the corridors of power to a deserted island hideaway, Will, Kate, and maverick FBI agent Robert Kinney track their man and set a trap with extreme caution and care-and await the most dangerous kind of quarry, a killer with a cause to die for. ===== As described in a film magazine review, Neil Dacey (Carrigan) loves Peggy Desmond (Taliaferro). Terence O'Malley (Sack), nephew of Squire O'Malley (Ryan), is anxious to win Peggy. Terence and his uncle have a quarrel because Terence cannot win Peggy, and the squire is killed. Terence does the killing with Neil's gun, so Neil is held for the murder. Peggy, to save her fiance, dresses as the will-o'-the-wisp, and this results in a confession by Terence. ===== As described in a film magazine, Henri Labordie (Tavernier) is the father of twins. Jeanne (Taliaferro) is sweet and winsome while her brother Jaques (Taliaferro), pampered by her father, is ill-tempered. When Jaques dies through his own caddishness, Jeanne, to spare her father from the shock, clips off her hair and dons boys clothing so that her father will think that it was her and not Jaques who drowned in a stream. When Labordie dies, Jeanne's deception ends when she goes to Montreal to fulfill an ancient pact, and there she finds happiness. ===== Geremio is an Italian bricklayer living with his family. The film depicts how Geremio and his family endure the struggles of living in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. ===== The story starts after the end of World War II in Europe, in May 1945, at the school that is attended by Fielding Gray and his friends. A service in memory of the dead is held and among the names mentioned is Andrew Morrison, older brother of Peter Morrison. Gray, who seems bored during the whole service, mentions early in his story that he has an affection for Christopher Roland, another boy of the school. After some flirting they meet for a tryst in a barn, after a game of cricket. Roland is disgusted with himself for climaxing too soon, and believes himself to be patronised by Gray. People are starting to talk about their relationship and Gray doesn’t really dare to see Roland again, at least not in school. He is criticised by Peter Morrison, who thinks the relationship may hurt the rather fragile Roland. Gray goes home to his parents, his bullying father and weak mother, for the school holidays. A Mr. and Mrs. Tuck are introduced to the household and we soon learn that Mr. Gray and Mr. Tuck want to send Fielding to a tea plantation in India. Fielding will, of course, hear none of this, and plans to go to Cambridge to study Latin and Greek. He flirts with the young Mrs. Tuck, Angela, who even promises him a sexual relationship on a longer basis if he joins them in India. Fielding is also corresponding with Roland, who sends him a photograph with a dedication, which Fielding puts away in a drawer. On VJ- day in September 1945, Fielding is out in the streets and meets two sisters, Dixie and Phyllis. He fondles Dixie a bit and then runs away. When he makes a visit to Angela he hears her in the bedroom with his father, and slams the front door in fury when he leaves. On his arrival home, his mother tells him that Angela has called to tell her that his father has died of what seems to be a heart attack during a visit. Fielding suspects that it was because of the slamming of the door but he reveals nothing about the affair. His mother inherits the modest fortune of her husband and goes away for a while. On her return she is often visited by the Tucks, who seems to become good friends. During the period she's away Fielding visits his friends and has a drunken party that ends with Lloyd-James vomiting. Later, he and Lloyd-James visit a drunk Angela Tuck, who is celebrating her 21st birthday. The party ends up with Angela and Lloyd-James having sex while Fielding leaves. The social climber Lloyd-James demands later that he should be taken more seriously by his comrades, since he is a man with ambitions. He even has plans of becoming head of school, a post that the headmaster wants to give to Gray. Together with Peter Morrison and his father they watch horse racing, where Morrison Senior's horse Tiberius dies during the race. Peter does his National Service and is shipped away to India (described more closely in Sound The Retreat). Letters to Fielding from Christopher suggest that he is very depressed. Gray has dinner with the Tucks and things turn ugly when India comes up. Fielding visits a prostitute to find out what its like to be with a woman. During a meeting with the Headmaster Fielding is told that Christopher has been arrested for strange behaviour outside an army base. He is later informed that Christopher has shot himself with his father's gun. The friends are attending his funeral and on the way back to town the Headmaster and Gray give a lift to a soldier who also attended the service. The soldier (whose name is never revealed) was on the base where Christopher was arrested and had seen him standing outside every day for two weeks. Fielding receives a letter from Christopher, written before he killed himself, where he reveals that his tutor (whose name is not given) has told him that Fielding doesn’t really love him and that this is the reason for his suicide. After this, Fielding's mother finds the photo of Christopher in the drawer and blackmails Fielding into turning down his scholarship at Cambridge. When he refuses to obey (and he even hits her) she tells the board at Cambridge and Fielding's chances are spoiled. Senior Usher (a master at Fielding's school) is, however, prepared to pay for Fielding's education at Lancaster College, where Robert Constable will accept him. The plan is that Fielding will do his National Service and then go straight to Lancaster College. One evening, during his service, he meets Peter Morrison who tells a disturbing story. Morrison has met with Fielding's mother and told her about his plan, since he didn’t think he could lie to her. The mother, furious, has done what she could to prevent the plan and has told Constable about Fielding's lies and how he hit her. Constable, who said nothing about Gray's homosexual leanings, thinks this is outrageous and refuses to accept Gray as a pupil. With all roads blocked, Gray settles for a career in the army, something that Captain Detterling, an old boy of the school, had urged on him earlier. Towards the end of the book Fielding is describing a short but bitter meeting he has had with Peter on the island of Santa Kytherea (where he is stationed) in 1955. Peter admits that Fielding Gray had become alien to him already by the end of the summer 1945. Category:1967 British novels Category:Novels by Simon Raven Category:Novels set during World War II Category:Fiction set in 1945 ===== Teenager Kevin Khatchadourian is in prison after committing a massacre at his high school. His mother, Eva, once a successful travel writer, lives alone in a rundown house and works in a travel agency near the prison, where she visits Kevin. She looks back at her memories of him growing up as she tries to cope with the hostility of her neighbors. Eva, a reluctant mother, views Kevin as detached and difficult from childhood, appearing to loathe and deliberately antagonize Eva, and she has trouble bonding with him, instead often yelling at him and insulting his intelligence. As a baby, he cries incessantly, but only around her; as a child, he resists toilet training, rebuffs Eva's attempts at affection, and shows no interest in anything. He behaves like a happy, loving son when his father Franklin is watching. Eva's frustration drives her to throw Kevin against the wall, breaking his arm. Kevin tells Franklin he fell, using the incident to manipulate Eva into doing what he wants. Franklin dismisses Eva's concerns and makes excuses for Kevin's behavior. When Kevin is confined to bed with a fever, Eva reads him a book about Robin Hood; when Robin competes in Prince John's archery contest, Kevin shows Eva affection for the first time. Franklin gives him a bow and arrow and teaches him archery. Eva and Franklin have a second child, Celia, who is lively and cheerful. However, Kevin is disdainful and jealous. A few years later, Celia's pet guinea pig is killed and she is blinded in one eye by caustic cleaning fluid. Eva suspects Kevin is to blame, but Franklin defends him. Eva's suspicion strains the couple's marriage and they discuss divorce, which Kevin overhears. Eva comes to fear her son, as she sees growing evidence of Kevin's sadism. On his 16th birthday, Kevin locks several students in the school gymnasium and murders them with his bow. When Eva arrives home, she finds Kevin has murdered Franklin and Celia. On the second anniversary of the massacre, Eva visits Kevin in prison. Eva asks him why he committed the murders. Kevin, who is about to be transferred to an adult prison, responds that he used to think he knew but is no longer sure. Eva hugs Kevin and walks away sadly. ===== As described in a film magazine, determined to lay down her life if necessary for her country, Princess Marya (Storey) mobilizes an army of Russian peasant women and is stationed in one of the front line trenches. German forces are about to overrun her battery when American volunteers arrive, and the Germans are dispelled. With autocracy abolished in Russia, Marya consents to become the wife of American Captain Rodney Willard (McCullough). ===== As described in a film magazine, Carma Carmichael (Storey), who lives with her uncle Quincy Carmichael (Andrews), is kidnapped by her father and held for ransom. In order to trap the criminals and secure Jack Carrington (Barker) as Carma's husband, Quincy fakes his death and makes Jack his heir. Carma is angered by her uncle's action is determined to take her rightful place. By going through some of her uncle's papers, she discovers that the man she believes to be her father is an impostor and that her father is dead. Carma's supposed father and a group of moonshiners attack the Carmichael home and are fought off by Carma, Jack, and a friend. Quincy, believing it is time to return to life, does so in time to get the sheriff's posse on the house grounds, drive off the moonshiners, and capture the crooks. ===== Iris (Olga Kurylenko) is a young woman working in a bottle washing factory. She loses the tip of her ring finger in an accident at work and leaves her job. She moves to a nearby port city and comes across a job working for a strange laboratory at which people have "specimens" preserved. ===== As described in a film magazine, Alva Leigh (Storey), having been sent for by her fiance, arrives in the west only to find him dead. She is determined to find his slayer and is assisted in her search by Dick Randall (Oakman). Duncan, owner of a dance hall, is anxious to get Alva under his power and leads her to believe that Dick killed her sweetheart. Dick, in love with Alva, has prepared to cross the desert to record a deed to a mine that was owned by him and Alva's late sweetheart. In revenge, Alva cuts holes in Dick's canteens and allows the water to leak out. After Dick has been gone several hours, Alva learns that he is innocent, so she rushes out in the desert after him. After traveling several miles, she fall exhausted only to be rescued by Dick. He forgives her and they have a happy reunion. ===== As described in a film magazine, Doris Standish (Hall), being forced into an unwanted marriage with an aged millionaire, follows the advice of a maid and jumps into a waiting automobile driven by Jimmy Nevin (Sutherland). After an automobile accident that wrecks the car, Doris and Jimmy seek refuge from a storm in a barn. To this same barn come the butler and maid with the stolen wedding presents. Doris transposes bags and goes to a rooming house with Jimmy, but the crooks follow. Doris escapes, but before she can warn her uncle and the millionaire, they are trapped by the crooks. Doris returns to the rooming house and is followed by the police. The crooks are arrested. Jimmy asks the uncle for Doris' hand and the millionaire gives his blessing. ===== While Mickey Mouse is working in his garden Pluto keeps bothering and interrupting him. After a while Pluto swallows a flashlight and gets stuck on a piece of flypaper. ===== "I tawt I taw a putty tat! I did! I did taw a putty tat!" The film begins with a shot of Tweety's house, at the top of a tall wooden pole, with a sign reading "DO NOT DISTURB." There is barbed wire on the pole and a damaged Sylvester. Sylvester uses a trampoline to try to get to Tweety's birdhouse; Tweety fights back with knocks to the head and a dynamite stick. Sylvester tries to get Tweety to slide down a clothespin and into his mouth; Tweety ties it to a firework, causing it to take off and pull Sylvester's teeth and gums out. Sylvester then paints his finger into a female Tweety which works at first, but then he switches hats with "her". Sylvester then tries to bite Tweety, resulting in Sylvester biting his own finger. Tweety accidentally becomes the badminton birdy in a makeshift game. Again, Sylvester springs and gets another stick of dynamite, which traps him in a water cooler when he attempts to swallow all its water to put out the flame. The cat then builds an entirely new birdhouse, fooling Tweety into walking right in. Instead of being digested, Tweety takes manual control of Sylvester, turning him into a train which crashes into a brick wall. Tweety then says to the audience, "You know, I wose mo puddy tats dat way?" and smiles. ===== Four-color MS-DOS version As an experienced thief John Nelson Brainner Stravinsky, known as Goody, has a mission to break into the Bank of Spain. Equipped with a ladder Goody explores catacombs and city buildings. Along the way he may collect treasure needed to purchase tools such as dynamite or a drill and to find out the access code to the main vault. There are many objects and enemies, such as remote-control combat helicopters, vipers, gorillas, the policeman Rodríguez, ghosts and the evil Moon who try to stop Goody. ===== ===== Four aliens - Gleep (Paul Williams), Romtu (Don Messick), Scoota (Frank Welker), and Bing (Frank Welker) have been sent to Earth from the planet Mars in order to find a rare material known as "coobi" (which is later revealed to be candy). After crash landing on Earth, they wander the streets searching for "coobi," but are mistaken for trick-or-treaters and ignored. When Scoota gets a strong reading on his "coobi meter," the four aliens chase down two children, Michael (Will Nipper) and Jeanie (Sarah Matinek), into the woods. The children learn about the aliens' mission and agree to help them collect candy. Meanwhile, Mrs. Gizbourne (a woman played by Rhea Perlman who had a previous run-in with Jeanie and Michael) and her assistant Hans (Richard Moll) are in an old house performing experiments on insects to find the secrets of eternal youth. It is revealed that by performing these experiments they have nearly drained Crystal Lake, which is the main source of power for a candy factory in town. Mrs. Gizbourne then demands that Hans find a bug "big and strong enough to survive a nuclear meltdown." The special returns to the children and the aliens. They agree to split into two groups to find more candy, one group consisting of Gleep, Romtu, and Scoota and the other group consisting of Jeanie, Michael and Bing. The children become distraught when they learn that Bing is running towards Mrs. Gizbourne's house. Hans mistakes Bing for a giant insect and proceeds to capture Bing and bring him to Mrs. Gizbourne. The children learn of Mrs. Gizbourne's plot, but are soon captured by Hans. Jeanie and Michael are quickly able to escape with Bing in tow to the lake. There they are found by Jeanie and Michael's father, who goes on to thwart Mrs. Gizbourne's plans. The first group of aliens then arrive at the candy factory, take all of the candy, give Michael a special skipping stone and return to Mars. Michael uses this stone and the power of wishing to revive Crystal Lake. The candy factory is thus saved, and the townspeople end the special rejoicing. ===== Mild- mannered Erwin Trowbridge, bored with his suburban New Jersey life with his wife and brother-in-law and frustrated by his low-paying job writing greeting card verses, decides to declare his independence by skipping work and spending the day in a local saloon. There he meets two men and a woman who make a living by betting on horse races. When they discover Erwin has an almost supernatural ability to go through a racing form and pick the winners, they persuade him to join them at a New York City hotel and regularly give them tips. Complications arise when Erwin begins to miss his wife and job and his cronies insist he put some money on a horse himself, despite his claim he will lose his power if he places a bet. Playbill cover 1935 original Broadway production Three Men on a Horse starring Sam Levene, Shirley Booth and Teddy Hart ===== Meek Erwin Trowbridge (Frank McHugh) finally has enough of his sneering brother-in-law, Clarence Dobbins (Paul Harvey), unappreciative boss, greeting card publisher J.G. Carver (Guy Kibbee), and the lack of support of his wife Audrey (Carol Hughes). Erwin goes on a drinking binge and ends up in a hotel bar. When he overhears Charlie (Allen Jenkins), and Frankie (Teddy Hart) bemoaning their bad luck betting on horses, he gives them his pick for the next race. They ignore the drunk, but when Erwin proves right, their friend Patsy (Sam Levene) decides to place the little money they have left on Erwin's next choice. It wins, as do all his other selections that day, making the jubilant trio rich. They decide to hang onto their newfound goldmine. Patsy tries to do Erwin a good turn by calling his boss and demanding a raise for him as his "manager", but the plan backfires; Carver fires Erwin. Erwin is upset, but Patsy gives him 10% of the winnings and convinces him that he can make more money betting than writing greeting card poems. The next day, Erwin makes his picks, but discards his first choice for the sixth race. This arouses Charlie's suspicions. His fear about being double crossed infects the other two. Patsy forces Erwin to bet all his winnings on his second selection for that race. However, Erwin had told Patsy's girlfriend Mabel (Joan Blondell) that he never bet on the horses because he was worried that doing so would take away his ability. The whole gang go to the racetrack to watch the race. Erwin's discarded choice wins, barely edging his second pick. When they get back to the hotel, Patsy starts beating Erwin. Then they hear on the radio that the winner has been disqualified. This inspires Erwin to punch Patsy back. When Clarence shows up, Erwin punches him too. Following close behind, Carver (desperate to fulfill a contract for Mother's Day cards) offers Erwin a raise and a new office, which Audrey persuades him to take. Erwin bids the gamblers goodbye, telling them that having finally bet for real, he has lost his knack. ===== As described in a film magazine, Eleanor Hamlin (Roberts), who has been living with an old and impoverished couple, is adopted by two couples, Mr. and Mrs. Sears and Beulah Page (Greenwood) and Peter Bolling (Unterkircher), young people who have read of cooperative parenting and wish to try out the theory. It works very well until Jimmy Sears (Cooley) loses control of himself under the spell of his adopted daughter's kisses. This passes, however, but then Peter falls in love with her. Beulah then tells Eleanor that she is engaged to Peter, and the heart-broken little girl goes back home. After an exhaustive search, Peter fails to find her, and he and Beulah complete their engagement. Eleanor returns, sees the true state of things, and asks God to let her be always their little girl. ===== In rural Hunan province called Puwei (nicknamed the Common Beauty Village), a county in China, Lily is destined to become a laotong pair with Snow Flower, a girl of the same age from Tongkou (the Wood Mouth Village). The laotong relationship is characterized as a sisterly relationship that is far stronger and closer than a husband and wife's. Lily's aunt describes a laotong match this way: "A laotong relationship is made by choice for the purpose of emotional companionship and eternal fidelity. A marriage is not made by choice and has only one purpose—to have sons." This relationship begins for Lily and Snow Flower when they're at the age of 7 and goes until adulthood when the two are women and mothers. The two girls experience the painful process of foot binding at the same time. Foot-binding was the tradition of binding a young daughter's feet by wrapping cloth around their feet tightly and forcing them to walk until their bones broke and were easier to mold and change, then tightening the bindings as time progressed. The ideal foot (called Golden Lotus) was 3 Chinese inches (about 10 cm or 4 inches in Western measurements) in length. To understand this, the book draws the parallel: "Men in China feel about women's feet as men in west do about a woman's legs." Lily and Snow Flower write letters to one another on a fan with Nü Shu, a secret phonetic form of 'women's writing which Lily's aunt taught them.'Susan Kelly writes: "The secret fan of the title provides the folds in which the girls write to each other in Nü Shu, the secret phonetic 'women's writing' used by women in Hunan Province to communicate with each other" "Snow Flower Unfolds Secrets." USA Today, 07/13/2005See comments on Nü Shu in her brief introduction to the novel: "It is believed that Nü Shu . . . developed a thousand years ago. It appears to be the only written language in the world to have been created by women exclusively for their own use", Snow Flower and the Secret Fan In addition to the language itself, the young women learn Nü Shu songs and stories.They also frequently meet at the Temple of the Gupo, a fictional temple where the women go to pray for the birth of healthy sons, which in their culture, is the "measure of a woman's worth." Both friends are born under the sign of the Horse, but they are quite different. Lily is practical, her feet firmly set on the ground, while Snow Flower attempts to fly over the constrictions of women's lives in the 19th century in order to be free. Their lives differ as well. Although Lily comes from a family of relatively low station, her feet are considered beautiful and play a role in her marriage into the most powerful family in the region. Lily is later known as Lady Lu, the region's most influential woman and a mother to four healthy children (three sons and one daughter). Although Snow Flower comes from a formerly prosperous family, she is not so fortunate. She marries a butcher, culturally considered the lowest of professions, and has a miserable life filled with children dying and beatings at the hand of her husband. The novel depicts human suffering in many ways: the physical and psychological pain of foot binding; the suffering of women of the time, who were treated as property; the terrible trek up the mountains to escape from the horrors of the Taiping Rebellion; the painful return down the mountain trail with dead bodies everywhere. Some estimate that the number of people killed during the rebellion was approximately twenty million. The detailed treatment of the suffering which Lily and Snow Flower experience in their laotong relationship is a major aspect of the book. Lily's need for love and her inability to forgive what she considers to be acts of betrayal cause her to inflict harm on many people, Snow Flower most of all. Believing that Snow Flower has not been true to her, Lily betrays her by sharing all her private secrets to a group of women, virtually destroying Snow Flower's reputation. When Snow Flower is dying, Lily is called to her bedside and tends to her until the end. As the book returns to the present (1903), Lily is an 80-year-old woman who has lived forty years after her dearest friend's death. Her own husband and children have since died, and she quietly watches the next generation in her home. ===== After discovering that her grandmother was a gypsy, Roma Wycliffe leaves her old- money life with her Aunt Henrietta, and goes to New York City to live as a gypsy. Once she arrives in New York, Roma is mistaken for a thief and arrested. The kindly and rich woman Mrs. Roberts volunteers to take her under her wing to prevent her from going to jail. Her son John Roberts falls in love with Roma. Roma does not return his feelings, because his rich life style is a far cry from the freedom of gypsy life. John hires a group of street thugs to pretend to be his gypsy crew. The “gypsies” take their new role as gypsy thieves too far and start robbing a bank. John turns them in to the authorities. John and Roma agree to marry. ===== Jennifer Willis (Shanelle Workman) is to have an interview with Dr. Henry West M.D. (Richard Doyle), professor of necrobiology, at his house. Her boyfriend, Rick Taylor (Josh Keaton), comes along so nothing bad happens. Just as Rick is about to propose to Jennifer, the two are attacked by Dr. West's experiments, kidnapping Jennifer and leaving Rick mortally wounded. Rick knocks over a sarcophagus revealing a mask. Close to death, the Terror Mask (Jim Cummings) calls out to Rick, saying it will save him and help save Jenny if he puts it on. Having no choice, Rick puts the mask on and is transformed into a hulking beast powered by the blood of others. Rick follows Dr. West and Jennifer through other dimensions and time periods and learns of Dr. West's plan to bring dark deities, known as "The Corrupted", into this world by sacrificing Jennifer. Dr. West believes The Corrupted will resurrect his dead love Leonora, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jennifer and originally died of cholera. The Corrupted intended to lay waste to Earth instead. It is revealed that Dr. West and the Corrupted had previously resurrected Leonora, but she was brought back as a demonic savage. West tried to contain her and bring her back completely, but one instance she escaped; Dr. West later found her holding a porcelain doll, horrified at the fate of the child she took it from. West was later summoned away from the town of Arkham and his home on a pointless errand, only to discover that the town's populace found out about Leonora, and imprisoned her to be burned as a witch. Rick encounters Leonora while traveling through time, emerging near the alit wickerman cage as the townsfolk are turned into monsters by the Corrupted. In an attempt to save Leonora thinking she was Jennifer, Rick was attacked by her demonic form, forcing him to kill her. A young Dr. West witnesses Rick stomping on her and loses his morality, vowing to tear down the gates of heaven and ascending on a pile of corpses, built from the townsfolk of Arkham and topped with Rick's dead body. In the end, Rick succeeds in rescuing Jennifer and thwarting West's plans; however, leader of the Corrupted, the Overlord emerges, summoned from the killings Rick committed through the game and constructed from the bodies of 10,000 monsters. The Mask informs Rick that he knew that Rick's killing would release it, stating that he wanted the Corrupted to know that it was the Mask that stopped them, and for that to happen, he needed to let them out. Rick and the Mask manage to kill it and sate the Mask's thirst for vengeance, but in the process, a stray spirit possesses Jennifer. Believing his deal with the Mask to be done, he tries to pry it off; however, aware of Jennifer's possession, it refuses. It is implied from West's reaction that the stray spirit is of Leonora's. ===== Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Kentucky, late one afternoon to 9 o'clock that evening during the summer. Rufe Pryor is a religious fanatic who works for the Hunts. Sid Hunt returns to the family home from the war. He has a girlfriend, Jude Lowry, who Rufe also is interested in. Rufe inspires old clan rivalry between the Hunts and the Lowrys, in an attempt to remove Sid from the picture. When Rufe's plans are discovered, the two families reconcile. (The play was billed as "A High Spirited Tale of the Blue Ridge.") ===== As described in a film magazine, Blue Jean Billie (Dean), a prosperous young woman crook who lives apart from the denizens of the underworld, has pulled off many robberies of the high society world with the help of her pal Shaver Michael (De Grasse). Billie gains admission to the Vanderhoof dinner at which the engagement of their daughter to Lord Chesterton (Hall) will be announced. While the dinner is in progress, Billie gags and handcuffs special officer Detective Wood (Ross), and proceeds to make a wholesale robbery of the guests. She flees in an automobile and none succeed in tracking her save Lord Chesterton. She makes a prisoner of him, but a police raid follows and she must flee. Once more Lord Chesterton succeeds in following her and again she makes him her prisoner, but she learns to trust and love him. The special agent and Shaver Michael arrive at the scene with resulting complications, but a happy end results for all. ===== As described in a film magazine, Gudrun Trygavson (MacLaren) is a beautiful Swedish girl living in the American wheat country where she is employed as a "hired girl" by Mrs. Hawes (Titus). Charley Holt (Butler), son from one of the best families in Mullinsdale, cares for Gudrun and asks her to a dance. When Mrs. Hawes informs Charley's mother and sister of this, at the dance the sister cuts in to separate Charley from Gudrun. Charley becomes determined to marry Gudrun, but after they are wed his snobbish relatives cut them off. Charley gets a menial job as a mill worker, and Gudrun and he try to make the best of things, but their life is miserable due to Charley's drinking. A child is born to them, but after five years of hard drinking, Charley is fatally injured in a saloon fight, circumstances which distress Gudrun. Gudrun takes up a small farm with a cabin on it, and works the wheat fields to support her and her child. A "bird of passage" named Martin O'Neill (Hall) comes to the farm, and Gudrun feeds him. In return, he assists in the work and helps bring in the harvest, and when the barn catches fire, saves Gudrun and her child. Martin is suspected of starting the fire, and narrowly survives an attempted lynching by the excited townspeople. It is then discovered that the fire was started by a jealous rival. Gudrun and Martin are later wed. ===== Based upon a description in a film magazine, Stella Schump (MacLaren) is a working girl who, on the advice of a friend Cora (Ridgeway), who is attempting to be a matchmaker, attends a party where she is supposed to meet a bashful man. He does not show up, and she has her first drink of beer. This affects her so she becomes dazed, and she leaves for home. A detective comes upon her, and after she repeats bits of conversation she heard at the party, he arrests her for being drunk and for solicitation. A night court convicts her and sentences her to ten days in jail. She writes her mother of her plight, and her mother (Claire) dies from shock upon reading the letter. After she is let out of jail, she loses her job and, after her money runs out, goes to a park and sits on a bench. A bashful man (Anderson), who is disillusioned about women, comes by. She has heard of him, but they have never met. He turns out to be a foreman at a factory, and as they talk they realize they were supposed to have met at the party. They leave together and marry. ===== Based upon a review in a film publication, Sari (Dean) is a beggar girl of the streets of Stamboul, near Constantinople, who attracts the attention of Captain Pemberton (Oakman), a soldier of fortune, who has recruited the Black Horse cavalry to maintain law and order. Sari overhears him being told that her soul is as filthy as the streets, so she goes to pray in a mosque although she knows Turkish women are not allowed to enter. There she witnesses a revenge murder by a sheik (Beery), who then attempts to lure her into his harem. She defies him, and he then tries to purchase her. Pemberton returns from the desert and has determined that he loves Sari. The sheik then carries both Pemberton and Sari to his fortified camp outside the city walls. Sari escapes and gets the Black Horse cavalry to attack the camp, resulting in a battle and rescue. ===== Two high school sweethearts, Lawrence (played by Luke Robertson) and Caroline (played by Laura Breckenridge), are about to go off to college, but claim they will stay together nonetheless. 25 years later, Lawrence (played by Frank Wood) is living back in his hometown, Bayonne, New Jersey, and is a photographer who photographs pets, as well as criminals at the local police station. He receives a surprise phone call from Caroline (played by Paige Turco), who has recently come back home in order to care for her sick father and who is divorced and has a troubled teenage son Johnny (played by Ryan Donowho). Caroline and Lawrence go on a date and rekindle their relationship, but shortly afterwards she dies in a freak accident. Johnny's father Harris (played by Aldo Perez) does not want to take care of him, and he will be going into foster care. When Johnny has a seizure at his mother's funeral, Lawrence decides to adopt him. The bulk of the film is about Lawrence and Johnny, and how Lawrence tries to be a father to Johnny while Johnny rejects him. Johnny also has a relationship with a neighborhood girl, Mariana (played by Isidra Vega), and problems with the local drug dealer Carter (played by Jesse Kelly). ===== Silent Madden, a criminal leader in San Francisco, and his gangster daughter Molly (Priscilla Dean) have forsaken a life of crime after receiving counsel from Chang Lo, a Confucianist philosopher living in Chinatown. A despicable gangster named Black Mike Sylva (Lon Chaney) frames Molly's father for murder, causing Molly to lose faith in abiding the law and prompting her return to a life of crime. Black Mike plots to double-cross Molly as well during a jewelry theft, but Molly gets word from her gangster lover and foils Black Mike's plans. While hiding out from the law, Molly's hard heart is slowly melted by her gangster lover. The film ends with a climactic shootout. ===== The story revolves around a man (played by Dr. Raj) who grows up believing that women cannot be trusted, all due to his experiences of a troubled childhood after his parents’ failed marriage and his father's suicide. The incident creates a deep wound in his mind and he suspects every woman he comes across to have a questionable character. This leads to him walking out of his marriage that was fixed with Malavika, who plays a double role for the first time in her career in this movie. Years later, they happen to meet each other and share their experiences in life. Malavika is now a Deputy Commissioner in the police force, and has a daughter (Malavika again) while Raj has become the Chief Secretary. Malavika wants to get to know Raj's family well and during her visit along with her daughter to Raj's house happens to see certain very disturbing and then highly confusing sights. She smells a rat and says so to Raj who blames all the bad occurrences on a ghost that supposedly haunts a bungalow that they lived in and how that ghost still continued to haunt that place terrifying people in its vicinity at very particular times every day. Being a police officer, Malavika is not fully convinced and wants to get to the bottom of the matter. She just about begins to get her teeth into the matter when the evil powers at work bring about her death after a rather fearsome encounter with ghostly creatures. Now, it is left to Malavika, the daughter to find out the truth. Now enters another character claiming to be the lover of Raj's daughter. His revelations make matters far more complicated and confusing. The matter is thrown wide open and the jigsaw becomes harder to piece together. They discover the death of far more people than they had even thought of and trace it all down to the haunted bungalow. How they get to the bottom of what or who haunts the big house forms an interesting climax. ===== A group of highly qualified single men, including Dr. Richard Stanton (William Lundigan) and Dr. Jerry Lockwood (Richard Carlson), are recruited for a top secret project. They undergo a series of rigorous physical and psychological tests, during which Stanton becomes attracted to the beautiful Dr. Jane Flynn (Martha Hyer), one of the scientists testing the candidates. After most of the candidates have been eliminated from consideration, the four remaining are told about the purpose of the project. Stanton's father, Dr. Donald Stanton (Herbert Marshall), is the man in charge. He and his colleagues are working on manned space travel. They have found, however, that even the best quality metal alloys available eventually turn brittle in the harsh environment of outer space. Since metal-based meteors are not subject to these metal fatigue stresses, the scientists want to recover samples before they enter the Earth's atmosphere to discover how the meteors' "outer shell" protects them. To accomplish this, they need to send men into space, something that has never been done before. Stanton, Lockwood, and Walter Gordon (Robert Karnes) accept the dangerous assignment, while the fourth candidate quits. Three one-man rockets are launched a couple of hundred miles into space in order to intercept an incoming meteor swarm. Gordon makes the first run to capture a meteor; it turns out to be too large for his spaceship's nose scoop, and the ship is destroyed in the collision that follows. Lockwood suffers a mental breakdown when his view screen shows Gordon's still space-suited but now skeletal and weightless body floating toward him. Panicked and delusional, he fires his rocket engines and blasts away from Earth, heading into deep space to his doom. Stanton then misses the main swarm, but a stray meteor crosses his orbital path. He decides to pursue it, despite a warning from ground control that he may use too much fuel in the attempt and burn up upon re- entry. Stanton snags the meteor in time and manages to survive a crash landing with the now captured meteor safely intact. He is rewarded for his heroism with a kiss from Dr. Flynn. When the meteor is examined, it is discovered to have an outer coating of crystalline pure carbon. With this discovery, the U. S. can now build safer rockets and space stations for the inevitable conquest of space. ===== The 18-episode reality-dating series began airing on April 18, 2008 when fans saw what happened as spicy girls and sweet guys were matched up to go on dates. Throughout the short-form series, cast members took on some of the most unpredictable dating experiences of their lives, all captured on film and watched by millions. Viewers saw their chosen sweet guys go on spicy dates such as a trip to the tattoo and piercing parlor, while their chosen spicy girls explored their sweeter side on dates such as volunteering at a senior citizens center. At the ending of the dates, there was an elimination process, leaving only one date for each.Doritos and MTV Reality Dating Series 'When Spicy Meets Sweet' Finale Now Up to Fans ===== As described in a film magazine, the Brandeis operate a little dry goods store in Winnebago, Wisconsin. Ferdinand (Davidson) and Molly (Marvin) are the parents and Fanny (Radom / Scott) and Theodore (Lee / Davidson) are the daughter and son, with Aloysius (Hoy) an adopted Irish youth. Theodore shows talent for the violin and under Herr Bauer (Edwards) he practices several hours each day. Schabelitz, a famous violinist, during a concert tour hears Theodore play and suggests to the Brandeis that he be sent to Europe to study. Times are poor, but Molly with the assistance of Rabbi Thalman (Warren) persuades "Papa" Brandeis that it should be done, and the Boy is sent. Molly works the store, does the housework, and looks after the children, happy in the thought that some day her boy will become famous and rescue her from drudgery. By and by Papa dies, and Fanny, grown to womanhood, denies herself all pleasures such as a new dress in order to maintain Theodore at Dresden. What they do not know is that her brother's frequent requests for money are to keep him and his wife, whom he married the first year he was abroad, from starvation. One day when Fanny is returning home from skating, the only pleasure she allows herself, she encounters tragedy in discovering her mother dead. Fanny breaks down, and unburdens her pent-up feelings. Left to her own resources she goes to Chicago and gains employment in a mail order house. Theodore, having been deserted by his wife, returns home with his baby. They take up their abode with Fanny, and she becomes attached to the youngster. Through her influence with her employer Michael Fenger (Holmes) to have Theodore give a concert and looks forward to the event as a personal triumph. However, on the evening of the event Theodore receives message from his wife asking him to return to her. He leaves a note to Fanny pinned to the telegram stating what he has done. ===== As described in a film magazine, restaurant cashier Rosie Cooper (Walton) is in love with bakery worker Freddie Smith (Butler), but when she helps out customer Jefferson Southwick (Barrows), who has forgotten his pocketbook, Jimmie becomes jealous. Southwick poses as the son of a wealthy merchant, but when they discover his accounts are short, he borrows one hundred dollars from Rosie and then attempts to skip town. She is too smart for him, though, and he lands in jail. Rosie gets her money back and is content with the attentions of Freddie, who is honest even if he is poor. ===== Nineteen-year-old Joe Spring's driver's license is reinstated after it had been suspended for reckless driving. Immediately after he is informed, he begs his parents - Teresa and Tim Spring - to let him drive from their home in Aldergrove, BC to Quesnel, BC to attend a Saturday night party. His parents reluctantly agree. Joe decides to leave Friday after work, driving overnight, and promises to call them as soon as he arrives the next morning. That telephone call never happens. Late Saturday in the middle of the night, Joe's parents get a phone call from someone at the party who says Joe didn't show up, but the caller is too stoned to provide details. Joe doesn't answer his mother's repeated phone calls, and Joe's girlfriend Patti soon shows up and tells her that the reason Joe left a day early was to stop at her house first to spend the night together. Patti threw him out and broke his phone when she found out he was sexting with a girl named Lucinda. When the police are unable to help, Teresa starts her own investigation, largely without Tim's help, he who feels so far unconcerned. Tim's non-regard irks Teresa, the two who have been having marital problems stemming from Tim being out of work, as Tim has basically retreated from life ever since. Teresa, with teenage daughter Becca's help, guesses Joe's email password and finds a sex related email from Lucinda, who lives in Chasm, BC. With Tim needing to go to a job interview, Teresa and Becca drive up to Chasm and are able to locate Lucinda, who they learn is a player. Lucinda denies having seen Joe. Teresa then goes to the Hope detachment of the RCMP, who suggests that they create missing person posters but explains they cannot help until Joe has been missing for 48 hours. A young Indian boy who Joe gave a ride to, named after the village of Powell River, subsequently recognizes Joe from the poster as the person who gave him a ride home on Saturday morning. As time passes and the police launch an investigation, they find some of the people who Joe talked to. They bring a marijuana grow-op owner in for questioning, who leads them to a marijuana dealer named Weaver. Weaver is Lucinda's current casual boyfriend and it is found that Joe helped Weaver transport marijuana in his car. With the help of Joe's credit card records, the police and Joe's family begin to narrow down where he could have crashed. A search and rescue team is sent out near Chasm, but they cannot find Joe or his car. While searching with the team, Teresa finds an empty overturned vehicle which resembles Joe's car. Upon a closer inspection, they realize it was not. Back in town, a man who Joe helped change a tire recognizes Joe from the images of him on TV. The search and rescue team realizes they have been searching in the wrong location. They move to the new location just outside Hope, but still cannot find Joe. It is shown that after helping the man, Joe fell asleep at the wheel and crashed. The police sergeant, Al Ramey, explains to Joe's family that since the search has reached the eighth day, it has been downgraded from a rescue to a recovery. This means that the helicopter will no longer be involved and that the ground search crew will be minimized. Outside, Joe's mother begs the helicopter pilot, Jodeen Cassidy, to go up one last time against Ramey's orders to look for Joe. She initially refuses, but does so and the sergeant, who didn't like the order anyway, lets her go. As they fly, Joe's mother spots Joe's car. They land, and she gets out and cries over Joe's bloody, lifeless body. Joe begins to move, and the police officer who flew them there calls for EMS. While Joe is badly injured, he survives and recovers. ===== The Rachel of the play is symbolically every Hebrew mother who lost her child to the massacre. In the Freising version, she opens the action by singing a planctus over her children's bodies before a consolatrix (female comforter) arrives to soothe her spirit. In the Fleury version, she sings a series of four plancti before two consolatrices come out to catch her as she faints. The consolatrices fail to comfort her, but lead her away. In both versions they sing the final lines. In the Fleury version the drama began with a procession of young boys per monasterium (down the aisle of the church's nave) and a lamb bearing a cross appears running "to and fro" (huc et illuc). Then the action shifts to Herod receiving his sceptre and Joseph at the manger receiving a message from Gabriel to flee to Egypt. Joseph and the holy family exit secretly while Herod attempts suicide as news is brought that the Magi avoided telling him the Christ child's location. After he regains his composure, he orders the massacre. The lamb is then led off stage and the massacre begins, despite the pleas of the mothers and the children to the angels above. After the Rachel scenes, an angel conducts the children to the choir and a dumb show shows Herod being succeeded as king by Archelaus before the holy family returns from Egypt. The entire Fleury play ends with a singing of the Te Deum. ===== As described in a film magazine, Paul Porter (Rawlinson) and his pal Daddy Moffat (Hernandez), who are two crooks, arrive at Paul's home town to find that Holt Langdon (Pring), a cashier at the bank and an old comrade of Paul's, is in trouble. Holt needs $25,000. Paul and Dad decide to "crack" the local bank that night and help Holt out. When the two enter the bank that night they discover the body of Holt, who has killed himself. They also find evidence showing that Holt was short $25,000 in his cashier's account. Because of Holt's friendship and because of his sister Margaret, who was Paul's boyhood sweetheart, they "frame" the bank to rearrange matters to make it appear to have been a hold-up where Holt died defending the bank's funds. The circumstances of the event impress Paul so deeply that he decides to leave his life of crime and to go straight. He saves Margaret from financial embarrassment by buying the little newspaper that she was running. Paul and Dad then discover that two confidence men are operating in the town and collecting thousands of dollars in a fake oil well scheme. They decide to outwit these crooks. With the aid of Colonel Culpepper (Marks), a lawyer, they start a fake well themselves and reproduce a typical gusher blowout. The two crooks, fooled into thinking that there is actually oil under the town's land, buy out their well at a high figure. Paul was thus able to return to the townspeople their savings mulcted by the foiled confidence men. Paul then tells Margaret the whole story. After learning of her brother's tragedy, she forgives Paul of his prior misdeeds. These two find happiness together. ===== Beth is reporting for BuzzWire about Lee Jay Spaulding, a criminal being released on parole after twenty-five years in prison. Many people believe that he did not commit the crime, including Beth's interview subject and friend Julia, who has written a book about Spaulding. At home, Mick is watching the report, and cannot believe that Spaulding is being released. In a flashback to 1983, Mick is shown being told that a woman he had been hired to protect had been found dead. The police believe it is a self- inflicted gunshot wound, but Mick knows Spaulding is responsible. Mick goes after Spaulding, biting a chunk out of his neck, but a detective shows up. Mick is forced to flee, and now Spaulding knows that Mick is a vampire. In the present day, Josef tells Mick that he needs to kill Spaulding before he kills Mick. Beth dreams about her abduction as a child, and calls out Mick's name in her sleep. Beth is confused as to why she keeps on dreaming of Mick saving her, but her boyfriend Josh says it is probably because he saved her last week. Back at BuzzWire, Julia invites Beth to her book's release party, and shows her a copy. Beth is shocked because there is a picture of Mick in the book, and it seems Mick has not aged at all. Beth drops by Mick's apartment to give him a gift for saving her, but also shows him the picture. Mick tells Beth that it is his father, and that Spaulding's a killer. Meanwhile, Spaulding is shown gathering wooden stakes and forging vampire-killing weapons. Mick goes to visit Bobby, the detective from Spaulding's case. They discuss Spaulding's murderous ways, and Mick thinks that Julia is in danger. Bobby gives Mick a file on evidence they could not admit during the case and reminds him Mick needs to be careful. At the book party, Mick is shown placing a GPS under Julia's car. Mick is then introduced to Spaulding, while Beth detects the tension. After a speech about rising above challenges, Spaulding attacks Mick in the bathroom. Spaulding stabs a stake through Mick's heart, which paralyzes him, leaving him powerless. Spaulding smashes his own head through the window and cries for help, saying Mick attacked him. Spaulding refuses to press charges, which makes Mick and Beth argue about whether or not Spaulding is a killer. Beth, not being able to find any evidence that Mick's father existed, goes to visit Bobby to find out more. He tells her that Mick is "one of a kind" and though he never had a son, he would have wanted him to be just like Mick. At Mick's apartment, Spaulding waits for him with a bag of Mick's store-bought blood. He congratulates Mick on being the only one to see through his reformed act, and shoots himself in the arm with Mick's gun. Mick quickly gathers up his blood stores and leaves. Mick meets with Josef, who tells him that he needs to dispose of Spaulding as quickly as possible. At home, Beth discusses the Mick situation with Josh. Mick shows up and tries to explain why he ran after Spaulding was shot. He tells Beth and Josh that he panicked, and that Spaulding shot himself. Beth believes Mick and shows Josh the evidence file from 1983. Then she sets up a streaming video feed for Mick on BuzzWire so Mick can proclaim his innocence to the internets and expose the evidence against Spaulding. Julia takes Spaulding home from the hospital, but is soon held hostage by Spaulding and his friends in a warehouse. Spaulding calls Mick and insists that Mick turn himself in, or Julia will be killed. Mick and Beth track Julia's car by the GPS Mick planted earlier. He gives Beth a gun, and tells her to wait outside. When she is not looking, Mick jumps onto the roof. He tries to save Julia, but as she runs away, she sees him being shot by silver buckshot, which is like poison to vampires. As Spaulding fires up a blowtorch, Beth comes in and fatally shoots Spalding in the throat. The police arrive and take Spaulding's body away. Beth tells the police that she shot Spaulding, and then takes off. At his apartment, Mick drinks some blood trying to heal himself from the damage. Beth arrives, and he turns away, huddled on the floor as he begs her not to look at him. Beth asks why she keeps dreaming about him, and then gets close enough to see that Mick is holding a bag of blood, which is smeared on his face and hands. He still has his face angled away, but he finally turns to her, showing a shocked Beth his vampire visage and telling her what he is. ===== The novel concerns super-beings who reveal that our solar system is an atom in a larger universe. ===== In the 1950s, a man finds himself in the middle of the streets of Porto Alegre with a wallet full of money... and no memory of any past events. He finds two "vultures of the night", enigmatic noctivague figures with a high penchant for bohemian lifestyles. The "vultures" (called The Master and The Hunchback) take the man on a surrealistic journey through the darkest places of the city, to "enjoy the night": a funeral parlor, the emergency service of a hospital, a deluxe whorehouse and a low-level working class cabaret. At the same time, the two enigmatic figures surreptitiously try to make the man-with-no-memory assume that he committed a horrendous crime early that night, in which a woman was the subject of a brutal passion-related crime and no perpetrator was yet arrested by the police. The book has a unique atmosphere in depicting the low- level bohemy that crowded some places in the Brazilian urban legends. In the 1980s, Brazilian film director José Louzeiro conducted a movie loosely based on the book. =====