From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Growing up in a poor working-class family, Laura (Constance Bennett) works hard to support her family. Laura's father, Ben (J. Farrell MacDonald) encourages his other daughter Peg (Anita Page) to marry a hard-working man named Nick (Clark Gable). Laura rejects a marriage proposal from the boy-next- door to become involved with William Brockton (Adolphe Menjou) a wealthy man many years her senior whom she met at a modeling job. She allows him to shower her with expensive gifts and moves into his luxury apartment. Her newly found wealth does not come without any backlash, though. Her mother Agnes (Clara Blandick), notices a difference in Laura and that she is working more nights. Dressing in wealthy attire, and arriving in a chauffeur driven car, she pays a visit to Peg, (now married to Nick). Nick noticing her style, demands that she leaves his house immediately, as he wants no association with a kept woman. Even though Laura realizes that she has become estranged from her family, she continues to stay with Brockton. Sometime later, while vacationing in Colorado, she meets and falls in love with young newsman Jack Madison (Robert Montgomery). After a brief affair, and pledging their fidelity to one another, Jack is stationed in Argentina for several months, as Laura promises him that she will leave Brockton. She breaks the news to Brockton, returns all of his gifts, leaves his apartment, and takes a job at Macy's department store. Laura, finds work at Macy's but is so financially strapped, she can't pay her rent. She unsuccessfully asks one of her former colleagues Elfie St. Clair (Marjorie Rambeau) for a loan. Laura can't return to her room unless her rent is paid. She takes "The Easiest Way", and calls Brockton, asking for a loan. Brockton refuses and tells her he will only cooperate if she comes back to him on condition that she inform Jack of her decision. She promises Brockton that she will, but deceives him by not telling Jack. Jack returns to New York, phones Laura immediately and Laura invites him to her swank apartment. Meanwhile, Elfie pops in on Laura to ask for money. Desperate, Laura listens to Elfie, who advises her to leave Brockton and marry Jack, but under no circumstances tell Jack of her current set up. Laura agrees. But her plans to elope with Jack are cut short when Brockton unexpectedly shows up. Brockton, noticing Laura's packed bags, informs Jack of what happened during his absence. Laura tries to explain the situation, but Jack, furious that Laura had broken her promise of fidelity to him, leaves. Despite Brockton's offer to continue to care for her, Laura, leaves heart broken. Traveling to her sister's home, her brother-in-law (Nick) invites her in. Nick, seeing that Laura had returned to her beginnings, comforts her with the promise that Madison will return when he gets "cool under the collar." ===== When a traveling circus arrives in a small town, trapeze artist Polly Fisher (Marion Davies) is outraged to find that clothing has been added to posters of her to hide her moderately skimpy costume. She goes to see the man she mistakenly holds responsible, Reverend John Hartley (Clark Gable). He denies being the censor, but their relationship gets off to a rocky start. When a heckler distracts Polly during her performance, she falls to the ground. John Hartley has her brought to his nearby house. The doctor advises against moving her. As she recuperates, Polly and John fall in love and marry. She willingly gives up the circus for him. John's uncle, Bishop James Northcott (C. Aubrey Smith), questions the wisdom of the union, and John's congregation rebels at having an ex-circus performer as their minister's wife. As a result, he is fired and cannot obtain another church position because of his marriage. Seeing how miserable her husband is, Polly goes to plead for the bishop's help, but he remains unmoved. When she tells Northcott she is willing to give John up, the clergyman tells her that a divorced minister is just as unacceptable. Polly sees only one way out - as a widower, John could return to the church. She pretends that she has tired of her husband and returns to the circus, planning to have a fatal "accident". However, Northcott has a change of heart. When he goes to tell the couple, Polly has already left. Northcott guesses what she intends to do. He and John speed to the circus' next stop and arrive just in time to save Polly. ===== Sixth grader Futaba Kudo is short for his age with three extremely overprotective older siblings. As he's walking home from school one day, a strange girl, named Kiara, falls from the sky, calling Futaba her master. While Futaba is trying to figure out what is going on, a woman appears and attempts to kill Kiara. After trying to perform a spell and oddly sniffing Futaba's hand, Kiara realizes that Futaba is not her master. Kiara and Futaba run from the attacking creature and hide under a bridge. While under the bridge, Futaba's cell phone rings and Kiara borrows it and drops it into the river, opening a mysterious portal. They jump into the portal, narrowly escaping the monster and arriving in a fantasy-like world. Futaba pledges to help Kiara find her master and protect her, while also searching for a way to return to his own world. They meet Lady Belbel, a rabbit-like magician who hates being called a rabbit. A powerful-magic user who decides to travel with them. Futaba learns that Kiara is actually not human but a flower called the "Amaranthine", and is much sought after because she has incredible powers that can only be activated by her master. She can also communicate with other flowers, plants, and at brief moments with her master. Kiara and Futaba make a deal that if he helps her find her master, she will ask her master to send him home when their quest is complete. They eventually meet Virid Visette Viridian, also known as the "Mad" Prince Virid. The younger of twin princes of the land of Viridian, he was locked away since birth because the land does not need two princes and his mother prefers his older twin. At the age of thirteen, he is to battle his brother in a duel-to-the-death to determine the winner. His older brother released him from his cell with a message from his mother: "If you find the Amaranthine and bring it to me, you can both live." He finds Futaba and Kiara. However, before he can attack them, he is attacked by assassins sent to kill him. He kills both but is injured himself. Futaba finds him while trying to find water for Kiara and after a talk, and Virid seeing Futaba's kind nature, he instead joins them, wanting to stay at Futaba's side. Now the group of four are on a quest to find Kiara's master and trying not to get killed along the way. ===== Gambler Rid Riddell (Clark Gable) works for Tip Scanlon (Lew Cody), a crooked gambler, who buys Tommy-Boy, a racehorse from a wealthy man (Hallam Cooley) whose spoiled wife (Marie Prevost) loses interest. Tip and Rid consistently win with the horse in both honestly and dishonestly run races. But before long, Tommy Boy loses a race he wasn't supposed to, and the mob is after Tip. Tip is murdered but not before giving Tommy Boy to his girlfriend (Madge Evans) who sets out to rehabilitate herself and the horse. The horse rebounds. After an attempt at sabotage, the horse wins the Kentucky Derby, and Rid wins the girl. ===== Having completed his latest tour of duty, middle-aged SSG Fred Cheaver (Tim Robbins) has retired from military service and is returning home to his wife and son in suburban St. Louis. PFC Colee Dunn (Rachel McAdams) and SSG T.K. Poole (Michael Peña) each have a thirty-day leave, and both are headed to Las Vegas. Dunn plans to visit the family of her friend, a soldier who was killed in action after saving her life, and Poole wants to engage the services of a sex surrogate he hopes will cure the impotence he is experiencing as the result of a shrapnel injury before he reunites with his girlfriend. Upon arrival at the John F. Kennedy International Airport, the three strangers discover all outbound flights have been cancelled due to a lengthy blackout that ended just prior to their arrival. Rather than face a potentially long wait before normal flight schedules resume, they rent a minivan and begin to drive westward. Arriving home in St. Louis, Cheaver learns his wife Pat (Molly Hagan) wants a divorce, and his son Scott (Mark L. Young) has been accepted at Stanford University. Scott's scholarship will pay for only part of his tuition and he needs to pay the $20,000 balance immediately in order to secure his place at the university. Cheaver decides to visit his brother in Salt Lake City, but first drives Dunn and Poole to the airport so they can fly to Las Vegas. When they see how devastated Cheaver is, they fear his state of mind will put him at risk on the open road and decide to continue with him. As their journey progresses and they open themselves up to each other, the three gradually become closer and find themselves sharing unexpected adventures. At a revival meeting conducted by Pastor Jerry Nolan (Spencer Garrett), a member of the congregation invites them to a birthday party in his palatial home. They conflict with the man's adult children over the latter's anti-war sentiments and Cheaver is seduced by a guest who expects him to participate in a threesome with her and her husband Bob. Later, Dunn and Poole leave Cheaver at a campsite. While driving, they are forced to flee an approaching tornado and take shelter in a drainage ditch. As they cling closely to each other, Poole discovers he might not need the sex surrogate after all. Cheaver decides to bypass Salt Lake City and try his luck in the Las Vegas casinos. When Dunn discovers that a guitar similar to the one she is returning to her boyfriend's parents recently sold at an online auction for $22,000, she is tempted to give it to Cheaver, but he encourages her to complete her mission. Dunn is welcomed warmly by her boyfriend's parents, Tom (John Diehl) and Jeanie Klinger (Annie Corley), but quickly discovers that not only nothing he had told her about himself and his past was true, but he had omitted some important details as well. Neither of the Klingers recognize the guitar, supposedly a family heirloom, and living with them are Shannon and the baby she had after a one-night stand with their son. The Klingers invite Dunn to spend the remainder of her leave with them. Disillusioned, she declines, but she asks if she can keep the guitar, and they readily agree. Dunn, Cheaver, and Poole are reunited at the local police station. Poole had confessed to a casino robbery Dunn's boyfriend had claimed he committed before enlisting, in order to avoid returning to the Middle East by being sentenced to a prison term. His plan backfires when he learns the crime was yet another fabrication. Dunn insists Cheaver take the guitar but he tells her he already has the $20,000 he needs. His friends are stunned he won the money so quickly, but Cheaver confesses he received it as a bonus for re-enlisting. They go their separate ways, but weeks later meet again at the airport as they prepare to return to Iraq. ===== The mansion in Kyu-Furukawa Gardens in Kita, Tokyo, basis of the exterior of the guest house on Rokkenjima. The story begins on October 4, 1986 at , a private island where the wealthy Ushiromiya family have gathered to discuss the division of assets belonging to the ailing family head, Kinzo. Returning after a six-year absence, Kinzo's grandson Battler becomes reacquainted with the legend of the "Golden Witch" Beatrice, who is rumored to have given Kinzo ten tons of gold to restore his financially crippled family in the past. Beside her portrait is an epitaph on which a mysterious riddle is written, which is believed to grant the rumored gold and the succession of the headship to the solver. A typhoon traps the eighteen people on the island, and occult-like murders occur in accordance with the epitaph over the course of the next day, often in ways that seem impossible for a human to have committed. At the end of the first game, the witch Beatrice revives, leaving no survivors. Refusing to acknowledge the existence of magic, Battler is sent to a parallel dimension, Purgatorio, from where events on Rokkenjima can be overseen. He then faces Beatrice in a game of twisted logic where the murders repeat themselves in different ways, and is tasked to explain them all with human tricks. Over the course of the story, Battler gradually comes to understand magic as an adornment of reality with fantasy, used by several individuals as a coping mechanism for their harsh life situations. In the final two games, the true identity of Beatrice is revealed as Kinzo's illegitimate child Sayo Yasuda, who plays the role of two of the family's servants, Shannon and Kanon. Having begun work for the Ushiromiya family at age nine, Sayo was ostracized by the older servants and found comfort in the creation of imaginary friends through "magic". They also experienced severe gender dysphoria due to their failure to develop standard female sexual characteristics during puberty. Sayo developed a close friendship and childhood crush on Battler, but suppressed their feelings for him during his absence and eventually entered a relationship with his cousin George as Shannon. Another cousin, Jessica, also developed a crush on Kanon, which Sayo partially wanted to reciprocate. With the aid of Genji, the head servant, Sayo solves the epitaph and gains possession of the legendary gold and a massive number of explosives under the island, both remnants of an old World War II military base that made contact with the Italians. They also discover their relation to Kinzo, as well as the fact that they had been assigned male at birth, but were raised as female following the loss of their genitals in an accident during infancy. Compounded by the realization that a relationship with any of the cousins would be incest, and disgusted by the Ushiromiya family's sins, Sayo is driven to despair and begins planning a mass murder-suicide using the resources at their disposal. Several possible scenarios are thrown into the sea as message bottles with the hope that someone in the future would come to understand the truth, which forms the basis of the first two games. Sayo's plan ends with the detonation of the explosives, which would destroy all evidence and leave only their fictitious tales standing. At the same time, Sayo is unable to fully accept this course of action and makes it possible for another person, ideally Battler, to solve the epitaph and stop them. However, on the actual family conference of 1986, the epitaph is solved by the adults of the family, and as such, Sayo's plan does not take place. An argument breaks out over the possession of the gold, and Battler's parents, Rudolf and Kyrie, carry out a massacre of the family. Battler's aunt Eva survives the massacre after killing Rudolf and Kyrie in self-defense; Sayo and Battler also survive, but Sayo commits suicide by drowning at sea. Battler, who attempted to rescue Sayo, suffers brain damage and loses his identity as Battler, but retains his fragmented memories. He takes on a new identity under the name Toya Hachijo, and his attempts to piece together the truth of the incident lead him to pen the tales of subsequent games. ===== Will Eubanks (Tom Selleck) and his rowdy gambling buddy J.D. Reed (Jerry Reed) are two good-time roustabouts. After being caught in a sting card game, the two men are forced to leave town in a hurry. Hopping on a freight train, they end up in Nashville and, mistaken for detectives, they are hired to locate a singer (Morgan Fairchild) who has mysteriously disappeared. By the time they realize this game is more than either one of them can handle, they are embroiled in an intricate blackmail scheme with deadly results. ===== In Sicily, truck driver Salvatore Colasberna is murdered while delivering a load of cement to a highway construction project. The murder takes place within sight and earshot of the house of Rosa Nicolosi (Cardinale) and her husband. Police captain Bellodi (Nero) hears that there may be irregularities in the construction of the highway that amount to corruption. He is also told that Rosa has loose morals, though she denies it strenuously and claims that she has been faithful to her husband. Bellodi is unable to determine whether Colasberna was murdered because he stumbled onto a corruption racket or because he was a lover of Rosa, and was shot by her husband, who disappeared after the murder. Another possibility is that Nicolosi saw the murderer and was also murdered, or went into hiding fearing for his life. Bellodi is thwarted by an honour system, where witnesses lie and withhold information out of allegiance to the local Mafia don, Mariano Arena (Cobb). He resorts to unorthodox strategies of jailing witnesses, forging statements, and confronting witnesses with false accusations by others, even going so far as arresting Arena. ===== New York City socialite Caroline Grannard and her wealthy stockbroker husband Greg seemingly have a happy marriage until she learns about his affair with Allison Adair. When she confronts him, he confesses he wants a divorce. While en route to an assignment in Romania, novelist and war correspondent Julian Tierney, long in love with Caroline, meets her in Paris after her divorce is finalized and asks her to marry him. Although she insists she no longer has feelings for her ex-husband, she asks Julian for time to consider his proposal, and he departs without her. Caroline returns to the United States and discovers Greg and Alison are expecting a baby. Malbro, who has been trying to entice Julian into a romantic relationship without much success, advises Caroline he is planning to travel to China and India in hopes of forgetting her. Caroline tells Julian she loves him as well and they spend the night together. When Allison learns about their tryst, she tries to create a scandal, implying that Caroline isn't what she seems. Allison machinations are stopped by Malbro and Greg. On their way home, the couple become involved in a heated discussion in the car and are involved in a crash in which Allison is killed and Greg is injured severely. When Caroline visits Greg in the hospital, he begs, "Don't leave me." His doctor tells her the hope of a reconciliation will help Greg recover faster. She tells him, "I won't leave you Greg." When Caroline sees Julian, she tells him that she cannot leave with him because she must take care of Greg. However, she arranges for a judge, hospitalized in a nearby room, to marry her and Julian before he departs for the Far East, and she promises to join him there once Greg has recuperated fully. ===== The Progressive Party convention is deadlocked for governor, and so both sides nominate the dark horse Zachary Hicks (Guy Kibbee). Kay Russell (Bette Davis) suggests they hire Hal Blake as campaign manager; but first they have to get him out of jail for not paying alimony. Blake (Warren William) organizes the office and coaches Hicks to answer every question by pausing and then saying, "Well yes, but then again no." Blake will sell Hicks as dumb but honest. Russell refuses to marry Blake, while Joe (Frank McHugh) keeps people away from Blake's office. Blake teaches Hicks a speech by Lincoln. At the debate when the conservative candidate Underwood recites the same speech, Blake exposes him as a plagiarist. Hicks is presented for photo opportunities and gives his yes-and-no answer to any question, including whether he expects to win. When Blake's ex-wife Maybelle (Vivienne Osborne) arrives at the office demanding to see him about another missed alimony payment, Joe wards her off by claiming Blake's aunt died and that he is away settling a big inheritance; but as she is leaving, Hicks makes eyes at her and takes her in to see Blake. She demands money or will send Blake back to jail. Blake asks Kay for $400 and pays Maybelle. Discovering its purpose, Kay angrily grabs the money back but returns it to Maybelle after receiving in the morning mail a necklace from Blake with a sentimental message. With Hicks heavily favored, Blake is expecting a $50,000 bonus for winning the election and gets Kay to agree to marry. Underwood's manager Black secretly meets with Maybelle, who has been seeing Hicks, and plans a set-up to disgrace Hicks on the eve of the election. Maybelle lures Hicks out of town after he slips away from Joe, who is supposed to be watching over him. They go to a cabin where Maybelle initiates a game of strip poker with the candidate. Black brings the sheriff; but Blake and Joe get there first to remove Hicks, who has been reduced to a union suit. As Joe and Hicks escape out the back, the sheriff tries to arrest Blake for crossing a state line for immoral purposes. Blake claims they are married but has to wed Maybelle again to satisfy the sheriff. Kay walks out on Blake; but after Hicks wins the election, Blake gets Kay arrested for abandoning a child- him. They decide to head for Nevada to manage another campaign, while arranging another divorce and marriage. ===== In a small town, early on a Saturday morning, a bus is about to leave the small square to go market in the next town nearby. A gunshot is heard and the figure running for the bus is shot twice in the back, with what is discovered as a ' (a sawn-off shotgun that the mafia use for their killings.) The passengers and bus driver deny having seen the murderer. A Carabinieri captain from Parma, Bellodi, gets on the case, ruffling feathers in his contemporaries and colleagues alike. Soon he discovers a link that doesn't stop in Sicily, but goes onwards towards Rome and the Minister Mancuso and Senator Livigno. It seems that the man shot, Salvatore Colasberna, was the owner of a small construction company. He had been warned that he should pay pizzo and take "protection" from mafia members, but he refused. Although his company was only a very small one, the local mafia decides to make an example of him and has him killed. Using faintly corrupt methods, Bellodi traps one man and uses the names given by a dead informer to trap another, who has money stashed away in many bank accounts that add up to more than his fallow fields would ever bring. He is attempting to take down an organization with many members involved in the police and government, and whose mere existence many Sicilians deny. He has ignored the crime passionnel lead, which is often a handy excuse for mafia killings. The death of an eyewitness leads to the collapse of the case against all three, which sees Bellodi taken off the case. The novel ends with Bellodi recounting his time in Sicily to his friends in Parma—who think that it all sounds very romantic—and thinking that he would return to Sicily even if it killed him. ===== The cartoon's story (which is essentially a re-working of Bob Clampett's 1941 short Porky's Pooch) is about a dog named Rags McMutt, who has just escaped from the dog pound and accidentally meets Charlie, an old friend of his, in a car that he used as a hiding place. Charlie tells Rags about the troubles he has had in finding a new master (Porky Pig), and keeping him after that. In the end of the film, Porky throws both dogs out of his car and tells them he does not want a dog. When Rags sees how Charlie begs Porky to keep him as a pet, he decides to go back to the pound (even though he has a hard time getting back in). ===== As a poor sharecropper, Grange is virtually a slave; in cotton-era Baker County, Georgia, the more he works, the more money he ends up owing to the man who owns the fields he works and the house he lives in. Eventually life becomes too much for him and he runs away from his debts to start a new life up North, leaving his family. After declining a loan from a white landowner which he knows he can't pay back, Brownfield begins to head North on foot to follow in his father's footsteps. Brownfield is led to a woman named Josie who owns and operates a lounge/brothel called the Dew Drop Inn (in some printings, the Dewey Inn). Brownfield winds up sharing a bed with Josie, her daughter Lorene, and Josie's deceased sister's daughter Mem. Brownfield takes a liking to Mem and eventually marries her under the disapproving Josie's nose. Brownfield beats and eventually kills Meme (sometimes printed as "Mem") and is jailed for an arbitrary seven years. Grange finds the North unfulfilling and returns to Baker County, which is the only place he knows of as home. ===== Susan, a newly married young woman still wearing her bridal gown, leaves on honeymoon with her new husband and eventually arrives at a hotel. Another woman seems to be stalking the couple from her position in a nearby car and when Susan is left alone in the room for just a few moments, she has a violent fantasy of a strange man leaping out of the closet and raping her. After her husband returns, she insists on leaving, which they do. The couple arrives at a house where the husband apparently grew up. This is where the rest of the story unfolds. The wife sees the woman from the hotel in the woods on the property but she does not tell her husband. Susan notices in the house that there are paintings up of male ancestors, but none of the wives. She is told by the servants' daughter that the wives' paintings are in the cellar. Susan notices that one of the paintings of the wives has the face cut out of it. Susan's husband tells her that the woman in the painting is named Mircalla Karnstein, one of his ancestors, who two hundred years before murdered her husband on their wedding night because he supposedly made her commit unspeakable acts. Susan has violent dreams involving the mysterious woman she has been seeing. She wakes up and finds a dagger under her pillow. Susan starts to become detached from her husband. The husband calls on a doctor to figure out why she is having all of these dreams and what is wrong with her. Soon Mircalla is invading Susan's dreams, persuading her to use a mysterious dagger, which keeps reappearing no matter where it is hidden, to butcher Susan's husband as Mircalla did hers. One day while strolling out on the beach, the husband discovers a naked woman buried in the sand; only her snorkel provides air. He digs her out and takes her home, where she reveals herself to be Carmilla. Susan falls under the spell of Carmilla, a vampire who seduces her and drinks her blood. The husband finally catches on that Carmilla is really his ancestor Mircalla Karnstein and that his life is in danger. The repressed Susan's desires are awakened in the intense lesbian love affair and she embarks on a spree of bloody mayhem. They kill the doctor, the guardian of the property, and they try to kill the husband, too, but he kills them while the two women are resting in their coffins as vampires. After this happens, the servant's daughter arrives, and reveals that she was bitten too; she then kneels and allows him to shoot her once in the head. He returns to the coffin with a dagger and the scene cuts to a newspaper column declaring Man cuts out the hearts of three women, suggesting that the husband was found and arrested for the three murders. ===== The only character in the film is of an illustrator and a painter called as Shanti. An international peace body chooses her to create the logo of a world peace conference. In order to draw inspiration, Shanti travels to a picturesque hilly area where she gets accosted by a group of terrorists. They kidnap her and put forth a demand that she should take them to the conference as her assistants. Their ultimate plan is to blow up the conference hall. The main storyline of the film is the way in which Shanti solves this problem and saves the conference. From the storyline, it seems that more than one actor is required on the screen. However, Baraguru has handled this uniquely by showing only the character of Shanti on the screen while the remaining characters only contribute in terms of their voices. ===== Myles Clarkson (Alan Alda), long ago frustrated in his hope for a career as a concert pianist, is now a music journalist and interviews Duncan Ely (Curd Jürgens), perhaps the world's greatest virtuoso on the instrument. At first annoyed by Myles' presence, Duncan notices that Myles' hands seem perfect for the piano. From that point, Duncan and his adult daughter, Roxanne (Barbara Parkins), strongly pursue a friendship with Myles and wife Paula (Jacqueline Bisset). Paula does not much like Duncan and especially dislikes Roxanne. While Paula is disturbed by the level of attention being paid to them, Myles is honored to be considered a friend by Duncan, who is dying of leukemia. Unbeknownst to them, Duncan and Roxanne are Satanists. As Duncan's physical body nears its end, father and daughter perform an occult ritual that transfers Duncan's consciousness into Myles' body. Myles' ensuing change in personality, which includes his now being able to play the piano as well as had Duncan, is noticed by Paula, but she is initially unsuspecting of the cause. Though confused by the change in her husband, she also finds his new persona exciting and attractive. Myles soon is pursuing a career as a pianist and is so successful that he is able to take over Duncan's concert schedule. Paula has a nightmare in which she envisions Duncan telling her that he must kill Abby, her and Myles' young daughter. Duncan tells her that he does not want to harm the girl, but that his Master has insisted upon it as "part of the bargain". Immediately after the dream, in which a blue substance is placed on Abby's forehead, Paula finds the blue substance actually on her daughter's skin. Abby gets ill and dies. Abby's death sparks in Paula a further suspicion of Roxanne. As Myles seems to drift away from her into his new career, Paula investigates Roxanne's background. This includes visiting Roxanne's ex-husband, Bill (Bradford Dillman), and a romantic relationship begins to form between the two. Paula eventually becomes convinced that Duncan and Roxanne struck a deal with Satan to enable them to pursue an incestuous relationship, that they have placed Duncan's consciousness into her husband's body, and that they are responsible for Abby's death. Paula falls asleep and Bill dies in an apparent accident, though he too has the blue substance on his forehead. Paula nearly meets a similar "accidental" fate, which leaves her certain that Roxanne and Duncan (in Myles' body) killed Bill, and fearful that they will try to eliminate her. She resolves that, regardless of who is inhabiting her husband's body, she wants to be with that man. As a result, she turns to Satanism and strikes her own bargain with the Devil. She then attacks Roxanne, knocks her unconscious, and employs the same dark magic that Duncan and Roxanne had used against Myles. Paula transfers her own consciousness into Roxanne's body, leaving her own body dead in the bath, an apparent suicide. In Roxanne's body, Paula returns to Duncan/Myles, who happily informs her of Paula's suicide. Without telling him who she really is, she embraces him, enthralled with the excitement of the beginning of their new relationship. ===== Inspector Warren of Scotland Yard flies into Jamaica and is taken to the headquarters of the Jamaica Constabulary Force. Exchanging credentials with a Jamaican Inspector, Warren reveals he has come to seek the extradition of a wanted criminal known as "The Professor". Surprised when the Inspector refuses to extradite the Professor, the Jamaican Inspector recounts a story told in flashback. Devil may care adventurer Brannigan has won the ship Manfish and its first mate Swede in a poker game but keeps away from the Manfish's creditors. During a drunken evening out Brannigan is attracted to a woman sitting with an older man called "the Professor" with the two brawling over her. During the brief fracas Brannigan notices the Professor is wearing an unusual heavy ring of a skull and cross bones. The next day the Manfish is at sea engaging in a turtle hunt. Two divers from the ship find a skeleton underwater holding a bottle. Brannigan swims to the skeleton and grabs the bottle. He breaks it open on board finding a ripped piece of paper dated 1793 with nonsensical French written on it, but inside the bottle is the same ring that the Professor wears. Tracking down the Professor, Brannigan persuades him to tell what he knows revealing it is half of a document by the pirate Jean Lafitte with the professor holding the other half. Fearing for his life but clever and greedy, the Professor translates the map to reveal a treasure is on the island of Hispaniola but the Professor insures his safety by destroying the map and memorising the contents. Once on the island a treasure worth £25,000 is recovered but the Professor promises it is a drop in the ocean compared to another treasure buried later by Lafitte that the Professor says he can locate. ===== An unknown sniper (Warren Miller) positions himself at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum prior to a professional football championship dubbed as "Championship X" (Ten) between Baltimore and Los Angeles similar to the Super Bowl. He is spotted by a Goodyear Blimp camera. Police and SWAT team are immediately called in by the stadium manager Sam McKeever (Martin Balsam). Police Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston), working with SWAT team Sergeant Chris Button (John Cassavetes), devises a plan to capture the sniper before the conclusion of the game. Many of the fans attending the game are introduced. They include Steve and Janet (David Janssen and Gena Rowlands), an argumentative middle-aged couple; Stu Sandman (Jack Klugman), a gambling addict; a Catholic priest (Mitchell Ryan), who is a friend of quarterback Charlie Tyler; young married couple Mike and Peggy Ramsay (Beau Bridges and Pamela Bellwood); an elderly pickpocket (Walter Pidgeon) and his young accomplice (Juli Bridges, the then-wife of Beau Bridges); and football fan Al (David Groh), who begins flirting with Lucy (Marilyn Hassett) when he notices her date (Jon Korkes) is more interested in the game than in her. The stadium's maintenance director, named Paul (Brock Peters), discovers the sniper's presence and attempts to confront him. The sniper strikes Paul with the butt of his rifle, and, undetected by fans, causes Paul to fall several stories, leaving him severely injured. SWAT team members position themselves on stadium light towers to take aim on the sniper's nest. Mike Ramsay spots the sniper with his binoculars. He reports it to the police, but rather than thank him, they question him suspiciously and then physically overpower him. Shortly after the game's two-minute warning, the SWAT team is given the green light to go after the sniper. Seeing that he is surrounded, the sniper opens fire, shooting randomly into the crowd. His shots cause a massive riot in which the panicked fans spill onto the field. Many security men, Coliseum personnel, and spectators are killed or wounded. Marksmen perched atop stadium light towers fall or hang by their tethers after getting shot. Fleeing spectators are crushed or trampled underfoot while rushing towards exit tunnels. A few lose their footing while climbing down wall-ivy trestles. Steve, Stu, Chris, Peggy, and the pickpocket are among those shot (Chris and Peggy survive). Mike escapes from police custody during the riot and is reunited with Peggy and their children once the stadium empties of people. Ultimately, the sniper is killed by Peter, Chris, and other members of the SWAT team. Searching through his wallet, the officers learn the sniper's name: Carl Cook. Cook dies, revealing nothing about his intent. Button points out that although they know nothing about Cook, over the next few weeks, the media will discover every irrelevant detail about Cook's life and question why the officers had to kill him. ===== In 1950 Ian Hamilton (Charlie Cox), an ardent member of the Scottish nationalist organisation, the Scottish Covenant Association, hopes to end what he sees as the political and economic subjugation of Scotland by England. Frustrated and saddened by the complacency of his fellow Scots who seem to accept the status quo, he looks forward to a time when Scotland is no longer merely referred to as "North Britain". After a petition to the British Parliament for the establishment of Scottish home rule is rejected, Hamilton decides to perform a symbolic act to put heart into the movement. With his friend, Bill Craig (Billy Boyd), he creates a daring scheme to bring the Stone of Destiny back to Scotland from Westminster Abbey in London, where it has resided for centuries following English military victories over the Scots in the Middle Ages. Hamilton and Craig research the floor plans and security setup of Westminster Abbey and plan the theft, but once Craig realises the legal implications of liberating the stone and the potential impact to his personal life and career, he backs out. Undaunted, Hamilton decides to liberate the stone by himself. He turns to John MacCormick (Robert Carlyle), a prominent campaigner for Scottish devolution, and asks for financial help with the project. Although he initially refuses to take seriously Hamilton's proposal and request for a mere £50, MacCormick reconsiders and provides his support. Later at a party, MacCormick refers him to Kay Matheson (Kate Mara), a young woman with strong nationalist ideas, to help him retrieve the stone. After meeting Matheson, Hamilton is soon introduced to Gavin Vernon (Stephen McCole), a strong young man (another student) known mainly for his drinking ability. On the day of their departure for London, Vernon unexpectedly brings his quiet friend Alan Stuart (Ciaron Kelly) along with him. At first Hamilton opposes bringing in a fourth member, but Vernon convinces him that Stuart and his car will be valuable assets to the group. They agree to steal the stone on Christmas Eve while all of London is distracted by the holiday celebration. The four nationalist students arrive in London the day before Christmas Eve and decide to steal the stone that very night, instead of their original plan of the following night. They drive to Westminster Abbey, but their plans are interrupted when Hamilton is discovered by a watchman, who mistakes him for a homeless man and lets him go. Soon after, Matheson falls ill from a fever and Hamilton brings her to a bed & breakfast inn to recover. The landlady is suspicious of their Scottish accents and shifty behavior, and when Hamilton comes for Matheson at 2:00 A.M., she phones the police, who likewise suspect the young Scots of being up to something, but they avoid being arrested. That night, while Matheson waits in the car, Hamilton, Vernon, and Stuart break into Westminster Abbey and steal the Stone of Scone, which breaks in two pieces in the process. Seeing that the crack was made long ago and merely patched over, the group drive to the Scottish border and hide the larger piece in a field. After returning to Glasgow and witnessing the widespread nationalist celebration over the theft of the stone, the group learn that the stone could be permanently damaged if left to the elements. They return to the field and retrieve the stone with the aid of a group of Romani people who are camped in the field. After the two parts of the stone are reattached, the students offer to return it to the authorities at the symbolically significant Arbroath Abbey, the site of the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath. The police arrive and arrest the student nationalists, who are charged, but never prosecuted. The Stone of Scone was returned to London, where it remained until 1996, when it was moved to Edinburgh Castle "on loan" with the understanding that it would be brought back to Westminster Abbey for the next Coronation. ===== Years after Immanuel Kant published his Critique of Pure Reason but now rumours say that the philosopher is about to release another book. This book will be different than all others because it will examine the concept of serial killers. Meanwhile the German city of Königsberg, where Kant lives, is gripped by a series of murders. Prosecutor Hanno Stiffeniis is ordered by King Frederick William III himself to investigate the crimes and bring the murderer to justice. Stiffeniis is aided in his quest by Immanuel Kant, as well as a local police sergeant. Category:2006 British novels Category:British crime novels Category:Works published under a pseudonym Category:Fiction set in 1804 Category:Faber and Faber books ===== Miki Falls is set in the small town of Fukuyama, Japan. Miki Yoshida is starting her senior year at Fukuyama High School, and she is determined to make it her best year yet. Her plans are put on hold, however, when she meets Hiro Sakurai. Hiro is the new boy in school and everyone wants to get to know him. His good looks and mysterious demeanour instantly gets Miki interested and she tries everything in her power to be friends with him, but Hiro turns everyone off. He claims he likes being alone, and he always will be alone. This only whets Miki's appetite, and she spends almost all of her free time following Hiro and taking notes in her mind and thinking about him and smiling at him. It turns out that he is a Deliverer- a quasi-celestial being brought to the earth to try to preserve love, which is slowly dying out. Miki and Hiro will find that their relationship will get them in difficult situations on more than one occasion. Each book is written during a different season, spanning over one year. ===== Pil-je is a gangster who has been sent by his bosses to evict the residents of a poor neighborhood on the edge of Seoul, so that their homes can make way for some new luxury apartments. But after he befriends some of the locals, including female boxer Myung-ran and a group of young children, he starts to have a change of heart. ===== Tension is rising at the Pennykettles' as Lucy is suddenly kidnapped by a long forgotten rival. This 'rival' wishes to raise the ancient dragon Gawain from his stone-laden resting place. Over the time Lucy is there, she goes through extreme changes. Gwilanna knew this would happen as Lucy began to look like Guinevere, her ancestor. After a sudden bear attack and the news about Lucy, David returns home to help Liz overcome this rough time. In the middle of a serious conversation with Liz, David receives a heart-breaking phone call. He has just learned Zanna, his girlfriend, has just been taken by bears. Under all this pressure, David breaks down. Liz soothes him in dragonsong, the ancient soothing method Guinevere used on the ancient dragon Gawain. While David is home, Grockle suddenly awakens to find the window opened. Curious as he was, he flies out of the window. Nobody could prevent it, even David. Lucy is not having a good time at all. She decides to explore the cave of Gawain when Gwilanna leaves one day. She pushed around and discovers a secret hideaway she thinks her ancestor, Gwendolen, used. Eventually, she falls asleep by the bones of Gwendolen and a bear that guarded her. An old female bear ventures into the cave to hibernate, down into the hideaway, and decides to follow the dead bears example. She guards Lucy as she sleeps. Gwilanna returns and finds the hole. She notices Lucy and the female bear. She decides tiredly to leave them be. David gets Liz to tell her who Arthur is after Gadzooks gave him the name out of nowhere. After hearing the cruel things Gwilanna did to break-up Arthur and Liz, he travels to Farlowe Island to find Arthur. Arthur lives on a religious island, having chosen the name Brother Vincent, where he came after attempting suicide. He goes through a lot on the island. In fact, he survives a vicious attack by Ix, an evil Fain. David arrives at the island and calms down the scared yet vicious Grockle, who had been imprisoned by the monks. Grockle flies to the Arctic when David tells him to. After a while of introductions and explanations, Arthur teaches David how to use Dr. Bergstrom's mysterious talisman to teleport from place to place. The Ix arrives in the Arctic and freezes Gwilanna into a block of ice. He also possess Ingavar, using his ancestors tooth to destroy the island along with Gawain. Grockle, angered by the destruction of his father, and empowered by his ancestors claw, uses his new fire to melt Ingavar down to less than ash. Zanna, who had earlier arrived with the bears, instructs Grockle to enter the fire star and he is instantly transported to the world of the Fain, saving his life. David teleports to the Arctic just then and battles the very same Ix to the death. The Ix stabs two spears of ice through David's chest, but David won't die because the ice is really Gawain's fire tear. After revealing the secret of the ice to the Ix, the spirit of Ingavar punches the Ix out of the body of Tootega, the Inuit whose body the Fain had possessed, killing Tootega, and the Ix. Zanna, in tears, comes running over to David. After assuring her they'd meet once more and giving her a Valentine's Day gift, (a new dragon, G'lant, which you can only see if you really believe in dragons) he parts from Zanna. Some polar bears take David's body on a piece of ice, Ingavar's spirit lays down by his head and the polar bears pound the ice and send David and Ingavar into the water. Back at home, they release Snigger back into the wild after being kidnapped by Gwilanna. ===== In the Arctic: Slowly the ice is changing; bears are starving; dragons are rising; and the souls of the Inuit dead are haunting the skies. The spirit Gaia, goddess of the Earth, is restless, aching to bring her might down upon these changes. But all living things may suffer if she does. As the weather grows wilder and the ice caps melt, all eyes turn from the north to David's daughter, Alexa. She is the key to stopping it . . .But can one girl save the world from the forces of evil or will she disappear like her father? The book opens with a short chapter about how the Earth, Gaia, is beginning to get restless, and then goes to explain Zanna's sadness about David being gone. She gives the invisible and shapeless dragon G'lant, which David gave to her at the end of Fire Star, to her daughter Alexa. Since David's apparent death, Zanna has been trying to get back on her feet. She bought a New Age shop called the Healing Touch and is living with the Pennykettles in David's old room. While Zanna is at her shop one night, Lucy sneaks into her room, and steals a letter that Zanna wrote to David. Every year on Valentine's Day, the day that David died, Zanna writes a letter to David telling him all of the events that are going on in the house. When Lucy reads the letter, she feels the need to do something to tell the world that David is not dead. So she writes an E-mail to a man named Tam Farell, whose role is not yet revealed, telling him to go the Healing Touch and ask for Zanna. As the book goes on, every few chapters, the author puts in a chapter telling the reader what is happening in the Arctic. The Ice Bear, Ingavar, is with his two followers, a fighting bear called Kailar, and a Teller of ways called Avrel. They go and meet Thoran, who is really Dr. Bergstorm, and he tells Ingavar that his time on the ice is up. So Ingavar consumes Thoran with icefire, and his spirit is passed on to Ingavar. Meanwhile, in Zanna's shop, Tam Farell comes in and tells Zanna that he is having a pain in his neck. Zanna is rather charmed, amused, and annoyed by him, and moodily schedules a consultation for them. As Tam is leaving, he invites her to a poetry reading at a bookshop, and tells her to bring her partner. Later that day, Zanna, Liz, and Lucy go shopping at the garden store, and find a 'fairy door' for Alexa to play with, and Lucy sends a fateful message to Tam telling him what Zanna's scars are. She writes only one word: Oomara. In the Arctic, Ingavar remembers how Avrel and he first met. Having disguised himself as a fox, he tricked Avrel into following him, and then filled his head with old knowledge and legends. As Avrel and Ingavar walked on, they saw the souls of countless Inuit men in the sky. Zanna decides to go to the poetry reading, and discovers that Tam is a poet himself. Tam decides to buy David's book, White Fire, and Zanna gets slightly suspicious. So Zanna investigates and soon finds out that Tam Farrell is a journalist. Zanna brands Tam with Oomara and erases the memory of that day including meeting Lucy. Before Tam passes out he mouths one word – Parents – at Lucy and she knows she needs to find David's parents. Later she packs her stuff and goes to the place Tam works. She instructs Gwendolen to give Tam some of her memories (she still has them.) Gwendolen does as she is instructed and Tam's memory comes back. Lucy asks Tam to travel with her to Blackburn. When they get to where David lived there is no house, and the neighbours claim that there was never a house there. Then Zanna gets in her car and phones Liz. Lucy's phone gives out a ray of violet and projects an image of a squirrel. Lucy chases it right through a portal. Zanna tells Liz she is going after her and Liz tells her that she may never see Alexa again. Then Alexa is on the phone and tells Zanna that she saw David being a polar bear in her toy's eye. Just as Zanna walks towards the portal, Tam jumps in and the portal closes. Gwilanna comes to the Arctic and an image of a mammoth appears. Ingavar tells that it's his daughter's toy and turns into David, then sends Gwilanna, but before he does his eyes turn to scalene eyes. Lucy finds herself on Farlowe island and brother Bernard appears and leads her to a room. Tam follows but before she enters she notices Bernard's eyes are black. Back home at the Crescent, Alexa is putting icefire on David's four dragons and they enter the portal in the fairy door. Liz goes in and Gwillanna, stuck in the form of a raven, talks to Alexa. At Farlowe, Lucy is forced to create a Darkling but it has a flaw – it has no heart. The Ix (the flip side of the fain that killed David) there are upset that the Darkling had an extra piece which looks like a knife and is the heart. So, the Ix invade Lucy. Lucy goes home and her mother greets her, but Lucy cuts her with the heart-knife and knocks Liz out. Gwillian sees and cries his fire tear, which is later recovered. Gwilanna goes to Zanna and tells her that they need her help. Zanna turns into a raven and flies back. As Zanna arrives, the Ix exit Lucy and Zanna turns back saying a spell to pull all of the flower petals and onto the Ix. Alexa walks out and sees the Ix as Bonnington lowers his vibration and destroys the Ix. The Ix dies and Gwilanna saves Liz, revealing that Liz is pregnant. That night Zanna and Alexa go out to the library gardens and Alexa runs up the path and jumps into a man's arms. The man is David. ===== The module takes adventurers to the lair of the ancient lich Lyzandred, and focuses on puzzles and mind games to a greater degree than most D&D; modules of the period. ===== Town Scene from Commodore 64 version The principal character in the game is first contacted by Princess Aylea in a dream-vision. They are told that the evil Baron Taragas from the Kingdom of Maelbane has conspired with a local baron, Baron Mantrek, to find a magical material called Blacksilver. Supposedly in the hands of evil, Blacksilver could be used to create weapons of mass destruction. Princess Aylea instructs the character to rescue her father, King Durek, who has been abducted by Baron Taragas. ===== ===== The show starts with Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister walking about on the English coast. The year is 1941, and the pair converse briefly about elephants, before Minnie is struck down from behind by an unknown object. Constable Neddie Seagoon arrives, but warns them they can't use lights to see what the object is because of the blackout. Waiting until morning, they discover that the object is in fact a batter pudding. Seagoon mentions that he must inform the inspector, and proceeds to jump into the ocean. As he swims ashore, he dries himself to save time. He spends the rest of the night in his dustbin, where he is hit by a batter pudding. Wallace Greenslade then states that in the months to come, 38 batter puddings were hurled at Minnie Bannister. Seagoon discovers an army boot inside the most recent pudding, and travels to the nearby army camp. Major Bloodnok is the commanding officer, and is displeased at having to get his men out of bed in the middle of the day. Seagoon is searching for a man wearing one boot, but the entire platoon is bare footed. It begins to get dark, but by the light of 'a passing glue factory', Neddie notices that Lance-Private Eccles is only wearing one boot, on his head. Seagoon cannot prove a case against him, however. The next morning, a cold batter pudding is thrown at Minnie, revealing that the hurler has had his gas cut off. Obtaining a list of people who haven't paid their gas bills, Seagoon then mistakenly calls Prime Minister Winston Churchill, but quickly hangs up, wondering who Churchill could want to throw a batter pudding at. Immediately the phone rings; it's Clement Attlee, complaining that someone's just thrown a batter pudding at him. Seagoon encounters Moriarty dressed as a chef and pulling a portable gas stove from which comes the smell of batter pudding, but dismisses him as irrelevant to the investigation. It is finally discovered that the hurler is in Africa, and Seagoon and Bluebottle travel there on a ship disguised as a train, done up like a boat and painted to appear like a tram. After the ship is destroyed by a mine which Eccles considers not to be a problem because "it's one of ours", Neddie and Bloodnok are left adrift in a lifeboat. They eventually discover the hurler hiding in an oven on board the raft, but having no evidence other than a batter pudding, Seagoon will not let Bloodnok or himself eat it to avoid starvation. Greenslade then ends the show after introducing a coda "for those of you cretins who would like a happy ending": Seagoon, over a background of romantic music, proposes marriage. Bloodnok accepts. At times during the episode the plot is abandoned in favour of Milligan's associational comedy. ===== The film opens with a scene where fiery criminal lawyer Meera is being gang-raped to put a rapist behind bars, but the judge rules against her. Though the rapist walks free, is there a power who can save him from the justice of the “Billi” — a shadowy figure dressed in a black cat suit who has taken to the streets at night rounding up all scum and sleaze and dishing out her own brand of justice to chilling effect. There is an earnest police officer (Uthba) determined to nab the cat but he does not appear to be making much headway as this cat appears to have at least nine lives. In her brutal quest for justice, she does not even spare the lawyer representing the rapist who was basically just doing his job. She corners him one dark, stormy night and cuts off his tongue so that he can never twist a case to his benefit as he had done with the rape case. Uthba tries to marry Meera but she manages to castrate him and leaves him in darkness. ===== After all the Olympian gods go missing, Sibyl has a premonition in which the sun god Apollo tells her to find "the talking pig". Sibyl then sets out looking for the talking pig, Gryllus. She finds him first at an auction where she buys him for 200 drachmas then Gryllus runs away and he winds up at Big Stavros's Kebab bar where he is forced to entertain customers and where Sibyl takes him back. Together they set off for the temple at Delphi. Apollo informs Sibyl that she and Gryllus must find a goatherd boy living on top of a mountain. Once Sibyl and Gryllus find the goatherd, (who turns out to be the god Zeus) they set off once more for Apollo's temple at Delphi. It is there that Gryllus, the talking pig, must save the world from utter destruction. Additional: What the author had to say about his work: “I got the idea for The Pig Scrolls when I was rereading Homer's Odyssey and found myself more interested in some of the non-heroic characters in the background. Working on the book gave me a chance to revisit a world I have always loved—that of ancient mythology and history. And, of course, in order to research the character of Gryllus fully, I was forced to eat a huge number of pies.” The Pig Scrolls is set in Ancient Greece, and is about a pig named Gryllus. Gryllus, who was once a member of captain Odesseus’ famous crew, was transformed into a pig by the enchantress Circe. Gryllus, enjoying his quiet life in the woods is soon captured by local hunters when they realize he can talk, and is soon “rescued” by a junior prophetess in training (Sibyl). Sibyl informs Gryllus of a premonition showing her the end of the world. Gryllus believes her to have lost a couple of marbles and escapes, so Sibyl kidnaps him. On their journey to the temple in Delphi, they encounter monsters, gods, a strange goatherd and a scientist who has invented the awesome Atomos Device. Gryllus comes to realize that the entire universe is in the trotters of one talking pig, himself... ===== Rustlers are running rampant in Texas, but at least one rancher, Charlie Bell, isn't pulling up stakes yet, particularly with the news that old friend Clay Hardin is en route from Mexico back home to San Antonio. Clay claims to have proof, documented in a book, that Roy Stuart is responsible for the rustling. Clay arrives in town by stagecoach, as does Jeanne Starr, who is taking a job as a singer in Stuart's saloon. Lured backstage by Jeanne, suspicious that she could be in cahoots with her boss, Clay leaves the book in Charlie's care. But a partner of Stuart's, a man named Legare, wants the book for his own reasons, so he steals it and shoots Charlie. The shooting is witnessed by the singer's manager, Sacha, but he is too fearful to speak out. There is no law in San Antonio, only a troop of soldiers about to pull out, so Clay temporarily takes the job of marshal. Legare is chased into the Alamo's ruins by Stuart and is killed. Clay sets out in hot pursuit of Stuart, determined to arrest him, but ultimately Stuart is killed when he hits his head on a rock during the climactic fist-fight with Clay. Jeanne decides to leave San Antonio for good, but Clay persuades her to stay. ===== Mr Palfrey is a mild, middle-aged man—the epitome of a middle- ranking British Civil Servant. He is also a spook. Two series in total were made in addition to the pilot. The pilot, "The Traitor", by George Markstein, aired as part of Thames Television's Storyboard anthology on 23 August 1983. Series 1 consisted of four one-hour episodes, and first aired on Wednesday evenings from 9.00 to 10.00pm, 18 April to 9 May 1984.Television listings for all ITV regions, The Times (18 and 25 April 2 and 9 May 1984). Richard Down and Christopher Parry, The British Drama Research Guide: 1950–1997 (Bristol: Kaleidoscope Publishing, 1997), , p. DM-11, indicate that Central TV transmitted the last two episodes one day earlier, on Tuesdays, 1 and 8 May 1984. These are the dates also given on the container of the Network 7953332 DVD set. Dave Rogers, The ITV Encyclopedia of Adventure (London: Boxtree Ltd, 1988), (cloth) (pbk), p. 336, also gives the date of episode 4 as Tuesday 8 May 1984, without specifying the ITV region(s). The Times, on the contrary, lists on Tuesday 1 May 1984, 9.10–10.10pm, and on Tuesday 8 May 1984, 9.00–10.00 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ("The Dancing Men" and "The Naval Treaty", respectively) on all ITV regions, and these dates for the Sherlock Holmes episodes are confirmed for Central TV in Down and Perry 1997, p. DA-4. Series 2 consisted of six one-hour episodes and aired on Tuesdays, again from 9.00 to 10.00pm, 7 May to 11 June 1985. A subsequent play featuring Blair, "A Question of Commitment", by Philip Broadley, was first transmitted in the Storyboard anthology on 23 May 1989. ===== The story revolves around Bhanumathy (Padmapriya) who marries Rathnavel Kalidas (Nithin Sathya), a man who works in railways as a hockey player. He married Bhanu by hiding the facts that he is impotent and a recovering alcoholic. Soon, the relationship turns sour when the couple realizes that Rathnavel is impotent after a gynecologist (Suhasini) tells them so. In spite of family pressures to get a mutual divorce, the old-fashioned Bhanu decides to go ahead with the marriage by adopting a child. With the baby's arrival, Rathnavel unfortunately becomes more insecure and tells Bhanu that the child reminds him about his weakness. Unfortunately, all hell breaks loose when Bhanu realizes that her husband was an alcoholic who knew about his impotency and had betrayed her. Rathnavel, in his anger, beats up Bhanu until she is almost unconscious. A few days later, she files for a divorce and stays with her parents for some days. Bhanu later meets Ravichandran (Prithviraj), a happy-go-lucky guy who is a friend of her brother (Raaghav). Ravi proposes to Bhanu, and they later get married, but Rathnavel, who had vowed to make life miserable for Bhanu, returns. He kidnaps Bhanu and places a cadaver in her home before faking an accident with a cooking gas cylinder, leading Ravi and his family to believe that Bhanu died in a kitchen accident. After that, Rathnavel brings Bhanu to his bungalow in an isolated area and locks her in a soundproof room. When Ravi goes to Rathnavel's house to get some life insurance papers, a series of clues lead him to find Bhanu. After distracting Rathnavel, Ravi calls the police and rescues Bhanu. Rathnavel is sent to a mental asylum, where he later hangs himself. This seems to be a true story which happened in Andhra Pradesh in the late 1990s, and Rathnavel's (name changed) family members are still there in Kakinada, but the movie ends with a happy note when we see that Ravi and Bhanu are still happily married and Bhanu is visibly pregnant. ===== Four years prior to the beginning of the story, Kyle Craig is sent to prison for his crimes in Roses Are Red and Violets Are Blue and swears revenge upon Detective Alex Cross, who was responsible for his capture. In the present day, Alex Cross is on a date with police officer, Brianna 'Bree' Stone, when they are interrupted by the news of crime-writer author Tess Olsen's death. Upon arriving in Washington, D.C., Alex decides to help, even though he is no longer a detective. The investigators find a Hallmark greeting card and a tape featuring the killer throwing Olsen from a balcony in her apartment. In the video, the killer turns toward the camera and says "In your honor." Alex, Bree, and John Sampson, Alex's best friend and co-worker, discover that the footage of the murder was used twice. Later, the murderer goes to a play and kills Matthew Jay Walker, an actor, and posts videos of his murders on the internet. Alex realizes that the murderer wants an audience, and therefore is nicknamed "DCAK" (an abbreviation of "DC Audience Killer"). At his psychology practice, Alex talks to Sandy Quinlan, a sex-crazed woman and meets another patient, Anthony Demao. Anthony is a war-veteran who killed his partner, Matthew, after Matthew had ordered him to due to his terminal health. As the murders get more serious, Alex decides to once again work with the DC Metropolitan Police Department while continuing his work as a psychologist. It becomes apparent that the DCAK role-plays as a different alter-ego during each murder. The killer sets up multiple websites featuring footage, pictures, and messages from him and his victims. In a federal prison in Colorado, Kyle Craig receives a visit from his lawyer, Mason Wainwright. Wainwright puts on a human-like mask of Kyle's face and gives one with his face to Kyle, allowing Kyle to escape and Mason to stay in his place. Wainwright dies shortly afterward. Alex learns of Craig's escape and goes to Florence where he reviews footage of Olsen interviewing Kyle for her latest book. Back in D.C., FBI agent, Brian 'Kitz' Kitzmiller is assigned to help Sampson, Bree, and Alex. A DCAK copycat, wearing a Richard Nixon mask, kidnaps a teen couple. The copycat killer kills the boy, while the girl is run over. Meanwhile, Kyle visits his mother, who he blames for letting his father beat Kyle as a child. Kyle steals money from his mother, then shoots and kills her. In Iowa, Kyle murders a woman after pretending to wish to sleep with her. Alex goes to his office where he witnesses Sandy giving Anthony a hand job. Alex demands to speak with Sandy while Anthony waits outside, but Anthony leaves. Later that day, the Sandy and Anthony meet at a coffee shop, where they make- out as Sandy shouts to the onlookers in the restaurant that Anthony is her brother. Anthony reveals to Sandy that he has received a message from Kyle announcing that he wishes to see DCAK, implying to the audience that they are the DCAK. Alex, Sampson, and Bree go to a press conference in Baltimore, where Alex finds a message from DCAK stating that Alex is missing the "show". Alex learns the attempts to track the woman who had delivered the message, but she escapes in her car. Alex then heads to Washington where a pregnant woman has been found murdered at the National Air and Space Museum. Upon returning home, Alex learns from his kids, Alex 'Ali' Jr. and Jannie, and his grandmother, Nana, that his oldest son, Damon, has run away. Sampson finds Damon playing basketball. Alex scolds Damon, who is frustrated that Alex missed a meeting to allow Damon to attend a prep school, Crushing, in Massachusetts. Alex apologizes to Damon and takes him home. Trying to find peace for a moment, Alex and Bree go to a hotel and make love. Eventually, Alex receives a message from DCAK, who announces he has caught the copycat. DCAK throws the copycat's body from a helicopter onto a nearby roof. Alex and Bree use a ladder to get to the roof where they find Kitz's dead body. Back on the street, Bree is asked for an interview from a "reporter", Neil Stephens, who punches Bree and flees. Alex later suspects that Tyler Bell, the brother of a murderer, Michael Bell, that Alex had killed is DCAK. Kyle Craig kills a maid in his hotel in Paris before heading to Washington. Kyle arrives in Washington and murders Judge Nina Wolff, who had sentenced him to prison. At Alex's practice, Sandy tells Alex that she will be leaving for Michigan and gives Alex a kiss. While tracking down Bell's former house, a cabin in the woods, Alex and Bree learn that Bell had purchased milk days before he was last seen, causing Alex to get suspicious. Alex then discovers DCAK has kidnapped Sampson. When he returns to Washington, Alex finds a phone attached to his car. He is given directions from the phone to DCAK's hideout. After arriving at the destination, Alex and Bree are tied to chairs. DCAK reveals himself to be the man Alex knew as Anthony in addition to Neil Stephens, the reporter. The mysterious woman from Baltimore is revealed to be his sister, who had been posing as Sandy. After angering DCAK, who reveals he had killed Bell, Bree manages to escape her bounds and shoot and kill Sandy. DCAK escapes with Alex in pursuit, leading to a chase through a Mexican-food restaurant. Alex catches and stabs DCAK, who survives. However, Kyle Craig appears, revealing he and DCAK are mutual fans. Alex is nearly killed by Kyle before Bree arrives and shoots and apparently kills him. Craig, who is not dead, attempts to shoot Bree but purposefully misses. He is able to flee. At the hospital, Alex realizes DCAK and his sister are really Aaron and Sarah Dennison. Aaron curses at Alex, vowing revenge, which Alex dismisses. The book ends with Alex taking Damon to Massachusetts to go to Crushing, when Alex receives a message stating there has been a murder in Georgetown, setting up the events for Cross Country. ===== Fergus Reith, prime Terran tour guide on the planet Krishna, finds himself between tours and on a somewhat different job, working with Aristide Marot, a French paleontologist out to unravel the mysteries of Krishnan vertebrate evolution. Marot is particularly interested in the era when life first emerged from the seas; as Krishna's surface is mostly land and its bodies of water are separated from each other, he theorizes the planet's animal species could have multiple origins. Standard Ace edition of The Bones of Zora by L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp, Ace Books, 1984 Fergus guides Marot to the most promising fossil-bearing site, near the town of Kubyab on the banks of the upper Zora River in the Dashtate of Chilihagh. There they find a rival, Marot's competitor Warren Foltz, who is fanatically attached to a rival theory and is not averse to destroying contrary evidence. Moreover, Foltz is being assisted by xenologist Alicia Dyckman, to whom Fergus had formerly been wed in a stormy marriage culminating in divorce. The cause was Alicia's contentious and overbearing personality; convinced she always knew best, she had interfered with Fergus's tours to the point that he had finally barred her from participating. Miserable, at an emotional low ebb, and exploited by Foltz, Alicia now regrets having left Fergus, but their jobs keep them in continued opposition. Reith's scientific adventure is thus beset by skullduggery, violence, and tempestuous personal relations. Blessed with beginner's luck, he actually discovers a fossil supporting Marot's theory, which Foltz endeavors to hijack and break up. Various complications ensue; Fergus and Alicia are brought back together by their mutual passion for each other and enmity with Foltz, only to be alienated again due to Alicia's extreme behavior. Ultimately Fergus decides with regret it would be disastrous to take her back, and she leaves Krishna heartbroken, hoping to find treatment for her personality disorders on Earth. The Bones of Zora is unique among the later Krishna novels in its inclusion of a non-Krishnan extraterrestrial, a reptilian native of the planet Osiris. While such aliens were fairly common in the earliest of de Camp's Krishna books, his later works usually focus on Terrans and Krishnans only. ===== Wing-Man is the story of Kenta Hirono, a fan of superheroes and sentai television shows to the point where he dreams of becoming such a hero himself. To that end, he creates a superhero of his own called "Wingman," and, much to the chagrin of his teachers, acts out his fantasies of being Wingman at school. When Kenta meets Aoi Yume, the beautiful blue-haired princess of an alternate universe called Podreams, he gets his chance to make his fantasy come true, as Aoi carries a book called a Dream Note which can make any dream come true, and Kenta draws a picture of Wingman in the book, allowing him to become Wingman for real. Kenta, Aoi and Kenta's classmate and love interest, Miku Ogawa, team up to save Podreams from the evil dictator Rimel, who wants to use the Dream Note to take over Podreams, while Kenta deals with his conflicting feelings for both of his female compatriots. ===== The majority of this episode takes place four months after the events of Season 1's finale. In the chronology of the series, the Season 1 finale took place in November 2006, which dates this episode in March 2007. Also, Hiro's scenes take place in 1671. Mohinder Suresh has been traveling around giving speeches about genetically abnormal individuals whom he believes are susceptible to an impending plague, the Shanti virus. He is approached by a strange man named Bob, who offers him a job with the mysterious Company. Bob is shown to be able to turn objects into gold which he uses to provide funds for the Company. Afterwards Mohinder is shown calling Noah Bennet, revealing that Mohinder's speeches were a ruse to gain the attention of "the Company" that Bennet used to work for, so that Mohinder, with Noah's guidance, can bring it down from within. Claire and Noah Bennet, under the assumed name of Butler, are on the campus of Claire's new high school in Costa Verde, California. Claire nearly gets run over by a boy named West, who later interacts with her in a science lab and in the school gymnasium. It is there that she stands up to head cheerleader Debbie, who was picking on another girl. Debbie challenges her to perform a back tuck off of "the tower." Claire climbs the tower, then, remembering her father's words against "standing out," tells everyone that she can't do it. After the floor mats are removed and everyone has gone, she performs the feat, but apparently breaks a leg when landing on the bare floor. West walks in, and it is not clear whether he has witnessed her injury healing. Matt Parkman is divorced from his wife and is taking care of Molly at Mohinder Suresh's apartment in Brooklyn. Parkman passes his NYPD detective examination, partially due to his use of telepathy. Later that day, Parkman is confronted at Molly's school by her teacher because she is falling asleep in class (due to her nightmares) and drawing some rather disturbing pictures. The pictures are of dark eyes, often over her bed at night, and each prominently includes the helix symbol (one depicting the helix as a scar). That evening Parkman tries to talk to Molly about her problems, but she gets upset and refuses to discuss it because she is afraid of the man she mentioned in "How to Stop an Exploding Man." Later that night she has a nightmare, and Parkman uses his telepathy to hear part of her nightmare: a man's voice telling Molly he can see her. Molly then wakes up crying in Parkman's arms. Hiro Nakamura lands in a grassy meadow. As he looks around him, he spots a group of samurai archers raising their bows towards him — he turns to run, but sees the warrior that they are about to attack, poised behind Hiro. The subtitles then note that Hiro is outside Kyoto, Japan, in the year 1671. As the archers prepare to attack, a solar eclipse occurs and everyone stops to look at it. Hiro stops time as the archers release their arrows, then realizes the man being attacked is Takezo Kensei. Hiro saves himself and Kensei by teleporting them both away from the conflict. After a series of misunderstandings, Hiro learns that Kensei is actually an Englishman who uses dirty tricks to win. In Honduras, two fugitives, Maya and Alejandro Herrera, are trying to cross the border to escape homicide charges. Their conversation indicates that they must stay together, but the reason is not clear until Alejandro is separated from his sister soon afterwards by men from a transport truck. Upon catching up to the truck, Alejandro finds his sister distraught, and the driver and all of the passengers dead, with a dark liquid flowing from their eyes; her power has apparently killed them. It seems that the manifestation of her ability is somehow related to her brother's presence. They continue to the border, intending to bury the bodies. (Further information on their background is given in the online novel.Online Heroes comic book at NBC.com ) Nathan Petrelli, distraught over the assumed death of his brother, Peter, has been left by his wife and children, and has become an alcoholic. While in a bar, he receives a call from Claire, who tells him that she needs to talk to someone. Nathan says he can't and hangs up. He looks in the mirror and sees a vision of a disfigured Nathan, apparently suffering from burns all over his face, presumably due to the nuclear explosion in the first season.Greg Beeman's blog, Season 2 Episode 1 - "Four Months Later"Sharon Knolle for USA Today, "Stars of all wattage levels converge at Hot Hollywood bash" He turns away, then looks back to the mirror to see his normal reflection. It is then shown that West was watching Claire during her telephone conversation from outside her second-story window. He is shown to be hovering there and shortly flies off into the distance, revealing the power of self-propelled flight that Nathan also has. Angela Petrelli and Kaito Nakamura separately each find a picture of themselves with a red helix scrawled thereon, which they both understand to indicate that they are to be murdered within 24 hours. They meet on top of the Deveaux building and compare their pictures, which appear to be two separate pieces of a photograph that included them both. Kaito recounts that he and Angela, along with Charles Deveaux, Mr. Linderman, and Mr. Petrelli, were part of a group of twelve people that tried to find evolved humans, and then he and Angela speculate about which member of the group will be their assassin. After Angela leaves and Ando is sent to get a sword for Kaito, a hooded figure appears on the roof. Kaito mentions that of the members of the group, he didn't expect the assassin "to be you." The figure tackles Kaito over the side of the roof. Ando returns in time to see them both fall, but when he looks over the edge, only Kaito's body is seen on the ground below. Hiro, still distraught that Kensei is not the hero he thought he was, tells him about Kensei's future tales where he saves the village of Ōtsu and takes the town's swordmaker's beautiful daughter as his princess. At that moment, Hiro smells fire and looks behind him to see the village of Ōtsu burning to the ground. As Hiro and Kensei travel toward Ōtsu, a woman from the village encounters Kensei and takes his sword, stating that her father made the sword for him to defend the village with and denounces Kensei for leaving the village to be destroyed. Hiro pleads with Kensei to retrieve the sword and help, who loses patience with Hiro and knocks him unconscious. At the end of the episode, three thieves are looking for a cargo container (#9109) in a shipyard located in Cork, Ireland. When they break into container 9109, they find Peter Petrelli, chained to one of the sides, wearing only pants and a helix necklace. Expecting to find a shipment of iPods, they angrily threaten him. He defends himself with his powers and seems as shocked as his attackers when he produces lightning that knocks a gangster back. After being asked who he is, he appears to have amnesia and professes "I don't know...I don't know." ===== A young lesbian couple, Stella and Lenni, go on the run after the accidental death of Lenni's mother. ===== Maggie (Benz) is a 30-year-old New York City career woman who returns to her hometown in Connecticut for a funeral of an old friend. There, she becomes reacquainted with three old high school friends, Joan, Susan, and Emily, as well as her old boyfriend Harry. When Maggie learns that other people whom she knew in school are dying mysteriously, she tries to convince her friends and the skeptic police that they were murders somehow connected to one another and linked to a mysterious death in school. When Maggie herself nearly becomes a victim of the unseen killer, she must dive into her past to uncover some terrible secrets that her friends may be hiding from her, which leads to one or more of them who may be the killer. ===== Two brothers Harry and Henry Hicks, run a New York deli they've inherited from their father. Younger brother Harry then develops a gambling problem. ===== Elmer Fudd is hunting for Bugs Bunny using his "Wabbit Detector". As he is searching, Bugs misleads Elmer, who walks off a cliff. Later Elmer gives chase to Bugs and Bugs hitches a ride in a car not noticing Elmer is the driver. When Bugs realizes that, Elmer stops the car at a movie theater. Bugs pays his admission to get in the theater. After some pushing his way through the occupied seats and getting a snack, he is faced with Elmer. As Elmer follows Bugs pushing their way past the occupied seats Elmer comes across a little old lady, who hits Elmer for his interruption. Elmer finds out that the "old lady" is Bugs in disguise ensuing a scuffle with Bugs as he calls an usher who throws Elmer out. Back at his seat, Bugs' view is blocked by a woman with a large hat-which turns out to be Elmer. Elmer chases Bugs to a different theater and is greeted by a message on screen requesting him to come to the box office. When Elmer inquires, Bugs splatters a pie in his face. Elmer then chases Bugs into the men's lounge, but Bugs rushes back out and replaces the sign with the sign from the ladies' lounge. Bugs reports Elmer to the usher who throws Elmer out again. When Elmer attempts to get back inside, he runs into a guard, who then scares Elmer away. When Elmer sneaks back in, he ends up getting trampled by movie patrons going in and out, due to Bugs operating the notification lights until Elmer catches up to him. Elmer then chases Bugs back to the theater, where Bugs disguises himself as an usher and leads Elmer through the dark. Bugs then reveals himself on stage in a circus act, where his partner, Elmer, on a unicycle, will ride down a highwire and into the mouth of a lion. Due to Bugs having placed dark sunglasses on him in the dark, Elmer is unaware he's the act as he unknowingly unicycles down to the waiting lion. Bugs then opens the lion's mouth, where he hears Elmer's voice, completely unaware of where he is, wondering if the stunt guy made it. Bugs casts a side glance to the audience and says "Eh, yep, he made it" and closes the lion's mouth as the camera irises out. ===== Rogaum is a German immigrant running a butcher shop in lower Manhattan, New York City. His daughter, Theresa, is almost eighteen. Attracted to the city lights and life she has taken to spending her time with her friend Myrtle. They secretly spend it with two boys, Connie and George, who are considered womanizers. Every night Rogaum calls Theresa home and reprimands her for being out so late. She stays out later each night and Rogaum threatens to lock her out. One night he does, and refuses to let her in, intending to teach her a lesson. Instead of staying in the entrance all night, as expected, she goes back out with Connie. Seeing Theresa leave by herself and not return, Roguam goes looking for her. Upon returning home without her, he finds a young woman lying at his door, who had drunk acid in order to kill herself. The police come, the girl is taken care of, and Rogaum and his wife tell them of their daughter’s disappearance. The police had seen her with Connie, which worries her father even more. The two police officers, Maguire and Delahanty, investigate the woman's death, knowing she came from Adele's, a nearby whorehouse. They discover that she, too, had been locked out of her parents' house, starting her down that road. The police find Theresa and Connie and take them to the station. Old Rogaum comes down to get her, enraged at Connie but delighted to have his daughter back. ===== The book follows three main characters, Miss Celestial "Celeste" Temple, Cardinal Chang, and Captain-Surgeon Abelard Svenson, as they attempt to thwart the mysterious plot of a sinister cabal. There are ten chapters in the book, and each is from the point of view of one of the main characters. Chang and Svenson get three chapters each and Miss Temple gets four (the novel both starts and ends from her point of view). ===== No prints of the first American film adaptation of A Christmas Carol are known to exist, but The Moving Picture World magazine provided a scene-by-scene description before the film's release. Scrooge goes into his office and begins working. His nephew, along with three women who wish for Scrooge to donate enter. However, Scrooge dismisses them. On the night of Christmas Eve, his long-dead partner Jacob Marley comes as a ghost, warning him of a horrible fate if he does not change his ways. Scrooge meets three spirits that show Scrooge the real meaning of Christmas, along with his grave, the result of his parsimonious ways. The next morning, he wakes and realizes the error of his ways. Scrooge was then euphoric and generous for the rest of his life. ===== A prince, the heir apparent to a large empire, was once the lover of Alice Faulkner's sister. During their love affair, he had written some incriminating letters to her. Alice was given these letters for safe keeping on the deathbed of her sister. Count von Stalburg, the prince's assistant, and Sir Edward Palmer, a high British official, have been given the task of negotiating the restitution of the letters to the prince prior to his upcoming marriage. However, Alice Faulkner is being held captive by the Larrabees, a husband and wife team of crooks who realize the value of the letters and are trying to get them from Alice in order to blackmail the prince. Failing to secure the letters for themselves, they decide to involve Professor Moriarty in the affair. The film unfolds as a battle of wits ensues between Moriarty and Holmes. Dr. Watson is only marginally involved until the final third. Holmes receives more assistance from an associate named Forman and a young bellboy named Billy. publicity still of Sherlock Holmes ===== The story tells of Prince Tristan, as he is summoned by the Heretics to join them beyond the Tolenka Mountains. It is there they promise to help him discover his destiny. To help spur the prince along they send Xanthus, a binary being (half-man, half darkling), to torture the citizens of Eutracia until Tristan agrees to go. Meanwhile, Serena plots her revenge against those who worship the Vigors. She personally plans to kill Tristan for the death of her husband Wulfgar and their stillborn daughter, Clarice. With the help of the Heretics, to whom she is now able to commune with, Serena sets a plan into motion that will rock the Conclave to its very core. ===== The game takes place on the planet Katakis, a human colony in deep space. There, scientists developed machinery with advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. However, the machines eventually evolved beyond the control of their human creators and overtook the planet. The humans attempted to retaliate through the use of nuclear ballistic missiles, but the machines survived. The colonists' remaining plan is to use a series of DS-H75 Eagle Fighter space gliders to attack the machines and retake the planet. ===== It has been six years since entertainment agent Myron Bolitar last played superhero. In six years he hasn’t thrown a punch. He hasn’t held, much less fired, a gun. He hasn’t called his friend Win, still the scariest man he knows, to back him up or get him out of trouble. All that is about to change... because of a promise. The school year is almost over. Anxious families await word of college acceptances. In these last pressure-cooker months of high school, some kids will make the all-too-common and all-too-dangerous mistake of drinking and driving. But Myron is determined to help keep his friends’ children safe, and so he makes two neighborhood girls promise him: If they are ever in a bind but are afraid to call their parents, they must call him. Several nights later, the call comes at 2:00 am, and true to his word, Myron picks up one of the girls, Aimee Biel, in midtown Manhattan and drives her to a quiet cul-de- sac in New Jersey where she says her friend lives. The next day, the girl’s parents discover that their daughter is missing. And that Myron was the last person to see her. Desperate to fulfill a well-intentioned promise turned nightmarishly wrong, Myron races to find her before she’s gone forever. But his past will not be buried so easily - for trouble has always stalked him, and those he loves are the ones who suffer. Now Myron must decide once and for all who he is and what he will stand up for if he is to have any hope of saving a young girl’s life. Dr Edna Skylar is revealed as the source for the disappearance as Aimee was involved with her estranged son, Drew Van Dyne, a teacher at Aimee's school who gets her pregnant. She was trying to keep her from her strict father, Erik, who would have wanted a termination. The other missing girl, Katie Rochester, runs away from her father to be with her boyfriend Rufus but returns home. Category:American thriller novels Category:2006 American novels Category:Novels by Harlan Coben Category:Novels set in New York City he:מיירון בוליטר#ספרי הסדרה ===== On November 1, 2004, Hank Deerfield – a gravel trucker and retired military police sergeant living in Tennessee with his wife Joan – is notified that his son Mike, a soldier recently returned from Iraq, has gone missing. Hank drives to Mike’s base in New Mexico to look for him; leaving home, he helps a school custodian raise the American flag correctly. At Fort Rudd, Hank meets his son’s squad, and secretly takes Mike’s cell phone from his belongings. Watching videos recovered from the phone, he attempts to report Mike’s disappearance to police detective Emily Sanders, and reaches out to a friend formerly at Army CID, without success. Mike’s burned and dismembered body is discovered. Fort Rudd claims jurisdiction, believing that a pipe found under Mike’s mattress and the recent arrest of other soldiers for smuggling heroin indicate his murder was drug-related. Hank persuades Sanders to show him the crime scene, and realizes that a green car spotted at the scene was actually blue. Belittled by her male colleagues, Sanders convinces the local sheriff to pursue the investigation, and Mike’s squadmate SPC Gordon Bonner reaches out to Hank. After viewing her son’s remains, Joan returns home and receives a package Mike mailed to himself, which Hank urges her not to open. Mike’s credit card history leads Sanders and Hank to a restaurant, where Hank deduces Mike ate with at least two other people shortly before his death. Sanders is given sworn statements from Mike’s squad by Army investigators, preventing her from interviewing them herself. She invites Hank over for dinner, and he tells her young son the story of the Biblical David’s battle with Goliath in the Valley of Elah. Eve, a topless bartender Hank previously questioned, recognizes Mike’s squadmate CPL Steve Penning from a photograph, leading Hank to learn that Mike and Penning were kicked out of a strip club the night Mike was killed. Sanders interviews Penning, Bonner, and SPC Ennis Long, who admit to lying in their statements: after Mike got the four of them kicked out of the club, he and Bonner fought in the parking lot; Mike then paid for their food at the restaurant, and they visited a prostitute before leaving Mike, who was looking to buy drugs. Hank refuses to believe Mike’s fellow soldiers could be involved in his death. Hank and the police determine that another member of Mike’s squad, PVT Robert Ortiz, is AWOL, with a history of drug smuggling and a blue car. Following the police as they raid Ortiz’s address, Hank subdues the fleeing Ortiz and beats him until detectives intervene. Ortiz is arrested, but Bonner is found hanged with Mike’s grandfather’s watch in his pocket. Sanders concludes that Bonner, who also owned a blue car, killed Mike. She learns that Angie, a soldier’s wife who came to her for help, has been murdered by her husband. Hank has his son’s remains sent home, and Penning helps jump-start his truck, reminiscing about Mike. Sanders matches Penning's handwriting to the signature on Mike’s last credit card statement, and realizes Penning, Bonner, and Long killed Mike, then used his credit card at the restaurant. Penning has already come forward and received a plea deal, but at Sanders’ insistence, she and Hank hear his confession in person: he admits to stabbing Mike after a seemingly insignificant quarrel. Hank asks him about a video of Mike torturing a captive insurgent, and the emotionally distant Penning explains, “We all do stupid things”. Collecting Mike’s belongings, Hank apologizes to Ortiz, who has been honorably discharged. Haunted by his last conversation with his son, after Mike drove over an Iraqi child playing in the road, Hank thanks Sanders and returns home. He finds Joan opened Mike’s package, which contains a picture of his squad and a folded flag. Returning to the local school’s flagpole, Hank flies his son’s flag upside down. ===== Piano prodigy Ye Xianglun (Jay Chou) lives with his father (Anthony Wong Chau-sang). In 1999, Xianglun transfers into the famous music school, Tamkang (Danjiang) Secondary School, where his father is a teacher. His classmate Qingyi (Alice Tzeng) gives him a campus tour, noting that the piano building will be torn down on graduation day. In the building, he hears a beautiful, mysterious melody ("Secret"), leading him to Lu Xiaoyu (Gwei Lun-mei), another piano student. After class, Xianglun asks Xiaoyu about the song; she tells him it is a secret that cannot be told. Xianglun and Xiaoyu spending time together in the practice rooms or around town. They share their first kiss after he gives her a rare music score that he won for her at a school piano battle. When Xianglun tells Xiaoyu about the demolition of the piano building on graduation day, she plays him the mysterious song "Secret", telling him never to play it on the piano room's oldest piano. Xiaoyu skips class for days. An undercurrent of jealousy also begins to develop as Qingyi tries to get closer with Xianglun. In class a few days later, Xianglun passes a note to Xiaoyu asking her to meet him at the practice rooms. However, Qingyi shows up instead, and Xianglun accidentally kisses her since his eyes are closed. He realizes his mistake when the janitor loudly says hello to Xiaoyu outside the door; Xianglun rushes out, but she is already out of sight. He goes to Xiaoyu's home to clear things up, but her mother says she is sick and had dropped out of school a long time ago. She tells Xianglun not to look for her daughter again. Five months later, graduation day had arrived, with Xianglun set to perform on stage at the graduation ceremony. Qingyi lends him her bracelet to wish him luck. Halfway through the performance, Xianglun sees Xiaoyu by the door, and they share a smile before she quickly leaves. Xianglun abandons the performance and runs outside, chasing down Xiaoyu and embracing her, telling her to wait for him. However, before he goes back, she sees Qingyi's bracelet on his wrist. When Xianglun goes looking for Xiaoyu after the ceremony a few minutes later, he cannot find her anywhere. Upon asking a few classmates if they had seen the girl he was always with, they are confused and reply that he was always alone. Xianglun begins to have flashbacks to all the times they hung out together, but in those memories, she is missing and he is alone. Desperate for answers, he races to Xiaoyu's house. She is missing, but Xiaoyu's mother gives him a photo of Xiaoyu with his father. Xianglun rushes home and asks his father about her. The film cuts to a scene with Xiaoyu, in 1979 (20 years ago), speaking with Xianglun's father (her teacher at the time, at the same school). She confesses that she had found a score hidden in the oldest piano on campus, called "Secret", and when she played it on the piano, she had traveled forward in time 20 years and met Xianglun. However, she explains that during her time travels, she can only be seen by the first person she sees, and she doesn't always succeed in seeing Xianglun first, so it appears as though she is missing most days. However, she is now depressed since she had caught him kissing another girl, then saw that girl's bracelet on his wrist. Since she never wants to see him again, she gives the score of "Secret" to Xianglun's father. Naturally, Xianglun's father thinks the story is ridiculous, and believes she is suffering from some mental illness, a sentiment quickly becoming shared by the entire class of 1979, as well as Xiaoyu's mother. Back in the present, Xianglun realizes that the music piece that she showed him was "Secret", and could take the pianist into the past or future if played at the right speed, on the old piano. He rushes off to the piano building, which is about to be torn down. At the same time, Xianglun's father retrieves the manuscript of "Secret" that Xiaoyu had given to him for safekeeping, and realizes that Xiaoyu had written a message (20 years ago) to Xianglun on the back, corroborating her stories of time travel. Meanwhile, Xianglun enters the piano room and, as the demolition begins, starts to play "Secret" from memory, remembering Xiaoyu's words, "I always play it fast when I want to go back". He continues playing as the building crashes down around him; just before he is smashed by a wrecking ball, he plays the last note. The scene cuts to outside the classroom. Xianglun peeks inside, and Xiaoyu looks back at him and smiles. The last scene shows the 1979 graduation photo of Tamkang (Danjiang) Secondary School, with Xianglun and Xiaoyu standing next to each other. ===== Igraine lives in an old castle with her family, magicians who possess powerful books of magic. Her older brother Albert is following in the family line, but Igraine plans to be a knight one day, even though she feels there is not much adventure to be had at home these days. Her ancestors, though, had warded off many attempts to steal the books of magic. On her 12th birthday, Igraine's parents give her a magical suit of armor, but in the process, they are turned into pigs by mistake. Matters get worse when the next-door Baroness's castle is taken over by Osmond the Greedy, who wants to take the magical books so he can overthrow the king. Igraine and her brother must find a way to defend the castle from Osmond's siege while keeping their parents' condition secret and searching for the missing ingredient for their restoration to human form. Albert handles the castle's magical defenses while Igraine leaves to find the missing ingredient. She finds the ingredient and some assistance, in the form of the Sorrowful Knight of the Mount of Tears, who not only agrees to help her return home but also begins teaching her about the rules of chivalry, and eventually helps Igraine and her family end the siege. ===== The movie tracks three plot lines: interviews at a role playing game convention (RPGCon), Elizabeth’s (Aimee Graham, the lead character) interaction with the justice system, and the game in which Elizabeth is a first-time player. Elizabeth violates her house arrest sentence to attend her first game at the invitation of a stranger she meets in a gaming store. Elizabeth risks jail because of the terms of her sentence. In a key plot twist, she chooses to finish the game session: Because her ankle monitor has been inadvertently activated, she is in danger of re- arrest if she does not immediately return home. By the end of the movie it is made plain that in gaming with her new companions, Elizabeth has found her path to redemption, her path away from a life of petty crime and drugs. When her parole officer (Price Carson) asks her, “was it worth it?”, she answers, “yes.” ===== Laure and Bertrand arrive at the Electric Hotel, where a control board allows inanimate objects to come to life. For most of the film, the effects are used to perform tasks such as polishing shoes, styling hair and putting away luggage, to the two guests' great pleasure. At the end, a drunken concierge erratically throws switches that cause the system to go haywire, sending all of the hotel's furniture into a jumbled, chaotic mess. ===== The Devil is bored. He goes back to Earth with a magic elevator. He surprises two sewer workers, disguises himself as a city man, and spreads improbable events: quarrel with a coachman, altercation with a city sergeant, mystification of a barman, quiproquo with couples… He's trapped in a cage with a young woman, and goes down to hell. Surprise, the young woman is Madame Devil who was disguised by jealousy. ===== In the 1890s, Sergeant Major John Philip Sousa, the director of the United States Marine Band, leaves the Marine Corps after his enlistment expires to form his own band. He must do so because he is not paid enough by the Corps to provide for his wife Jennie (Ruth Hussey) and their three children. As a favor for his splendid service, he is allowed to take along Private Willie Little (Robert Wagner), who has invented and plays a new instrument, the "Sousaphone". Willie persuades Sousa to go with him to a "concert" where some of Sousa's songs will be performed. In fact, it is a rowdy music hall, where Willie's girlfriend, Lily Becker (Debra Paget), is one of the performers. When the police raid the place for indecency (by 1890s standards), the trio barely manage to get away. Willie and Lily immediately begin to fit right in, eventually becoming an extension of the Sousa family. Sousa forms his band and selects only the finest musicians from around the world. He firmly discourages the married men in the band from bringing their wives along on tour. However, Willie and Lily are deeply in love and are secretly married and tour together in the new band. Late one night, Sousa is shocked when he spots Willie sneaking into Lily's train compartment. Sousa's wife has to let him in on their secret. Sousa's contract to perform at the Atlanta, Georgia Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895 is canceled by Colonel Randolph (Finlay Currie) because both previous bands proved to be unpopular at the exposition. Sousa heads south anyway. His musicians strike up "Dixie" as the band marches onto the exposition grounds, putting the large crowd in a jubilant, receptive mood. The playlist for Sousa's twice-daily concerts is announced, and it includes "Dixie", to be played as often as possible and for all encores. Sousa and his band are heartily welcomed to the Atlanta exposition. Sousa and his band tour the world, and he is honored with medals by the crowned heads of Europe. When the is sunk by an explosion in Havana harbor, precipitating the Spanish–American War, both Willie and Sousa reenlist in the Marine Corps. However, Sousa is kept out of the actual fighting and instead is forced to go on a sea voyage to recover from a bout of typhoid fever. At sea, he begins a new march inspired by the war. During the rehearsal of Sousa's new operetta El Capitan, starring Lily, the Sousas receive a letter from Willie in Cuba in which he reveals he was wounded in the knee (his lower left leg is later amputated). Following the end of the war, Willie returns home and recuperates at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Hospital. Willie and Lily attend a small weekly concert held at the hospital. As a surprise, the curtain opens and Sousa and his 50-piece band are revealed. Sousa calls upon Willie to rejoin them on his Sousaphone in a concert for the wounded veterans, their families, and the medical staff. Sousa announces that he has written a new march for all the veterans of the war and that this performance will be its debut. The band launches into the film's title march, as we move forward in time to the present day. Battalions of uniformed U.S. Marines march in formation to the martial music. In modern Washington D.C., the ghostly spirit of Sousa leads the United States Marine Band while they perform "The Stars and Stripes Forever" to its rousing conclusion. ===== The series centered on Bram Shepard, who won a Pulitzer Prize twenty years earlier for writing the best-selling novel Matthew Kent, and Alice O'Connor, who came to his door one day and informed him that she was his daughter, the result of a one-night stand he had when he was a guest lecturer at Vassar College. ===== Gable and Harlow in Hold Your Man Small-time con man Eddie Hall hides from his latest victim and a policeman in the first unlocked apartment he can find. It turns out to occupied by Ruby Adams, a cynical woman with numerous boyfriends. When it is safe to come out, Eddie wants to become better acquainted with his pretty rescuer. Although she resists at first, she ends up falling in love with him. Eddie's partner Slim comes up with a scheme to catch one of Ruby's married admirers in a compromising position and blackmail him, but Eddie finds at the last moment that he cannot bear to have his girl involved in something that sordid. He breaks into Ruby's apartment and punches the would-be victim, accidentally killing him. Eddie escapes, but Ruby is caught and sentenced to a reformatory for two years. One of her fellow inmates turns out to be Gypsy Angecon, Eddie's previous girlfriend. When Eddie learns from a released Gypsy that Ruby is pregnant with his child, he visits her; but, as a fugitive, he has to pretend to be there to see another inmate. Even though the authorities become suspicious, Eddie is determined to marry Ruby so his child will not be illegitimate. With the police closing in, instead of escaping he persuades a minister visiting his wayward daughter to marry them. Afterwards, Eddie is caught and sent to prison. When he gets out, he is welcomed by Ruby and their young son. Ruby announces that Al Simpson, who had wanted to marry her himself, has gotten Eddie a legitimate job. ===== A storm occurs on the night when Dolores is about to give birth, threatening to completely ruin their livelihood. Her husband Juancho is forced to leave her in the incapable hands of her sister, Violeta. Dolores gives birth to the triplets Rosario, Rosenda, Rosita. However, Arsenio, Dolores' former lover, is the attending physician, and he takes the youngest triplet, Rosita due to his bitterness and resentment. He convinces Dolores and Juancho that Rosita died at birth, and then raises Rose Marie abroad where she remains ignorant of her true origins and becomes very sophisticated. As the years pass, rivalry arises between the remaining twins. Rosario grows up to be charming and sweet but unhealthy, and her parents give her a lot of attention. Rosenda therefore grows very jealous of Rosario, as well as self-centered and scheming. Following a confrontation between the twins, Rosario drowns, convincing her parents that they have already lost her. Unbeknownst to them, however, she has been found at the bay shore by a kind-hearted couple who raise her as their own. From then on the three sisters live separately, unaware of each other's existence until they rediscover each other at the expense of their family's well-kept secret and long-forgotten sins. ===== It's a cold winter in Boston, and Peters's secondhand bookstore has a sign that says "Come in and browse -- it's warm inside". The sign attracts the attention of Martin Jones, who's not only chilly but being chased by the police because his former boss, Professor North, has accused him of stealing $50,000 from the Anthropology Society. Inside the bookstore, he meets a former teacher from his days at Meredith Academy; Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", who had lost all his money in the stock market crash of 1929, and become the bookstore's janitor. The bookstore's new owner is a pretty young redhead of Jones's acquaintance. After the departure of a book thief and a car accident outside, Professor North's body is discovered in the religion section. Witherall and company—which soon includes a wealthy Boston dowager, North's sassy maid Gert, and Gert's mobster boyfriend Freddy—spend the evening tracking down clues to the murderer's identity and trying to stay out of the clutches of Freddy's rival gang. Under Witherall's supervision, the group solves the murder and forces a confession from the murderer just in time to save Jones from the police. ===== It's a snowy day in Dalton (a New England town near Boston) and someone's trying to run over Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare". He's saved by brassy young Margie and her muscular boyfriend Cuff, but he promptly escapes them and is knocked down by another car. When he awakens, he's in the home of Bennington Brett, a former pupil, who is sitting stabbed in front of him. Witherall assembles a crew including the dead man's secretary, the lovely Miss Dallas Tring, two neighbors, Stanton Kaye, and dotty housewife Mrs. Price (who owns the fatal carving knife), whose new maid is Margie. Together, the group races around Dalton in pursuit of clues and suspects, comes dangerously close to the second murder, and resolves matters by delivering the criminals to the police complete with confessions. ===== It's a winter day in Dalton (a New England town near Boston) and Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", is returning to his new house, which he's never seen. He's inherited money from an uncle and toured the world, and left plans for his home to be built while on his travels, but now he must return home and produce the next volume of the adventures of Lieutenant Haseltine. On the train to Dalton, he meets a mousy woman named Miss Chard (known to all as Swiss Chard) and a beautiful young woman with a brown paper package and a secret. His new home proves a delight, and it includes a kitchen filled with red appliances, a library with ladders, and a garage complete with the pickaxed corpse of Medora, the crabby next-door neighbor. Leonidas assembles a gang of assistants, including dotty housewife Cassie Price and former car thief Cuff (who has reformed and joined the police force). Together, they defend Witherall's new red refrigerator against thieves, track down the missing envelope of money and bring the murderer to justice. ===== It's a winter day in Dalton (a New England town near Boston) and Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", is stepping off a bus after having been accused of bothering a beautiful young woman in a scarlet wimple (who promptly becomes known as the Scarlet Wimpernel). He takes refuge in a hardware store run by a former student, Lincoln Potter. Potter is inclined to be helpful, until the Wimpernel's purse is discovered in Witherall's pocket and Witherall is incautious enough to admit that he saw Potter's cash register being emptied by a man in a green satin suit carrying a small harp. He heads for the home of a former teaching colleague, Marcus Meredith, and finds him murdered—and missing his artificial left leg. Potter is enlisted by Witherall for help in solving the murder, along with intrepid housewife Topsey Beaton. Together they deceive an entire rummage sale, enlist the Scarlet Wimpernel to play a role, find the man in green satin, locate the left leg, and solve the murder. ===== It's Egg Day in Dalton (a New England town near Boston) and Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", returns home from shepherding some students on an Egg Day outing to find his house ransacked, his safe open, and a beautiful blonde bound and gagged on his bed. While he's distracted by the police, she escapes. Then a wealthy neighbor asks him to run an unusual errand, promising his school an endowment if he does so—in full evening dress, he meets the blonde on a Dalton corner and relieves her of a hollow chest that looks much heavier than it is. Moments later, he discovers a bludgeoned body in a nearby car. He enlists the assistance of plucky Luzzy Jenkins and oafish soldier Goldie to investigate, among other things, the affairs of Goldie's general, a horse named George, a blonde named George, a bank president and a young student named Threewit. Together they explain all the bizarre coincidences and solve the murder. ===== It's a rainy day in Dalton (a New England town near Boston) and Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", is off to Haymaker's Department Store to retrieve his umbrella at the Lost and Found. When he enters the Lost and Found department, he's knocked unconscious and awakens in a horse-drawn bakery cart filled with French bread. While answering a call for his services as an air raid warden, he decides to call on Mr. Haymaker himself to complain, only to find Haymaker stabbed with a samurai sword. He enlists the assistance of Constance "Pink" Lately, a housewife clutching a Lady Baltimore cake, Jinx the red-headed Haymaker's elevator girl, and many of the participants in a "Victory Swap Meet" to track down an embezzler, a code thief and a murderer. ===== Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", is writing the final words of the latest adventure of Lieutenant Hazeltine when his housekeeper Mrs. Mullet interrupts to offer her "candied opinion". The next interruption is two men who deliver an unwanted deep freeze and leave, followed by a blonde in an evening gown and an orchid corsage who mistakenly serenades him with "Happy Birthday". The deep freeze proves to contain the dead body of Ernest Finger, the French teacher at Meredith's Academy, which Witherall has recently inherited. Witherall musters an unlikely gang of associates, including Sonia Mullet, her boyfriend and half the Finger family, to trace the trail of the moving Finger corpse and identify the murderer. ===== The film is set in a United States in which foreign immigration has skyrocketed: The mayor of Los Angeles speaks only in Spanish, Rhode Island is populated mostly by Chinese-Americans, and Alabama has a congressman from India. Politics is openly reduced to a matter of catering to various ethnic groups for their votes - the Alabama congressman will only support the U.S. President if his state receives more money for Hindu temples. When an atomic weapon is used on Pakistan by India, an international organization makes plans to bring orphans to Idaho. Idaho Governor Jim Farley (Beau Bridges) orders the state's National Guard to close its borders, as Idaho has already received more than a million refugees; he acknowledges this even though the Governor himself routinely indulges in Mexican food, Mexican soap operas, and an affair with a Mexican-American reporter (Elizabeth Peña). Despite the best efforts of his press secretary Jimmy Cannon (Kevin Dunn), Farley remains largely oblivious to the national crisis he's the center of, since Farley is more concerned with rekindling his romance with his mistress rather than dealing with national matters. Meanwhile, the President of the United States (Phil Hartman) turns out to be an equally ineffectual leader, ruthlessly exploiting immigration to fill districts and states with those most likely to vote for his own party. He will move more Koreans to New York since Koreans are one of his core constituencies. Reputed as indecisive, the President delegates his decision-making entirely to his advisors, most notably his unofficial chief advisor, lobbyist Jack B. Buchan (James Coburn). Buchan, however, is less concerned with the good of the nation, and more concerned with politics, especially how the President's actions will play on television (resulting, for example, in a 72-hour deadline being shortened to 67 hours to prevent the news from interrupting Susan Lucci's farewell appearance on the soap opera All My Children). Buchan regularly influences the President's decisions by manipulating his desire to emulate previous U.S. presidents, even going so far as to pepper presidential statements with fictitious "quotes" from President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Meanwhile, the NN cable network is reporting the events and influencing them at the same time. News director Mel (Dan Hedaya) attempts to time events to maximize ratings, while his staff becomes polarized over the political issues involved in the conflict between the Governor and the President. Standard fare for the cable network is to show footage of crying immigrant children, which is done with the Pakistani orphans waiting to move to Idaho. As the deadline approaches, the Governor and the President call in, respectively, the Idaho National Guard and the United States Army. Tensions rise when the commanders of both units turn out to be bitter rivals from the Gulf War. Meanwhile, governors from other states send in their own National Guard units to aid one side or the other, causing the conflict to escalate into the national arena. Mexican-American pro-immigrant rioters bomb the Alamo, while anti-immigrant rioters retaliate by bombing the Statue of Liberty because of its plaque, stating that "We no longer want your tired, your poor or your huddled masses." Eventually, the Governor's girlfriend convinces him to back down from the conflict and resign, but a series of misunderstandings and mutinies leads to a major battle between anti- and pro-immigrant armed forces at the Idaho border, culminating with the president's decision to invade Idaho in what becomes the Second American Civil War. At the movie's close, news reports indicate that hostilities have ceased, but the immigration issue is unresolved. ===== Leonidas Witherall, "the man who looks like Shakespeare", is writing the latest adventure of Lieutenant Hazeltine when his housekeeper Mrs. Mullet interrupts to offer her "candied opinion". He then prepares to leave for a dinner to which he's been invited in his persona as a bank director, held at the home of banker Fenwick Balderston, when he notices that a brown-paper parcel of bank papers has disappeared. Upon arrival at Balderston's, he finds the banker has been bashed with a bronze bust of Shakespeare. Assisted by plucky housewife Liz Copley and gang of other assistants, Witherall races around the town of Dalton and tracks down a missing dinosaur footprint, a copy of Tamerlane, the bank documents and the murderer. ===== Mrs. Daisy Tower is 67, the widow of a former governor, and for the last year has undergone the untender attentions of her nephew Egleston and his overbearing wife Elfrida during her convalescence from pneumonia and a broken hip. That might explain why she stows away in a laundry truck headed for Boston, but it doesn't really explain how she finds herself confronting a dead body aboard the private train of art collector Conrad Cassell, en route to the New York World's Fair. She and her fellow passengers find themselves in a screwball comedy fix, set against the pageantry of opening day under the shadow of the Fair's spectacular trylon. Daisy must not only identify the corpse and the murderer, but save the Fair from destruction by a maniac—and find a way to get Egleston and Elfrida out of her hair. ===== Brother Jim Jefferies leads the "Congregation of the Cross" in the small West Texas town of Britten. To be sure his children never falter, Brother Jim relentlessly reminds his congregation of the dire consequences, should one stray from the Lord's word. Temptation, however, can be great, and when sin is in the heart, a young man finds himself damned for all eternity, thus leading himself, his best friend, and his friends brother, on a cross country journey to avenge God's will. Arriving in Los Angeles, they meet a cunning con man. Together, the four young men find themselves in the middle of dangerous street games that finally lead them to perpetrate the ultimate sin; or had the sin already been committed? ===== At a music showcase at the Premiere, Drake performs his new song "Makes Me Happy" for a music deal from record producer Alan Krim (mentioned in the show's first television film) and he succeeds. While at Spin City Records, they agree to put Drake's song in a commercial that will air during the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Helen is getting married to Buzz, and with many of her family members staying in her apartment, her grandmother Lula comes to stay at the Parker-Nichols' house for a week, forcing the boys to share their room with Megan due to Lula staying in hers instead of the guest room. In retaliation for this, Megan redecorates the boys' room to a pink girly style, confining them to a single matress in a corner, and invites her friends from school to hang out with her in the room. She also threatens to publicly accuse them of spray-painting their neighbor's gazebo if they complain about this to their parents. To save money for her upcoming honeymoon, Helen makes a deal with Craig and Eric to videotape the wedding ceremony at the Premiere. Helen then announces the Premiere's new assistant manager, who turns out to be Mindy, after she fixed the corn dog rotisserie in ten seconds that Josh was unable to fix at Drake's showcase. Josh is very upset that he did not get the job and accuses Mindy of constantly trying to one-up him, which she denies. While at the recording studio for Drake's song, Krim gives Josh a contract. Josh fails to read the contract, mesmerized by massive shrimp, and inadvertently signs away the creative rights to Drake's song. Krim remixes — and completely ruins — Drake's song, turning it into, as Drake puts it, "horrible bubblegum pop garbage-y badness." Angry with Josh for this mistake, Drake fires him as his manager, then hatches a plan for revenge: planting fruit flies in Krim's car. While criticizing Josh for always playing by the rules, he tells Josh that, "when people play dirty, sometimes you have to play dirty back." Still trying to fix his mistake, Josh returns to Spin City Records. After being told there is no way the company will use Drake's original demo, Josh decides to take Drake's advice and switches the ruined song with the original song as it is being picked up. The plan succeeds, and Drake's version of "Makes Me Happy" plays on the commercial, much to Drake's delight, and he forgives Josh for this, but Josh's action comes with a price. Right after the commercial airs, Josh receives a call from Krim who explains that by switching the songs, Josh has broken the contract, and the record company is planning to sue the boys for $5 million with the possibility of a prison sentence. While at work, Mindy runs out of a wing in the theater as Crazy Steve has gone completely insane. She had made the mistake of scheduling him on a Monday, which, according to Helen, is "his bad day." Josh calms Steve down with milk and the folk song "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain", for which Helen finally appreciates his good work. Mindy then confesses to Josh that she did not take the assistant manager job because she needed the extra money; she did it because she wanted to spend more time with him, having always regretted breaking up with him. Drake and Josh then go to Spin City Records, and just as they think they are going to jail, Drake is told by record company president Nick Matteo that his song has become a number one hit, as downloads of his song crashed Spin City's server. They are free of all charges and an angered Krim is fired for trying to ruin Drake's song, with Matteo telling him that Drake would not be popular if it were not for him and Josh scamming them for the ruined song. At Helen and Buzz's wedding, Craig plugs his equipment into a faulty plug, which causes a fire that burns the Premiere down. Helen is disappointed at her wedding being ruined, but Josh convinces her that her wedding is about two people who love each other getting together surrounded by the people who love them. Helen and Buzz then get married in the parking lot, where Josh and Mindy get back together. Mindy has quit her job and Helen finally promotes Josh to new assistant manager after his years of hard work. Drake then performs his number one hit song to the whole crowd, dedicating it to Helen and Buzz as well as Josh, rehiring him as his manager in the process. Drake and Josh later return home to find their room restored back to normal as well as shrimp sent over from Matteo. Megan and her friends have eaten all but one, which causes Drake and Josh to fight over it. The scene then fades to a popular scene from The Amanda Show, featuring Drake Bell and Josh Peck fighting over a piece of shrimp. ===== Murray tries to interest Bret and Jemaine in his tour of New York band rotundas. However, Bret has a date with Coco, the girl he met at his sign-holding job. Jemaine tags along on the date, and quickly makes a habit of inviting himself along on all their dates. When Bret finally tells Jemaine that he doesn't want him to come on the dates any more, Jemaine and Murray's conclusion is that Coco is pulling a "Yoko Ono" and trying to break up the band. Bret takes Coco's side and quits the band. Ultimately, though, Murray and Jemaine come to realize they miss Bret again, and Jemaine convinces him to rejoin the band. ===== Venkataramana (Venu) is an honest police officer who refuses to accept bribes and always stands by his word. He is an orphan and dreams of helping the other orphans. His friend (Krishna Bhagavaan) plays a cop who misses no opportunity to make money fining pedestrians for not wearing a helmet. Venkataramana's wife Bhanumathi (Sangeetha) is a middle-class girl who dreams of riches and a costly lifestyle. The honest cop cannot fulfill her demands and suffers constant harassment from his wife who denies him conjugal bliss. The hero buys a lottery ticket for his wife. However, when he eats at a restaurant, he is unable to pay the bill. Thus he promises to share half the prize money from his lottery with Dharani (Shabhana Khan), who is a waitress at the hotel. Venkataramana wins 100 million in the lottery and as promised he gives 50 million to Dharani. Bhanumathi cannot digest this fact and she suspects that her husband is having an affair with the waitress. Her suspicion is further strengthened with the exposé on the intrusive media. She files for divorce and the full 100 million prize money. She wins the case and Venkataramana is left on the streets. The fate of the newly divorced couple and Dharani is disclosed in the climax. ===== One year after the events in White Night, Dresden is confronted by Queen Mab calling in one of the favors owed her by Harry: that he be her "Emissary," and protect John Marcone. Despite repeated attacks by gruffs--soldiers in service of Summer--he tracks Marcone's movements across the city. He finds Hendricks and Ms. Gard at one of Marcone's safe houses, having survived an attack by the Denarians, whom he learns have abducted Marcone. Ms. Gard formally requests that the White Council file an objection to the abduction of one signatory of the Unseelie Accords by another. Luccio, captain of the Wardens, agrees to bring in the Archive (a twelve-year-old girl Harry named "Ivy") as a neutral party. Dresden meets Murphy at McAnally's. After updating her, a huge gruff enters to challenge Dresden to a duel, and is saved by Murphy invoking her duties as a law officer. While Thomas is distracting the gruffs, Dresden confronts Ms. Gard and convinces her to tell him of a case of blood samples kept in a locker at Union Station. Harry and Michael are attacked at Union station by Winter minions and the elder gruff but recover the samples. Grievously wounded, the elder gruff leaves, warning Dresden that the eldest brother gruff will kill him. Harry also meets up with Ivy the Archive, her bodyguard Kincaid, and Warden Captain Luccio, who retreat to the safety of Dresden’s warded apartment. The Archive schedules a meeting between Dresden and Nicodemus at the Shedd Aquarium. During the negotiations, Dresden realizes it's a charade to kidnap the Archive. Dresden and Ivy team up to fight off the Denarians. Even though they kill almost every Denarian, Ivy is captured. Nicodemus plans to coerce Ivy into accepting a blackened denarius. In desperation, Dresden offers Nicodemus all the denarii that the Knights of the Cross have collected and a Sword of the Cross, as Ivy being corrupted would be an unstoppable force for evil. Before Dresden's meeting with Nicodemus, Michael asks Dresden about his blasting rod. Dresden realizes he lost his rod after his meeting with Queen Mab, but he is not sure how or why, and realizes he has been mentally manipulated. At the exchange on an island in lake Michigan, the Denarians predictably renege, but Dresden and Sanya manage to free Marcone and the Archive. Ms. Gard arrives with a rescue copter, but the surviving Denarians return and badly injure Michael. Dresden is abandoned on the island, hunted by the Denarians and their mercenaries, and is eventually cornered by the Eldest Gruff. The conflicted gruff reveals that he has been compelled to attack Dresden as long as they are both on the battlefield. Dresden invokes his boon from Summer for a freshly made doughnut. The gruff remarks that the request might take just enough time for Harry to depart the island safely and says the Summer Court's hunt will end, when Dresden re-enters the Chicago city limits. Dresden attempts to escape on Rosanna’s boat, but is attacked by Nicodemus and Deirdre, whom he barely manages to drive off after Thomas and Murphy return with another boat and Murphy draws Fidelacchius--a Sword of the Cross Dresden brought with him--they return to the mainland, and Dresden rushes to the hospital to find Michael, still in surgery. In the hospital chapel, Dresden has a heated discussion with a janitor, who explains that God has a plan for us all and vanishes, leaving behind a worn copy of The Two Towers with a marked section. Queen Mab appears in the chapel. She is pleased that the Watchman has enhanced Dresden's potential. She returns his blasting rod and reveals that he would have been killed earlier if he had used it to rescue his friends. Dresden visits Ivy and Kincaid at Murphy's house. Later, Sanya gives Michael's sword, Amoracchius, to Dresden with the instructions to pass it on, when the time is right. Michael survived the surgery, but might not make a complete recovery. Dresden and Anastasia Luccio end the day with a pleasant dinner and a delightful evening. ===== Theodolinda "Dol" Bonner is half of the Bonner and Raffray Detective Agency. She claims to have been "inoculated against" men and has no use for them, even her perennial suitor, newspaperman Len Chisholm. Her business partner, Sylvia Raffray, doesn't know much about detection but is the firm's financial backer. As the story begins, Len has just been fired from his job at the instigation of Sylvia's guardian, financier P.L. Storrs, who also controls Sylvia's money for the next six months and thus insists that she withdraw her financial support of the detective agency. Strangely, Storrs asks Dol Bonner to join a house party at his place in the country. Other family members present are Storrs' wife Cleo, who "goes in for cults", and his daughter Janet, who is plain, quiet and writes poetry. Sylvia's fiance Martin, who is a neighbor, and his friend Professor Zimmerman have joined the party, and George Ranth, of the "League of the Occidental Sakti", is Mrs. Storrs' guest and financial parasite. Storrs' problem is that Ranth is pressuring Mrs. Storrs to let him marry Janet and thus become Storrs' heir. He hires Dol to discredit Ranth in Mrs. Storrs' eyes, and proposes that she pretend to be investigating the killing of some pheasants at Martin's estate as a cover story. Dol accepts the task and arrives at the Storrs estate, but before she gets too deeply involved in the task, she comes across the murdered body of her host and employer, who has been brutally strangled with wire and hung from a branch. She soon recognizes that in order to commit the murder, the murderer must have worn heavy gloves to avoid cutting his hands with the wire. She immediately searches the house for the gloves, dodging the police, and finds them—bizarrely, concealed inside a watermelon in the garden. She continues to investigate Ranth but also learns more about the other guests and family members. Professor Zimmerman proposes marriage to Sylvia, regardless of the feelings of his friend Martin, and promptly becomes the second strangling victim. Dol rapidly collects enough information to identify the murderer of both men and forces a confession at gunpoint, foiling the police. ===== Four unemployed youth (Srinath, Rajiv Kanakala, Ramana and Krishna Bhagavan) are vexed with the government's apathy towards the issues and problems in villages of Andhra Pradesh. They go to Hyderabad to meet Chief Minister and tell him about the burning issues at ground level. But they could not get an audience with Chief Minister. Meanwhile, a car carrying the Chief Minister Chandra Rayudu (Anant Nag) and leader of opposition Rajendra Reddy (Sarath Babu) are blasted using claymore mines when they are traveling from Nalgonda to Hyderabad. As the entire world believes that these two important leaders of Andhra Pradesh are dead, they are found alive in the capture of these four youngsters. These four youngsters request these leaders to stay in their village in disguise and observe what is happening in villages. Meanwhile, the number 2 in those political outfits starts their attempt at making governments. The rest of the story is all about how these political leaders understand the ground realities and change their attitude towards the problems of villages. ===== Vamsi (Srikanth) is a marriage broker. He takes care of everything related to wedding, from searching alliance to sending the bride to her in- law's house. His brother (Ravi Prakash) is a sincere police officer. A doctor (Shayaji Shinde) and owner of a super specialty hospital who trades with the limbs of patients fixes his daughter Swathi's (Deepa) with an M.P. Pradeep's (Pradeep Rawat) son Chatrapathi (Shafi). Vamsi is the matchmaker for that wedding. But Swathi receives Vamsi's photo by mistake and starts to consider Vamsi as her fiancé. Pradeep attacks and seizes Vamsi's brother, who collects all the evidence against the former's felonies. Brahmanandam, Ali, Venu Madhav and Krishna Bhagavan, the victims of the M.P. and ruthless doctor, become demons. How those spirits take vengeance on the doctor, how Vamsi could save his brother, and if Swathi marries Vamsi are the rest of the stuff to be watched on screen. ===== The film begins with Nick West lighting a cigarette in the dark and introducing himself to some unknown audience. He proceeds to recount the events he allegedly witnessed, claiming to be a "victim". It is implied that the whole story is told exclusively through his point of view. Nick brings Sammy to the abandoned Blackwater Asylum to use acid and have sex. They find a weird chair and Nick proposes using it during sex; however the device traps and kills Sammy. Nick is arrested and considered insane, being sentenced to the Hildon Mental Institute in spite of claiming that supernatural forces killed Sammy. Four years later, Cambridge professor Dr. Willard proposes Nick's psychiatrist, Dr. Clairebourne (Nadja Brand), release him under his custody for an experimental treatment: exposing the truth to Nick by bringing him back to the crime scene. Clairebourne opposes, explaining that Nick still has severe delusions, but in the end she accepts. Nick is introduced to Willard, who expresses his desire to write a book about West and his experiences. Willard assumes full responsibility for Nick and alongside his assistant Melissa, and the students Rachel Fowles and Brett Wilson, they return with Nick to the Blackwater Asylum. West begins to feel uneasy when the group enter the asylum, but a sympathetic Rachel tells him that he can leave tomorrow morning if he wants to, promising she won't tell the doctor. The group find the infamous chair. Willard reveals that the asylum warden was known to practice highly controversial methods of treatment. The night nears and Willard tells everyone to go to sleep to have a fresh start tomorrow. In private, he confesses to Nick that the book he wants to write isn't actually about Nick, but about the chair. He admits to believing that Nick's "hallucinations" were actually real events. Willard shows him the warden's journal, from which he learned about the chair: it was used to test the warden's theory about the existence of the human soul. Nick becomes seemingly disturbed, as he says he actually came to believe he killed Sammy, but now isn't sure anymore. As Nick is trying to sleep, he is approached by Rachel, who wants to prove to him that there is nothing supernatural about the chair. As she sits on it, she accidentally triggers the chair's controls and disappears. She is shown to have been transported into a dark building, where she is hunted by a demonic creature. Melissa persuades a skeptical Brett to sit in the chair, after which she triggers it, sending Brett into the same place as Rachel. Nick then willingly uses the chair to transport himself, believing he can save Rachel. The doctor and Melissa are shown to have plotted this all along. The events unfold quickly as Willard betrays Melissa, forcing her into the chair. He then transports himself. The group reunites as Rachel struggles against the creature. With the rest of the group incapacitated, the doctor subdues Nick and chants incantations, hoping to turn the beast to his side; however, Nick fights him off and, smiling, says that it is he who controls the Demon. It is revealed that the chair itself and the demonic forces were just a product of Nick's imagination. It becomes evident that Nick assaulted the students and the doctor in the asylum, killing Brett. He then proceeds to rape Rachel and kill the doctor and Melissa. Lastly, he kills Rachel as she tries to escape. After the massacre, a bloodied Nick gets into the car and chats with a woman who looks like Rachel sitting inside, asking her if she minds driving off with a "crazy person". She smiles and kisses him. However, the scene is then revealed to be another of Nick's hallucinations and he is then seen driving away from the asylum alone. ===== Jack and his companions take Lucy to a shrine where the demons she is believed to harbor may be cast out, but things go badly wrong. Lucy is abducted by the Lady of the Lake and Jack must follow her underground to the lands of the hobgoblins and elves. He meets Thorgil again and, with her and a new friend, Pega, must face tests beyond anything they can imagine. They must learn to see through the enchantments of the elves (who are the fallen angels) and to face still darker powers in the underworld. ===== The film starts in San Diego. Lew (Dominic Purcell) finds out that his wife is having an affair with another man. He grabs his gun and goes to seek revenge but finds both of them dead in the bed. He fears that the police would suspect him because he has had a bad past, so he dumps the bodies and his gun in the sea along with his boat. He leaves for a new life. Lew starts a new life, working as a sign board maker and gets a new girlfriend Rita (Joy Bryant). One evening while erecting a signboard on the side of a road, he overhears Isobel (Ali Larter) and Ralph (Desmond Harrington) discussing the kidnapping and murder plot of Ralph's wife Florence (Gina Gershon). He soon plots his own plan to pinch the ransom. At the same time, Herbert (Dwight Yoakam), brother of the man Lew's wife had affair with, comes following Lew thinking that Lew murdered his brother. Ralph kidnaps his wife Florence with the help of his girlfriend Isobel and keeps her in a boat. Lew has been following them and takes Florence away from the boat. Then he phones Ralph anonymously, threatening to call police unless he cuts him in for half the ransom money. Ralph agrees. Ralph and Isobel suspect that it is Florence who has some accomplice of her own and is blackmailing them. Lew sends Rita to get the money from Ralph. But Lew's plans turns awry when Herbert interrupts and kills Florence. When Rita comes back she finds Herbert struggling with Lew and shoots him dead. She later finds that the money she brought from Ralph is fake. Lew goes to Isobel and Ralph to ask them about the real money. In the meanwhile Rita tips the police. Soon police comes and arrests Lew, Ralph and Isobel. Lew is released on the verdict of Rita who had hidden the real money herself. ===== The film depicts the life of a group of volunteer nurses for the Red Cross in 1941. Anna Sten portrays a Russian nurse, Natasha, who is one of the volunteers taking care of the Allied soldiers near Stalingrad. As part of her job, she takes care of a newly-arrived American flier John Hill, interpreted by Kent Smith. Even though Natasha is betrothed to Sergei Korovin, she starts to fall in love with the American under her care. When the enemy´s forces attack the hospital, the patients and the crew are ordered to evacuate the battleground. Given that there are not enough vehicles, Natasha, John, and other wounded men stay behind waiting to be rescued. ===== Randy Bodek is a rebellious college slacker, living with his girlfriend Jenny Gordon. His father, furious over Randy's lack of direction or work ethic, forces Randy to come back home and get a job. Randy eventually finds work as a pizza delivery driver at Señor Pizza, but his pitiful earnings will not allow him to fund college on his own and he despairs of being able to return to Jenny next semester. In his capacity as delivery driver, he soon makes the acquaintance of a middle-aged, wealthy Italian woman, Alex Barnett, who pampers and seduces him. She and Randy enjoy a quiet, brief, passionate affair. During the affair, Randy's increasingly stylish appearance, unusually chipper demeanor and gifts being delivered by Randy's handsome Italian co-worker, Tony (signed "Love, Alex"), inspire Randy's father to believe his son is gay. Eventually, Alex must return to Italy. Randy is disappointed; he has enjoyed his relationship with Alex, both for the lavish gifts of money and expensive clothing, and for the experience at pleasing women he can bring to his relationship with Jenny upon returning to college. Alex tells him on their last night together that the next time Señor Pizza receives a delivery order for pizza with extra anchovies, it will be her summoning him again. However, the next order for extra anchovies comes from an unhappily married Asian woman, Kyoko Bruckner. Further orders come from Dr. Joyce Palmer, director of a women's health practice, and isolated aspiring photographer Monica Delancy. Randy's relationships with these women lead him to better understand women's wants and needs. Through Kyoko and Monica's acquaintances, and the women Joyce recommends to Randy among her patients, Randy soon has a thriving escort business based around the "extra anchovy" order, which he manages to conceal from Señor Pizza's management. Eventually, the three women's husbands become suspicious. In an attempt to pin down who is having sex with their wives, the three husbands go through their wives' financial statements and credit card bills, leading them to Señor Pizza to confront the delivery boy who is apparently having sexual relations with all three of their wives. Meanwhile, Jenny has come to town to surprise Randy, and has learned from Jory Talbot, a rival of Randy's, that Randy is seeing other women without her knowledge. Randy is not there, having received an order for extra anchovies—from his mother. He escapes the situation before she sees him, and passes the pizza off to Tony, with instructions that they are out of anchovies. Randy then learns from his other co-worker Henry about Jenny's visit and Jory having told her about the other women. Randy and Jory go out back of Señor Pizza to fight, but the husbands arrive, intent on assaulting Randy. They grab Randy and are about to rough him up when Harry (Kyoko's husband) realizes that Randy is Joe Bodek's son; Joe had told Harry during a semi-drunken conversation that he believes Randy to be gay, and Harry dismisses him as a suspect on those grounds. The husbands then assault an unsuspecting Jory. Randy confesses to Jenny about the reasons he agreed to become a paid escort. Jenny is hurt and uncertain she wants to continue their relationship, but agrees to accompany him to his parents' anniversary party. The husbands follow Jory to the party, where the party dissolves into melee, resulting in their arrest for assault. Jory is humiliated when he discovers that his own mother was one of Randy's customers. Joe forgives Randy and agrees to fund college again. ===== A group of the world's wealthiest and most powerful men, who are themselves tied into law enforcement agencies and criminal underworlds alike, and who also control the international media with their billions, have devised the ultimate entertainment for themselves, simply referred to as "The Tournament", which takes place at intervals of every seven or ten years in an unspecified location, usually a large city. "Contestants" volunteer, but due to the nature of the tournament are some of the toughest or craziest individuals on the planet. They are expected to kill and only the last surviving combatant will win the cash prize of £10 million offered by William Randolph Hearst. The men and women running the tournament not only view it as entertainment, but also bet high stakes on the outcome as a huge gambling tournament, serving as the source of excitement also for the millionaires. For each tournament, combatants are selected from the world's special forces, serial killers, athletes, trained contract killers and assassins. The last combatant standing receives not only the cash prize, but also the glory and reputation of having the title of World's Number 1, and which itself carries the legendary "million-dollar-a-bullet" contract killing price tag. Each of the contestants carries a tracking device, embedded under their skin, allowing the observers to monitor their movements, and the contestants to track each other. The tournament lasts twenty-four hours, and if no one has won, then the tracking devices will explode. The mayhem which takes place is passed off as natural disasters, terrorist outrages, accidents, or put down to rampages committed by lone madmen. The unsuspecting towns where the tournament takes place are randomly selected, and the public never know of its existence. This year, the latest tournament has come to Middlesbrough, a town in the United Kingdom - the country with the most prevalent mass surveillance in the world so that the events of the tournament can be easily followed and recorded through the ever-present CCTV as well as satellite surveillance. They also jam the communications of the emergency services, completely taking over the electronic infrastructure, and the stage is set. The current Tournament becomes complex due to the actions of the organizers and competitors. Not only has Joshua Harlow, the winner of the last Tournament, been convinced to return because his wife was murdered and he's informed that the killer is in the Tournament, but another contestant, the Frenchman Anton Bogart, manages to remove his tracking chip, dropping it in a cup of coffee just in time for Father Joseph MacAvoy, a priest struggling with alcoholism and a crisis of faith, to drink it. With his only ally assassin Lai Lai Zhen, seeking to escape the game after her last kill, MacAvoy must race to survive before the timer runs down. Joshua Harlow finds out in the course of the film who murdered his wife. It was Lai Lai Zhen, who had been commissioned by the organizer, Powers, with Zhen's decision to 'retire' if she wins the Tournament due to the knowledge that Harlow's wife was the first target she had who genuinely didn't know why anyone would want her dead. Removing Zhen's tracker while the two are off-camera, Harlow confronts Powers and learns that he killed Harlow's wife to provoke Harlow to return to the Tournament, reasoning that he was the kind of man who 'should' die on the battlefield. Having received his answer, Harlow forces Zhen's tracker down Powers' throat, blowing them both up in the middle of the conference room of the watching millionaires. Lai Lai Zhen and Father MacAvoy are the only survivors of the game. At the end of the film we see that Father MacAvoy is once again working as a priest and has defeated his alcohol addiction. ===== The story takes place in San Francisco, California in the wake of a mysterious eruption in which giants of an unknown origin wreak havoc on the earth. The U.S. military is powerless against the monsters whose physiology defies all conventional weaponry. The military then responds with the aid of Dr. Azuma, a bio-engineer, to create a genetic hybrid to combat the giant monsters. Nicknamed "Yochu" by Dr. Azuma and known to the military under the operational name "Jack the Giant Killer", humanity's only hope lies in the nine-foot super-being with a bio-engineered arsenal and a samurai katana forged from the fang of one of the behemoths. With a little help from the outlaw Jill Sleet, the only human capable of surviving the poisonous territories of the giants, Jack must learn to overcome or embrace his monstrous nature in order to determine the destiny of mankind. ===== There is virtually no plot to the play. The focus is on the interaction, or lack of it, between the two characters. The text requires that "Duff refers normally to Beth but does not appear to hear her voice" and "Beth never looks at Duff and does not appear to hear his voice. Both characters are relaxed, in no sense rigid." What plot there is exists only in the stories told by the characters. Beth reminisces to herself of a past romantic episode, whether with Duff or another man is not made clear. Duff talks of more practical matters, and finally has a short outburst of anger, evidently in frustration. Beth continues her romantic reverie as the play ends.Pinter, pp. 177–98 ===== The novel is a fantasy alternate history combining vampires, the Medicis, and the convoluted English politics surrounding Edward IV and Richard III. The book also fictionalizes the fate of the Princes in the Tower. Edward IV is on the throne of England, but in this alternate world, medieval Europe is dominated by the threat from the Byzantine Empire. During the 4th century CE, Julian the Apostate reigned longer than he did in our world, succeeded in displacing Christianity and reintroduced religious pluralism within the Roman Empire, resulting in the subsequent disappearance of Islam as well. Without any cohesive threat from the east, presumably Byzantium was able to survive, consolidate its authority and expand. Sforza, the Vampire Duke, marshals his forces for his long-planned attack on Florence, and Byzantium is on the march. A mercenary, the exiled heir to the Byzantine throne, a young woman physician forced to flee Florence, and a Welsh wizard, the nephew of Owain Gly Dwr, seem to have no common goals but together they wage an intrigue-filled campaign against the might of Byzantium, striving to secure the English throne for Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and make him Richard III. This succeeds, and Richard III goes on to win the Battle of Bosworth in this alternate universe, killing Henry Tudor and ensuring that he never becomes Henry VII as he did in the reality. At that point, the book ends. ===== Delia Brand, the protagonist, is a beautiful young woman living in tiny Cody, Wyoming. Delia is determined to avenge the tragic deaths of her parents; her prospector father's by shooting and her mother's suicide from grief. When she believes she knows the culprit, she buys some cartridges and announces her intention to shoot a man. After discussing her intentions with her uncle Quinby Pellet, the town taxidermist, Delia goes to visit her sister, Clara. Clara Brand is secretary to Dan Jackson, who runs a grubstaking business for local prospectors, and has just lost her job. In the middle of Delia's argument with Dan, she hears noises outside the office and discovers that Quin has been knocked unconscious by someone whom he hasn't seen. After dealing with the doctor and the police, Delia returns to her car to find that her gun and cartridges have been stolen. Dan Jackson's father-in-law Lem Sammis is Delia's godfather, Delia goes to see him and his brassy wife Evelina to get Clara's job back. Lem agrees and gives Delia a note to Dan to say so. When Delia returns to the office to confront Dan once again, she finds him dead and is arrested for his murder, due to her earlier incautious statements. However, very few people know that, although the late Dan Jackson was no favorite of Delia's, her actual suspicions were of the Reverend Rufus Toale. Other characters of interest include Delia's lawyer and suitor, Tyler Dillon; millionaire playgirl Wynne Cowles, known to all as the "Mountain Cat," who has come to Cody for her second divorce in two years; and illiterate prospector Squint Hurley. Squint Hurley comes up with a document found near Delia's father's body that he's never been able to read, which leads Delia to the identity and motivation of the real murderer. ===== Sean Bean stars as the caring single adoptive father of one of a set of identical twins — played by Aaron Johnson — separated years earlier. The film follows the two boys as they meet, and having come to the attention of a corrupt orphanage manager are instrumental in smashing a child smuggling ring. After the two boys meet they have fun until Thomas is kidnapped by the child smugglers. They keep him bound with belts in a warehouse and use drugs to keep him asleep. The smugglers plan to transport Thomas to another country in a plane by smuggling him off as an animal in a box where he is kept bound and gagged (with belts and tape). Tom learns of this however and comes to Thomas' rescue. ===== Aymé played by Blanc, a recently widowed farmer, is eager to find a new wife to help him run his farm. Desperate, he seeks the aid of a local matchmaker who suggests that he go to Romania to find a new wife. There he meets Elena, played by Marinescu. ===== Vincenzo is an Italian engineer in a steel mill in bankruptcy, which is being acquired by a group of Chinese men. Vincenzo, not well understanding the real consequences of his work, is sent to China because there must advertise and repair a particular machine factory. Vincenzo gets help from a young translator of Chinese, and the two falls in love; but he, when he returns to Italy, finds out that the factory is purchased, and that all Italian workers are laid off. So Vincenzo goes to China in an almost personal challenge to fix a potentially dangerous fault to the same machine now in China in spite of local people's indifference. ===== On a dark, stormy night, Bernarda (Chantal Andere), Leopoldo Guillen's lover, takes her two small daughters, Eugenia (Mercedes Molto) and Carlota (Yadhira Carrillo), to his funeral. Leopold's son, Roman, his wife, and the priest tell them that they are unwelcome at the funeral and Román (Alejandro Ávila) throws them out in the mud. Years later, Carlota and Eugenia are attending a university where Carlota studies music and Eugenia studies accounting. Bernarda favors and expects the best out of Eugenia, who is failing school. However, she disdains and expects the worst out of Carlota, whom Bernarda calls "inutil" (good-for- nothing). In reality, Carlota is the one who is successful, as she plays the piano beautifully and paints many masks, showing us that she has quite the artistic side. Bernarda is a materialistic woman, determined to never allow her daughters to marry in order to avoid what is stated in the father's will: Upon marriage, they will take their part of the fortune. She oppresses the girls and holds them near prisoner in their own home. However, Carlota and Eugenia do not allow circumstances to stop them from being their own selves. Eugenia is secretly dating Roman and has already had relations with him. Roman has slept with her for vengeance only. He thinks that she is his half-sister. However, she is not Leopoldo's daughter. When Bernarda and Carlota discover that Eugenia is pregnant, Bernarda sends her away to a small town with their housekeeper (Tomasa Josefina Echánove). In the small town Eugenia meets Cordelia (Yadhira Carrillo), who is identical to Carlota. She also meets Santos (Ignacio Guadalupe), a man who falls in love with her; and they marry in order to give her child a name. Meanwhile, Carlota forms a relationship with a young doctor named Álvaro (Juan Soler). He soon asks for her hand in marriage. When Bernarda finds out, she adamantly opposes and unsuccessfully tries break them up via many means. Eventually, she concedes and gives Carlota her blessing. Of course, knowing Bernarda, there is always an ulterior motive. Eugenia gives birth but because Bernarda tells Eugenia the entire truth about everything that has happened, she instigates her own daughter's early death. During her last moments, Eugenia orders Tomasa to hide the baby with Santos and lie to everyone and say the baby died. Eugenia curses her mother with misery and guilt and dies. When Eugenia's body is delivered to Bernarda, Álvaro asks to see Carlota, but Bernarda demands that he leave and leave her to mourn her daughter's death. Ignorant of recent happenings and of the fact that Carlota has a sister, Álvaro believes Carlota died. Bernarda does not correct him and says that Carlota died in a freak accident. She denies him access to view the dead body by lying (The lie is that Carlota's body is unrecognizable from the serious degree of the accident). Álvaro leaves for his parents' hacienda in a rural town to get over his first (and only) love. Bernarda tells Carlota that he abandoned her and that he was just using her. With the death of her sister and this terrible news, Carlota tries to kill herself, but she only kills her unborn child. During Alvaro's grieving process, Cordelia eventually seduces Álvaro into a loveless marriage, using her appearance and her charismatic manipulation skills to her advantage. Ten years later, Carlota is nothing more than a mere shadow of her former self, further enslaved by Bernarda, and Álvaro and Cordelia are having marital troubles, causing misery for their daughter Natalia. Eventually, Carlota will learn to break free and become her own person...but it will take walking into the lion's den to do so. She will go to Alvaro's house and assume the position of La Otra. ===== Thorsson (Greg Melvill-Smith) the king is falling ill and wants to make a pilgrimage to an island cursed by Odin. The island is home to a horrible beast. His daughter Freya (Jane March) is betrothed to Sven (William Gregory Lee) one of Thorsson's greatest warriors. Freya tries to get an army together to go back and save her father (whom she believes to be alive). However, no one will join her and Sven reminds her that he is now king and that she is betrothed to him. Freya and Ingrid go to the island alone to rescue her father. Eric (Justin Whalin) steps forward and tells everyone they've all been acting like cowards. He also says he'll go and save the king's daughter himself if Sven does not dare. Sven, not wanting to look like a coward, angrily agrees to send an army back to fight the beast and rescue Freya. Freya and the Beast begin to develop a friendship. Sven returns to the island with an army and confronts the Beast. Freya tries to stop them, by telling them the beast is not a monster. Sven does not listen to her, thinking the Beast has fooled her mind. Sven and the Beast fight and ends with Sven's archers shooting him. The warriors set the island afire and return home with Freya. The Beast journeys to Freya's home where Thorsson has recovered from his illness and is once again king. As the Beast holds the dying Freya in his arms, Freya's sacrifice breaks the curse and the Beast is Agnar once again. ===== Michael Parker is a successful American businessman living in Italy with his girlfriend Hélène. However, when she leaves on vacation, Michael soon becomes involved in an affair with Marie, a woman he once had a one-night stand with. This affair proves more difficult for Michael, as Marie is not going to let him off the hook again so easily. To complicate matters worse, Marie's young daughter Jacqueline also finds herself attracted to Michael, resulting in an incestuous love triangle. ===== American government agent Dan Dannerman has been imprisoned, tortured, and repeatedly duplicated by his jailers, the "Beloved Leaders", a species that enslaves or destroys the other species they meet. The Far Shore of Time opens with the "Horch", rivals of the Beloved Leaders, occupying the zoo planet where Dannerman is being held captive. Dannerman is rescued, although initially the Horch treat him in much the same way the Beloved Leaders did: keeping him isolated and under interrogation. Eventually he is treated as a guest, given medical attention, and begins to make friends among the other freed prisoners. Dannerman recovers from his ordeal and learns more about the Horch, the Beloved Leaders, and other species involved in their war. He collects information and technology, while looking for an opportunity to return to Earth and warn humanity about the coming of the Beloved Leaders. When Dannerman is asked to assist in preparing one of the former prisoners to infiltrate the Beloved Leaders he sees an opportunity to return home. He presents the plan to the Horch, and although they do not agree to it he is able to bluff his way through. He ends up back on Earth aboard one of the stealth submarines that the Beloved Leaders have placed on Earth. Dannerman is able to make contact with his government, and discovers that they are already aware of the Beloved Leaders and are taking precautions against them. However, they are not aware of the stealthed submarines. Dannerman and his alien friends are again interrogated by the American government and representatives of the United Nations, although more gently than his previous interrogators. Dannerman must serve as a translator between the humans and the aliens, because he has a translation implant from the Beloved Leaders. With information from Dannerman and help from Horch technology, the Beloved Leader's submarines are cut off from their masters and captured before they are able to unleash pockets of undersea methane gas. This attack strategy is the Beloved Leaders standard practice for dealing with planets that will not submit to them. Having survived the initial contact, the President of the United States prepares to release all information about the aliens and the confrontation to the world, so that humanity can prepare to defend themselves in the future. ===== Ralph Anderson returns to his remote California hometown for the first time in many years. Now a lawyer, he has been estranged from his father, Lloyd, and brother, Tippy, ever since being sent to reform school as a youth for stealing a car, taking the blame for his brother's crime. Lloyd is now sheriff and Tippy his deputy. Forced to represent a wanted criminal, Ralph asks the law to look the other way while a local airfield is used to enable the mobster, Massonetti, to flee the country. A disgusted Lloyd agrees to help, but Tippy decides to arrest Massonetti and cash in on a big reward. Tippy's beautiful wife Linda was once the love of Ralph's life and regrets his long absence. She is tired of Tippy's shiftless, drunken ways and Lloyd's domineering rule of the family. Massonetti arrives in town, backed by Davis, his top thug. Tippy and two deputies, Karger and Eddie, make an amateurish attempt to capture Massonetti, only to get Lloyd shot and killed while trying to stop them. Ralph manages to get Massonetti behind bars at the town jail. The mob cuts off phone communication and highway access to the town. Ralph suggests driving Massonetti to the authorities in Barstow in the mobster's own fast car. Noticing the tension between the brothers, Massonetti taunts them both and offers $25,000 to tempt Tippy into betraying Ralph and setting him free. On the road, deputy Eddie is ambushed and the brothers learn that Linda has been abducted. A deal is made to get her back, but Karger is killed and the car is disabled. Ralph manages to get the four of them to a gas station, where the owner is found shot. In a fight for the gun, Ralph is winged and Tippy seriously wounded. Borrowing a miner's jeep, Ralph drives Massonetti to a main highway, where two policemen take them into custody. They turn out to be impostors who drive Massonetti to an air strip where Davis is waiting with a plane. After they board, Ralph drives the car into the plane, overturning it. He drags Massonetti from the wreckage and holds him until real cops arrive. By the time he returns to the gas station, Linda is watching Tippy's lifeless body carried away. ===== The story takes place in thirty-five chapters. The characters come from a variety of locations, and travel across the land in their adventures. Grant created his own place names, drinks, songs and more for this novel. Unlike many fantasy novels, he did not create a map of the world, which is supposedly a futuristic Earth after the occurrence of an apocalypse of some kind. It may or may not be the same world as used in Rumors of Spring and Through the Heart. The characters are still human and are not a great deal different from modern humans in most cases. In all three books, the humans are mostly dealing with major environmental changes and the resulting changes in humanity, but some people have stood out as different. ===== Professor Wellington Johns, an endocrinologist, experiments with a love philtre (which he terms his amatogenic cortical principle), that causes those who take it to fall helplessly in love with the first person they see. Johns' students, Alice Sanger and Alexander Dexter, become entangled in philtre-induced promises of marriage. The narrator theorizes that the ending to The Sorcerer was not the original one, but was forced on Gilbert by Victorian mores. Instead of the title character in The Sorcerer breaking the spell by yielding his life to Ahrimanes, the narrator believes that originally Gilbert intended that the spell would be broken by the couples marrying, since married couples only seem to argue (in the opera, the love philtre has no effect on married people). This solution, however, would have been offensive to Victorians. The narrator proposes that the couples affected by the philtre marry, which should cancel the effect. He is proven correct, and the couples are free to have the marriages annulled so that they can marry their true loves. ===== The film begins in a village where various characters appear Bullebbai (Rajendra Prasad) is a lottery ticket agent, Pala Pullaiah (Tanikella Bharani), the local dairy farmer, Pilli Pentaiah (Kondavalasa) a hoax political leader, Chanti (LB Sriram) the barber, Varadaraju (MS Narayana) belongs to a former royal dynasty. Varadaraju takes some loans from Pullaiah, in return he accommodates his son Kittu (Richard Rishi) with him and he falls for Pullaiah's daughter Bhagyalakshmi (Farjana). Parallelly, Ranikasula Renuka Rani (Kiran Rathod) a tyrant, who suffers the entire village by allowing debts, her brother Aphis (Venu Madhav) a vagabond aspires to possess Bhagyalakshmi and forcibly engages with her. Meanwhile, Bullebbai realizes that one of the tickets has won the top prize Rs.1 crore and ploys to obtain it. So, he hosts a dinner for his customers and by elimination, he deduces that the town drunk Yesudas Gotham (Ali) as the winner and immediately rushes to him. Thereupon, Bullebbai spots Yesudas dead, due to shock and the ticket clutched in his hand. Right now, Bullebbai pries the ticket when Pullaiah arrives and Bullebbai lures him by offering a share. Eventually, Kittu also observes it and intimidates them to couple up with Bhagyalakshmi. At present, Bullebbai orders Kittu to throw Yesudas's body into the river but the hard time of following they make some mistakes which are noticed by a few villagers. The next day, when Bullebbai calls to the lottery office he learns that before dying, Yesudas managed to call them. As well as to his brother Joshua Gotham's (Brahmanandam) family, ex-wife Parvathi (Abhinayasri) and several people to whom he owed money. Here, a tough situation arises to maintain secrecy, so, Bullebbai congregates them into a group of 20 members. After some time, the lottery inspector (K. Naga Babu) lands to interview Yesudas. The rest of the story is a humorous confusion drama that how Bullebbai manages to grab the lottery prize? ===== Set in and around New York City just prior to and following World War I, the story opens with Ziegfeld Follies star Fanny Brice awaiting the return of husband Nicky Arnstein from prison, and then moves into an extended flashback focusing on their meeting and marriage. Fanny is first seen as a stage-struck teenager who gets her first job in vaudeville and meets the suave Arnstein following her debut performance. They continue to meet occasionally over the years, becoming more romantically involved as Fanny's career flourishes and she becomes a star. Arnstein eventually seduces Fanny, who decides to abandon the Follies to be with him. After winning a fortune playing poker while traveling aboard the RMS Berengaria, Nicky agrees to marry Fanny. They move into an expensive house and have a daughter, and Fanny eventually returns to Ziegfeld and the Follies. Meanwhile, Nicky's various business ventures fail, forcing them to move into an apartment. Refusing financial support from his wife, he becomes involved in a bonds scam and is imprisoned for embezzlement for eighteen months. Following Nicky's release from prison, he and Fanny agree to separate. ===== Tata (Sivaji) and Birla (Krishna Bhagavan) are 2 petty thieves who dream of planning a big robbery one day. Their dreams come true when they overhear a deal involving hundreds of crores. They lock up the original man who's hired for the deal and head to the home of Mahalakshmi (Laya), a wealthy heiress. They gradually realize the happiness of life and decide to quit being thieves. But it is then revealed that the deal was to kill Mahalakshmi and that the man responsible for the deal was Mahalakshmi's uncle Gajapathi (Tanikella Bharani). Soon Mahalakshmi even falls in love with Tata and he too falls for her eventually. Meanwhile another mysterious man disguised as a lady (Ali) enters their household to kill Mahalakshmi as well. The rest of the story depicts on how Tata and Birla save Mahalakshmi from Gajapathi's plans and who the strange man really is. ===== The film is presented as footage from a personal camcorder recovered by the United States Department of Defense in the area "formerly known as Central Park", bearing a disclaimer stating multiple sightings of a case designated "Cloverfield". Older, saved footage is seen of Rob waking up with Beth in her father’s apartment above Columbus Circle before sharing a special day across New York City and Coney Island. Fragments of this overwritten footage appear during the course of the film. Rob has a farewell party thrown for him by his brother Jason and Jason's girlfriend Lily, in celebration of Rob's new job in Japan. Their friend Hud films testimonials for Rob during the party. Rob’s former romance Beth brings a new man to the party. Beth and Rob argue over her guest and Beth leaves shortly before a supposed earthquake strikes, causing a brief citywide power outage; the local news reports a capsized oil tanker near Liberty Island. When the party-goers leave the building, the severed head of the Statue of Liberty is hurled into the street in front of them. Hud records an enormous creature several blocks away collapsing the Woolworth Building. Later, during the city's evacuation, the creature's tail destroys the Brooklyn Bridge, killing Jason and several other people. News reports show the Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division attacking the monster. Smaller "parasite" creatures fall off its body and attack nearby pedestrians and soldiers. Rob listens to a phone message from Beth saying that she is trapped in her apartment at the Time Warner Center and unable to move. Going against the crowd, Rob, Hud, Lily, and another party- goer, Marlena, venture into Midtown Manhattan to rescue Beth. By 3:17 am, they get caught in a battle between the creature and the Army National Guard and run into the subway, and are attacked by several of the parasitic creatures; during the scuffle, Marlena is bitten by one. The four escape the subway and come to a command center and field hospital. Marlena bleeds from her eyes in reaction to the bite. She is dragged into a tent, where she appears to explode. Rob, intending to save Beth, persuades one of the military leaders to let him go. The man then tells Rob when the last evacuation helicopter will depart before the military executes its "Hammer Down Protocol," which will destroy Manhattan in an attempt to kill the monster. The group rescues Beth, impaled on exposed rebar, and the four make their way to the evacuation site at Grand Central Terminal, where they encounter the creature once more. Lily is rushed into a departing Marine Corps helicopter and escapes. Moments later, Rob, Beth, and Hud are taken away in a second helicopter and witness the creature being bombed. The bombing causes the creature to fall, but it lunges at the group's helicopter, causing it to crash into Central Park. Less than an hour later, a voice on the crashed helicopter's radio warns that the Hammer Down protocol will begin in fifteen minutes. The three friends regain consciousness and flee; Hud retrieves the camera when the creature suddenly appears and kills him. Rob and Beth grab the camera and take shelter under an arch as sirens blare and the bombing starts. Rob and Beth take turns leaving their last testimony of the day's events. The bridge crumbles and the camera gets knocked out of Rob's hand and buried beneath some rubble. Rob and Beth proclaim their love for each other just before another bomb goes off, with both screaming while the monster roars. The film ends with the finale of Rob and Beth's trip to Coney Island. Unseen by them, an indiscernible object falls from the sky into the ocean. Just before the camera cuts out, Beth states, "I had a good day." After the credits, a voice can be heard saying, "Help us..." However, when played in reverse, it says, "It's still alive." ===== Betty Grable plays young Jane Morrow, who applies for the job of a theater usherette, and encounters her matinée idol. After he takes a liking to her, he arranges for her to audition in front of an audience. Jane is a hit, making her idol less favorable. Jane soon finds herself engaged to another man, so a battle of romantic wits ensues. ===== Sivaraman is a once-brilliant advocate who now seems to be in a self- destructive mode. All the time he is portrayed in a highly intoxicated state. His clients had abandoned him a long time ago. But he has a very devout follower Chandy. Whenever Sivaraman gets into one of his drunken brawls, it is Chandy who rescues him. Strangely, that doesn't diminish Sivaraman's public relation skills. After one particularly bad fight, he ends up becoming good buddies with three notorious rowdies in the area: Vadakkancherry Vakkachen / 'Vedakku' Vakkan, Bathery Bappu / Kolakolli and Pattambi Ravi / 'Chattambi' Ravi. Soon, they too join his gang of loyalists. The reason why this once- hotshot advocate had hit the bottle is revealed later: he was in love with a girl named Priya. But, his father and brother weren't happy about it. They come up with a very cruel way of ending the relationship. They lock Sivaraman in a room in the house on the day Sivaraman and Priya decided to elope. Priya, unaware of this happening waits for Sivaraman. A group of gangsters see Priya waiting late into the night, molests her and then kills her. When Sivaraman finds out about it, he is devastated and reacts by becoming an alcoholic. Then one day, he receives a phone call on his mobile phone from a stranger named Parvathi. She reveals that she is the daughter of a local Marwari banker. On the phone she tells him that her life is in grave danger and begs him to rescue her. The phone call changes his life... Parvathi is the daughter of Bada Bhai, the owner of a very successful bank - Dalal & Dalal. The bank is jointly owned by him and his brothers and relatives. They want to take control of the bank by killing Parvathi. When Sivaraman finds out that the threat is from her family, he takes her home and pretends to be her husband. Then begins the battle of wits and muscles with her greedy relatives. Slowly, Parvathi gets impressed by his brilliance and ends up falling in love with him. ===== Mustafa (Sayed Badreya) is a widowed Egyptian immigrant and the owner of Habibe's Café, a popular hangout in Los Angeles for those with Middle Eastern backgrounds. He is devoted to providing his son, Richard Chagoury, with a moral upbringing despite the pressures of contemporary American urban life. He also finds himself cast in the role of protector to his unwed sister Salwah (Sarah Shahi), for whom, by family and tribal custom, he is responsible for finding a traditional suitor. But his respect for tradition comes up against his own aspirations to adapt to the American Dream when he decides to open a new restaurant with a Jewish partner – his friend Sam (Tony Shalhoub). This unholy alliance is unpopular amongst the habitués of his café and the insular Arab community in which Mustafa resides. It is one of several personal points of tension that gradually build against the backdrop of larger, national events affecting the Arab-American community and lead to the explosive denouement of the story. Salwah, Mustaf's sister, must also reconcile her traditional values and familial obligations with new American realities. Although she is grateful to Mustafa for bringing her to America when she was young, and allowing her to pursue an education, conflict arises between them when Mustafa insists upon fulfilling his duty of finding her a traditional, arranged-marriage partner from Egypt. The arrival of this arranged suitor, her older cousin Saber (Al Faris), throws her life into turmoil and makes her question her own beliefs and faith. Secretly, she is attracted to an American, Dr. John Westerman (Tim Guinee), a young and attractive non-Muslim. Any caution she feels toward him, however, is thrown to the wind by the abrupt arrival of Saber and a possible impending marriage that she does not want. She becomes sorely tempted to experience intimacy with the young doctor outside of marriage, a taboo. While she undergoes this internal conflict, her suitor Saber is staying as a guest at the home she shares with Mustafa and his children, and the incompatibility between this traditional man, her future husband, and Mustafa's Americanized family is another source of irritation adding to the mounting tensions underlying the story. Mustafa's friend Omar (Kais Nashef) is a struggling actor and Habibe's Café regular, a young Egyptian man who supports his dream of becoming a film star by working as a part-time cab driver for Mustafa's ragged, one-car taxi company. Because of his Middle Eastern looks and accent, however, he is constantly cast in the role of a terrorist in American TV shows that portray only a shallow understanding of Arabs and their culture. When an opportunity for a non- racially-designated role arrives, Omar feels his chance for success—to be seen as an actor first and not a Muslim—has finally arrived. It is the break he has been waiting for on many levels: a chance at the financial freedom necessary to marry and support his pregnant American girlfriend Kate (Amanda Detmer), and a chance for him, and his future child, to be embraced as an American, in the same way that he has embraced America. But misunderstandings and prejudices related to his Arabic background conspire against him once again and his opportunity is lost, pushing Omar to make a drastic, unreasoned decision that sets off a chain of events leading to a violent conclusion that affects the lives and conflicts of all the other characters – an explosive reminder of the simmering pressures under which Muslims live in the United States today. Will their American Dreams be shattered by a climate of distrust and suspicion, or will their hopes and aspirations be embraced by their fellow Americans? ===== Moderately successful criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller operates around Los Angeles County out of a Lincoln Town Car (hence the title) driven by a former client working off his legal fees. While most clients are drug dealers and gangsters, the story focuses on an unusually important case of wealthy Los Angeles realtor Louis Roulet accused of assault and attempted murder. At first, he appears to be innocent and set up by the female "victim". Roulet's lies and many surprising revelations change Haller's original case theory. He reconsiders the situation of Jesus Menendez, a former client serving time in San Quentin State Prison after pleading guilty to a similar and mysteriously related crime. Haller outmaneuvers Roulet (revealed to be a rapist and murderer) without violating ethical obligations, frees the innocent Menendez, and continues in legal practice. He also conducts much self- examination and acquires some emotional baggage. ===== ===== Although technically a Spaghetti Western, the plot of Texas, Adios plays more like a traditional American western film. Franco Nero plays two-fisted, taciturn Texas sheriff Burt Sullivan, a man committed to duty and justice but possessed by a desire for revenge. Sullivan, along with his younger brother, crosses the border to bring wealthy and sadistic Mexican crime boss Cisco Delgado (José Suárez) to justice for the murder of their father. Eventually joining forces with a group of Mexican revolutionaries, Sullivan and his brother soon find themselves at the centre of a bloodbath. ===== Yuri Makurano is an unattractive girl who learns her mother is a famous actress named Shoko Hanai following her grandmother's death. Yuri begins to live with her mother's family which consists of three children named Sumire, Aoi, and Fuyo Hanatashiki. Yuri is treated as a maid at the household, eventually bonding with the family and builds up unrequited feelings for Sumire. Later, she comes to learn the only blood relation she has to the family is Aoi, her half brother. ===== In 1945, physicist and atomic scientist Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer (Hume Cronyn) praises the discovery of atomic energy, but also warns of its dangers. American scientists such as Matt Cochran (Tom Drake), working under the guidance of Dr. Enrico Fermi (Joseph Calleia) and Dr. Marré (Victor Francen), have split the atom, and essentially beaten the Germans in the race to create an atomic bomb. With the assistance of Albert Einstein (Ludwig Stössel), they inform President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Godfrey Tearle) that a monumental discovery has been made. In 1941, with the United States at war, Roosevelt authorizes up to two billion dollars for the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb. In December 1942, at the University of Chicago, under the watchful eyes of observers such as Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Nixon (Robert Walker) and international experts, scientists create the first chain reaction, under a stadium at the campus. Nixon is assigned to General Leslie Groves (Brian Donlevy), who is placed in charge of the project. Groves has to bring together the scientific, industrial and defense communities to build the atomic bomb. In 1945, following the death of Roosevelt, the new president, Harry S. Truman (Art Baker), continues to support the atomic project, now moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico. When refined uranium-235 is obtained, the first atomic bomb is built and tested successfully in the New Mexico desert. Facing stiff resistance in the Pacific War, Truman orders the use of the atomic bomb against Japan in July 1945. Cochran and Nixon are assigned to accompany the crew transporting the bomb to Tinian. While assembling the bomb, the scientist comes into contact with radioactive material and dies. The following day, on August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. After the mission, Nixon returns home to break the news of her husband's death to Cochran's wife. ===== "Ghost" Wakefield is the leader of a struggling jazz band. At a party he meets the attractive singer Jess, who is in a relationship with the Ghost's agent, Benny. At Ghost's insistence, she joins the band, and he begins a relationship with her, antagonizing Benny. Benny arranges for the band to cut a record. In a party at a bar celebrating the recording session, Benny encourages a tough guy, Tommy, to pick a fight with the band. Ghost avoids fighting, causing a rift with Jess. She leaves the band, and it breaks up. Ghost becomes the protege of a rich patron, playing the piano in night clubs, his career in decline, while the rest of the band plays inferior music to make a living. Ghost locates Jess, who has become a prostitute, and goes with her to the other band members, who reject him but begin playing their old music with Jess singing. ===== A mailman heads to Porky Pig's house and delivers a telegram to Porky. When Porky reads the telegram, he sees it is an offer from a big shot producer in Broadway, New York City, who wants Porky and his pet ostrich, Lulu, in his show, offering $75 a day. Porky wants the job, so he tells Lulu the good news and takes her on a leash to the train station. Once there a passenger train speeds right past the station and Porky has to change the signal to stop the second train. Porky and Lulu get on board, but the conductor kicks them off, on account of a "no pets" policy. Porky tells Lulu to go down the tracks so he can pick her up when the train passes by. Porky gets on board and the train departs. When it passes by Lulu, Porky grabs her and pulls her in. Realizing what will happen if the conductor finds out, Porky shoves Lulu under his seat, but Lulu insists on poking her head out. She then squeezes out and swallows passengers' personal belongings, ao. an accordion. Just then, the conductor comes asking the passengers for tickets. Porky sees him, shoves the noisy accordion down Lulu's throat to her stomach, stuffs her inside a guitar case and trims her sticking out tail feathers. When the conductor comes up to Porky, Lulu blows her cover by squawking, pushing her legs out, and taking the conductor on a wild ride to the other side of the coach. Angered, the conductor throws Lulu and Porky out of the train from the observation car. Porky spots a handcar in a siding and a cow grazing. He and Lulu hop on the handcar, and Porky grabs the cow's tail. The cow happily takes them down the track, and even outruns the train, much to the conductor's shock. ===== The Four Reigns starts out with a young girl named Phloi whose mother leaves her husband of the lower aristocratic status to be free from the restraints of being one of his minor wives. Although being one of a few minor wives to a man was the norm, Phloi's mother was not content in that domestic order. Consequently, this provoked Phloi's mother, Mae Chaem, along with Phloi to move out and make a change which involved a trip to the royal palace to offer Phloi up to a better life as a minor courtier. Mae Chaem is there to assist Phloi on her trip to the palace and often visits her there to be sure of her well-being. Mae Chaem suddenly dies and Phloi is deeply saddened by her loss and spends the rest of her time coping and adapting to the palace life. Phloi's life, however, truly begins in the palace, where she humbly serves and befriends the royalty and their servants. Phloi lives through time periods of four reigns as the title suggests, involving four different kings. The king well-renowned in history, King Chulalongkorn, was the monarch at Phloi's birth and King Ananda Mahidol is the ruler reigning at Phloi's death. During her time at the palace, Phloi lives the life of a minor courtier engaging in youthful diversions with her friend Choi and occasionally doing menial tasks as a court attendant. She really doesn't have a worry, except for selecting the correct outfit for the next leisurely excursion. On these trips, everyone from the Grand Palace would attend religious ceremonies such as the Kathin festival at the end of the Buddhist Lent. Phloi's life is changed when she is compelled to marry Khun Prem, a man she knows very little about on a personal level. This engagement is influenced by her elders and their traditional values. They believe that it is best to marry someone of good financial status rather than solely for love. Although Phloi did not quite know Khun Prem at first, they eventually did grow to love one another. He is of the minor nobility but still could be ranked among the aristocratic people in Thai society with excellent financial standing. Khun Prem is also of military standing and well respected by his peers. This is evident as he receives promotions and is involved with the highly regarded "Wild Tiger Cavalry Corps." Khun Prem starts out as a traditionalist but as society changes, he inherits military discipline and Western idealism. This is shown forth as he begins to smoke Western cigarettes and drink Western wine. He and Phloi have three sons and one daughter, although the oldest son, Onh, is adopted. The second and third sons are named Anh and Ot respectively. Their daughter, who also happened to be the youngest child, is named Praphai. Onh, the eldest son, enters military school while Phloi's other two sons are sent to study abroad, with Anh studying in France and Ot in England. The only daughter, Praphai, stays with Phloi and is her mother's companion until she branches out on her own. Ot, having graduated from a university in England, comes back with new intellectual ideas and stays home the entire time, refusing to look for a job. He grows more and more attached to his mother during this period of time and is often seen as Phloi's favorite son. Meanwhile, Onh graduates from the military school and becomes a soldier, often having to leave home to work at faraway places. When Ot's brother, Anh, returns from France, he breaks with tradition by bringing back a French wife. This is much to the dismay of his father and a shock to his mother, especially because they were not told anything in advance. Anh introduces his French wife to the family circle and she displays, as expected, her Western influences. These include French clothing and fashion, makeup, and European manners. Anh's French wife, Lucille, influenced Phloi's youngest daughter, Praphai with her ways as well. Soon, Phloi experiences World War I, and its economic impact on Thailand. Prices for imported goods begin to make a noticeable rise. This is also the time that the King, Rama VI, passes away. Phloi's husband, Prem, is shocked by the monarch's death and not long after dies in a horse-riding accident. Phloi is left to fend for herself, but her children are all home by then. They are all grown-ups and able to offer her the much-needed support, both economically and emotionally. All the while, Anh is more and more secretly involved in Thai politics and comes home late every night. He and Lucille don't get along so well during this time, and he decides to send his wife back to France. Sometime later, Thailand suffers an economic depression and a revolutionary group called the Khana Ratsadon (People's Party), in which Anh allies himself with, begins to form. They eventually organize a coup that forces the king to agree to relinquish absolute authority and cede full power to a Constitutional Monarchy. Ot continually ponders with his uncle, Phloi's elder brother, the new fascination of politics. In the novel, he states: "What else have we to talk about? The air is thick with political news. So-and-so is going to be arrested, so-and-so may have to be got out of the way, and there'll be an armed clash between such-and-such factions, and so on." (P. 483 of Four Reigns) Politics became something of more interest in Thai culture as it existed before but was more available to the general public when ideas about how the government should be run and appropriated among the people. This became the new way of life in Thailand that was capturing the minds of the evolving individual. Onh, however, opposed the new government and joined other soldiers in the Boworadet Rebellion in 1936. They capture Don Mueng Field and hold out there for some time before the Khana Ratsadon's forces respond and drive them out. Onh and his soldiers retreat until they have nowhere else to go and surrender. They are sent into prison and initially sentenced to execution, but later sent to a prison on an island in the Gulf of Thailand. During this time, Praphai, unlike her mother, decides to marry a man of her choosing. She and her husband, Khun Sewi even changed their wedding to follow a more modern format. They didn't have the chanting monks and Khun Sewi even carried Praphai inside the house the way the "farangs" (Westerners) do. Through these characters, Pramoj explores how the conflation of advancement with Westernisation was popular among the upper- class, and the consequences of this problematic ideology. World War II soon erupts and has a stronger impact on Thailand. In 1940, when France is overrun by Germany and the Vichy French Government is formed, France's grip on its colonies, including French Indochina, loosens. The Thai Government sees this opportunity and demanded land from France. When an agreement could not be reached, Thailand invades French Indochina in the Franco-Thai Warand wins, gaining the provinces of Nakhon Champassak, Phibulsongkram, and Phra Tabong. Then, at midnight on December 8, 1941, right after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invade and then occupy Bangkok along with other parts of Thailand. During one of the Allied bombing raids, Consolidated B-24s destroy Phloi's house, forcing her to return to her ancestral home at Khlong Bang Luang, where she spends the last of her days. All of Phloi's children survive the war, including Onh, who is allowed to return home, except for Ot, who died of malaria while in the South on a work assignment. Upon hearing the news of the Ot's death and the death of King Rama VIII, Phloi's health deteriorates, and she dies peacefully on a rocking chair. Category:Thai novels Category:Novels set in Thailand Category:1953 novels Category:Works by Kukrit Pramoj ===== Eccentric millionaire philanthropist Axel Clark wishes to prove that all people are essentially honest and good. Following his death and as a provision of his will, his lawyers drop wallets on the streets of town that each have $100 in them, with information for contacting the lawyers. The four honest people who return the wallets then find themselves unexpectedly in a sort-of lottery. Each person is given $5000 and the first person who could double that sum within one month, through honest means, would inherit Clark's entire estate. Otherwise, the entire estate would go to Clark's greedy brother, who is determined to thwart the plan. ===== The trouble begins when Lord Strathpeffer (John Barrymore), who is on his way to visit an Egyptologist with a case of instruments used by entomologists, loses his way in the fog and wanders into the home (who lives next door to the Egyptologist) of a woman who is hosting a fancy dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Tidmarsh (Dick Henderson and Emily Fitzroy), a middle-class English couple, are giving a dinner party in honor of their wealthy uncle, Gabriel Gilwattle (Albert Gran), hoping to receive his financial aid in their struggle to keep up appearances. As a result of many of the invitees informing Mrs. Tidmarsh that they could not attend her party, she believes that only 13 guests will show up. As Gilwattle is a superstitious man, Mrs. Tidmarsh sends to the Blankley Employment Agency to send them a distinguished looking man to serve as a guest. In the meantime some other guests inform Fitzroy that they won't be able to come and the hired man is no longer needed. She informs the agency that the man is no longer needed. Nevertheless, when Barrymore arrives at the door, they automatically assume that he was sent by the agency and invite him in to dinner. Mayhem ensues. Margery Seaton (Loretta Young), one of the dinner guests, recognizes Barrymore as a former lover, and therefore assumes him to be an impostor. Sobering, Strathpeffer realizes he has come to the wrong party and asserts his right to his title; but Gwennie (Angella Mawby) hides her father's watch in Strathpeffer's pocket as he is renewing his romance with Margery. A police inspector arrives hunting for the missing lord, establishing his authenticity and the fact that he is not, after all, the hired guest. ===== On the first day of school, Arthur and his classmates are given homework by Mr. Ratburn, leaving them distraught. Later, the principal, Mr. Haney, announces that there will be a Spellathon in the coming weeks. One day, Mr. Ratburn tells the class to study hard for a test to see who will qualify as representatives for the Spellathon. Eventually, Arthur and The Brain end up being chosen and are given lists of words to study. On the day of the Spellathon, the representatives of each class are eliminated one by one until Arthur is the only one left. He manages to win the trophy after spelling "Preparation" correctly. In the end, Mr. Ratburn announces to the audience that he will be teaching Kindergarten, much to D.W.'s dismay. ===== The Ulam are a tribe of cavemen who possess fire in the form of a carefully guarded small flame which they use to start larger fires. Driven out of their home after a bloody battle with the ape-like Wagabu, the Ulam are horrified when their fire is accidentally extinguished while taking refuge in a marsh. Because the tribe does not know how to create fire themselves, the tribal elder decides to send three men, Naoh, Amoukar, and Gaw, on a quest to find fire. The trio encounter several dangers on their trek, including an encounter with the Kzamm, a tribe of more primitive-looking cannibals. The Kzamm have fire, and Naoh, Amoukar and Gaw determine to steal it. Gaw and Amoukar lure most of the Kzamm away from their encampment. Naoh kills the remaining warriors, but not before being bitten on the genitals by one, which causes him agony. The three Ulam take the Kzamm fire and prepare to head home. A young woman named Ika, who had been a captive of the Kzamm, follows them. She makes a primitive poultice to help Naoh recover from his injury. Later, Amoukar attempts to rape Ika. She hides near Naoh, who then mounts her himself in front of the other two males. Ika soon recognizes that she is near her home and tries to persuade the Ulam to go with her. When they refuse, they go their separate ways. Naoh turns around, followed by the reluctant Gaw and Amoukar and the band is reunited. After Naoh leaves the others to scout a village, he is trapped in quicksand, nearly sinking to his death, but is discovered and captured by the Ivaka — Ika's tribe. At first, Naoh is subjected to several forms of humiliation by the Ivaka. He is forced to mate with the high-status women of the tribe, who are large and big- breasted. The petite Ika is excluded by her tribe, and when she attempts to lie near him later that night, she is chased away. The Ivaka show Naoh their advanced knowledge of fire-making with a hand drill. Gaw and Amoukar find Naoh among the Ivaka. They try to rescue him but Naoh seems unwilling to leave. At night, Ika helps them knock Naoh unconscious and escape the camp. The next day, Naoh washes off the Ivaka body paint. He tries to mount Ika again, but she teaches him the more intimate missionary position. Not long before they reach the marsh where they started the journey, the three are beset by peer rivals from within the Ulam, who wish to steal the fire and bring it back themselves, but Naoh and his group defeat them using the Ivakan atlatls, which are superior to Ulam weapons. Finally rejoining the Ulam, the group present the fire to the delight of all. But during the ensuing celebration, the fire is again accidentally extinguished. Naoh tries to create a new fire as he'd seen in the Ivaka camp, but after several failed attempts, Ika takes over. Once the spark is lit, the tribe is overjoyed. Months later, Naoh and Ika prepare to have a child. ===== One day Surendra migrates to London to get away from his brother Veerpratap's mockings, while his wife stays in India. There he meets a woman whom he starts liking; they get married. Time goes by and Surendra's first wife, who stays in India, delivers a son named Vikram. The wife in London delivers a daughter named Meenakshi. Unfortunately, one day Surendra and his wife dies in an accident in London. Their last wish is to get their ashes immersed in India. To fulfill their wish, Meenakshi comes to India with her parents' ashes. There she goes to her dad's family's house as he had told her to. The family does not accept her, especially Veerpratap Singh, and they want her to go back as soon as possible. Meenakshi stays in the house to convince everyone in the family to perform the last rituals for her parents. Leisurely, she convinces her uncles Veerpratap and Rajvir to perform the ritual. But Rajvir and Veerpratap are shocked when Meenakshi expresses her desire that her mother should get her due respect in this house. In spite of all that, she makes it happen. In the bargain Meenaskhi causes clashes at home. Meenakshi gradually makes a good impression. But life is not smooth sailing. Luck turns when her boyfriend, whom she met in London, happens to come in the same house as Krishna. Krishna is Veerpratap's son; Krishna is Meenakshi's cousin brother. Time to unwind, rethink, and sacrifice. But time uncovers that Krishna was adopted — they are not biological brother and sister. Now Meenakshi has to compromise her love and start a new life. Meenasksi cannot stop loving Krishna, and Krishna loves Meenakshi. Now uncle fixed Meenashi's wedding with a guy in outside family. The question remains that how Meenakshi finds her love? How will she keep her tradition alive? ===== When the latest incarnation of American Idol shows sets up shop in Santa Barbara, the requisite cruel British judge Nigel St. Nigel (Tim Curry) finds himself in a panic after a series of near-miss attempts on his life and hires Santa Barbara's most reliable psychic detective to protect him. Nigel believes that the police are in on the conspiracy, so to protect him Shawn and Gus go undercover on American Duos. While exiting his trailer, Nigel is stopped by Shawn before he walks in an electrified puddle when Shawn notices a live wire in the puddle. Shawn then stops Nigel from eating a specially ordered sandwich when he notices that the toothpicks aren't the ones the hotel uses. When the toxicology report comes back from the police, it turns out the sandwich was poisoned with prescription drugs. The culprit turns out to be repeat contestant Bevin Rennie Llywellen (Perrie), who would flop on purpose in spite of his amazing singing voice, for the sake of being able to audition in another city should his attempt on Nigel's life fail in the current city. The plan was orchestrated by Zapato (Dulce), one of the other judges. Zapato was a Latin pop star and singer of "Mírame," whose comeback was ruined by Nigel, who would never let him speak during the judging—Nigel actually believed Zapato could not talk or think at all. Zapato was so overshadowed by Nigel he even received fan mail addressed to other Latin artists such as Ricky Martin. After this revelation, Nigel is not shocked, and becomes an even bigger jerk, calling Zapato the "worst murderer ever." The episode ends with Shawn and Gus performing an above average musical number, only to have Nigel, no longer having to force them through the competition, calling it one of the worst performances he ever saw. ===== The novel describes the relationship between men and women in Saudi Arabia. Girls of Riyadh tells the story of four college-age high class friends in Saudi Arabia, girls looking for love but stymied by a system that allows them only limited freedoms and has very specific expectations and demands. There's little contact between men and women—especially single teens and adults—but modern technology has changed that a bit (leading to young men trying everything to get women to take down their cellphone numbers). The Internet is also a new medium that can't contain women and their thoughts like the old system could, and the anonymous narrator of the novel takes advantage of that: she presents her stories in the form of e-mails that she sends out weekly to any Saudi address she can find. Sex is described in this novel and the various ways it is thought of before and after marriage. Engaging in pre marital sex in the novel has negative consequences for some of the characters who face rejection as a result. The novel also features instances of arranged and failed marriages and discusses the gamble a Saudi women takes when entering into one. The novel is written in a relatable, confessional style of writing which critics have likened to a global style of chick lit. However, Rajaa Alsanea does not define the genre of her novel and states that she is happy to have created her own kind of genre with Girls of Riyadh. ===== Harry Bailey, a former student activist and post-graduate, comes back to university to complete an education course to become a teacher. He tries to avoid the increasing student unrest that has surfaced, but finds this difficult as his girlfriend, Jan, is a leader in these protests. Over time, student demonstrations bring police to the campus to quell the unrest, and the ensuing clashes lead to martial law. Harry is forced to question his values in relation to this. At the height of the rioting he concurs with Jan that "getting straight" is more important than unprotesting acceptance of the educational establishment. ===== In 1960s San Francisco, Andy Hobart (Tony Roberts) does everything he can to keep his struggling, two- man, radical underground newspaper, the Nitty Gritty, going; he steals food from the supermarket and other people's laundry from the dry cleaners, and holds off his creditors, especially the landlord, Mrs. MacKaninee (Elizabeth Allen), and his printer, Mr. Karlson (Artie Lewis). To appease Mrs. MacKaninee, he accompanies her motorcycling, waterskiing, and surfing. He lives with talented, but nerdy Norman Cornell (Todd Susman), who writes the entire newspaper. One day, a perky, talkative Southern girl moves into the bungalow across from them. Amy Cooper (Sandy Duncan) has come to the big city to train for the Olympics with the best swimming coach in the country. Norman falls instantly in love with her (or rather with the way she smells) and neglects his writing, causing Andy untold headaches. Norman drives Amy to distraction with his misguided, over-the-top attempts to win her affection. When he unintentionally gets her fired from her day job, Andy hires her as a secretary, just to keep Norman happy (and writing). Then something unexpected happens. Despite despising everything Andy stands for, the conservative Amy discovers (to her great disgust) that she is physically attracted to him and likes the way he smells, which is rather awkward, since she is scheduled to marry another swimmer in a few weeks. When she informs Andy, he is uncertain how to react. She gets him to kiss her to see how it feels, at which point Norman walks in. Amy decides to go back to Florida because Andy is not interested in her. Norman quits over what he considers a betrayal, but quickly changes his mind and goes back to work, cured of Amy. Meanwhile, Andy discovers to his horror that the smell of Amy permeates the room even after she's gone. He chases after her and gets her to come back. ===== Limbo of the Lost follows Benjamin Briggs, the historic captain of the Mary Celeste. In 1872, the Mary Celeste was discovered empty; the fate of Briggs and the rest of the crew remains a mystery. The game puts Briggs in Limbo, where he has to aid Destiny in a war against Fate. Captain Briggs is portrayed as entomophobic, having a fear of insects. Throughout the game, he must confront his fear in order to complete puzzles and progress further. The existence of the player is acknowledged by the game's characters (described as a "spirit guide"), and during the final sequence the player, rather than Briggs, becomes the puzzle-solving protagonist. Briggs complains to the player from time to time regarding his feelings of the surroundings and what he has been asked to do. If the player does not move the mouse for a period of time, Briggs will let the player know about it. ===== The episode begins with an announcement that viewers have waited for weeks for the answer to the mystery "Who Is Cartman's Father", but then points out that the answer will not be revealed in this episode; instead, there is a presentation of an unrelated cartoon titled Not Without My Anus, starring Terrance and Phillip. A caption wishes the viewers a Happy April Fools' Day. The cartoon itself opens in a courtroom in Canada with Terrance on trial for the murder of a local doctor; Phillip is his lawyer while Terrance and Phillip's sworn nemesis Scott, who has had a long hatred of the duo's toilet humor, is acting as the prosecutor. Scott uses a group of seemingly airtight exhibits to prove Terrance's guilt, while Terrance's defense consists of nothing but a long string of fart jokes. Ultimately, the jury returns a verdict of not guilty. Angered, Scott promises vengeance. He is ultimately approached by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, proposing a deal: Saddam would assist in getting Terrance and Phillip out of Canada, in exchange for Scott assisting Saddam and his Iraqi associates into Canada. Scott is apprehensive about trusting Saddam, but agrees to the deal. The pair then conspires to kidnap Sally, daughter of Terrance and Celine Dion, and hold her hostage, as bait to lure Terrance and Phillip to Tehran; Saddam's soldiers would then murder Terrance and Phillip on arrival. Terrance and Phillip become aware of the kidnapping when they receive a letter, but they immediately locate Sally upon arrival in Tehran. The duo return Sally to her home, where Saddam has now taken control. Celine, Terrance's now ex-wife, is dating, and has become pregnant by a friend of the duo named Ugly Bob. While the couple discuss their relationship, Saddam interrupts and takes them hostage, with Celine having planned to sing at a Canadian football game. Scott has also become worried about the presence of the Iraqi soldiers in Canada, but becomes infuriated when he finds that Terrance and Phillip have returned to Canada safely. He confronts Saddam about the double-cross, but Saddam's armed guards scare him into backing away. It is revealed that Saddam is trying to take over Canada as the first step in a plan for world domination. Terrance and Phillip arrive at the game. Instead of following a plan set up by Scott to commit suicide by using a bomb, they come up with a new plan and put on gas masks. With brute force, everyone farts a huge gas cloud which kills Saddam and his soldiers. Scott arrives and is annoyed to find that Terrance and Phillip are still alive. Terrance, Phillip, Celine and everyone else (excluding Scott) celebrate their freedom with a rendition of "O Canada". During the credits, an announcement stating that the solution to who Cartman's father is will be answered in a few weeks is shown. ===== Mirror's Edge is set in a quasi-futuristic city where life is comfortable and crime almost non- existent. The city's state of bliss is achieved by an oppressive regime that controls the media and its citizens. An underground crew of parkour couriers, called Runners, operate independently from the city's security and surveillance measures, delivering private goods and sensitive information across the city. At the same time, a new candidate, Robert Pope, is challenging the incumbent Mayor Callaghan on a platform of deregulation. The game follows the story of Faith Connors, a 24-year-old Runner who lost her mother when she was campaigning against the city shifting from its vibrant atmosphere to its current regime. Faith was trained by former Runner Mercury, who now provides her with intelligence and radio support. Faith's twin sister, Kate, is a disciplined police officer who has a lot of affection for Faith but is also committed to protecting the city. After completing a delivery to fellow Runner Celeste, Faith learns that Pope has been killed and that her sister has been framed for his murder. Kate refuses to flee with Faith, saying it would only make her look guilty. From former Runner Jacknife, Faith learns that Pope's head of security, Travis "Ropeburn" Burfield, may be connected to Pope's murder. She then infiltrates Ropeburn's office, where she overhears him setting up a secret meeting at an unfinished building. Faith informs Kate's wary superior officer, Lieutenant Miller, of what she has learned, but he refuses to help her. Later at the meeting, Faith confronts Ropeburn, who admits that he hired someone to kill Pope, but he is killed by a sniper shortly afterwards. Lacking other leads, Faith investigates the security firm that has begun aiding the police forces in capturing Runners. She finds that they are behind Project Icarus, a program designed to train special forces to eliminate Runners. Faith follows the trail of Ropeburn's killer to a boat that is docked at a nearby wharf. There, she learns that the assassin is Celeste, who decided to collude with Project Icarus to live a more comfortable life. She also explains that Pope had to be killed because he was seen as a threat, especially once he discovered Project Icarus. With Kate convicted for Pope's murder, Mercury helps Faith find a way to ambush the police convoy that is transporting her to prison. Faith succeeds and sends Kate to Mercury's hideout while she leads the police forces away. Upon her return, Faith finds Mercury critically injured and his hideout completely ransacked. Before he dies, Mercury tells Faith that Kate has been taken to Mayor Callaghan's fortress. With Miller's help, Faith goes to the fortress and destroys the servers that run the city's surveillance systems. On the rooftop helipad, she finds Kate held at gunpoint by Jacknife, who reveals that he is also part of Project Icarus. As Jacknife takes Kate onto a departing helicopter, Faith jumps onto it and knocks him out to his death. Faith and Kate then jump off to safety before the helicopter crashes. During the game's end credits, the media reports that Faith's actions have only served to intensify the city's security and that the location of both Faith and Kate remains unknown. ===== A young Cambodian man who has been trained to fight for money in his country is hired to kill someone in Hong Kong. He performs the hit and then flees from Hong Kong police, who are wrestling with internal problems of a model cop and his son, who is also on the force and who was told by his dad not to become a police officer. The father goes into a coma after being shot, and internal affairs suspects him of dealing drugs on the side. The assassin then befriends a young girl who is raped and abused by her father. They both plan to get back on a ship to Cambodia but have to get past Hong Kong police, who do everything they can to catch him. ===== Lieutenant Colonel Lam is an American army officer given a top-secret mission by the US military. The mission entails entering Vietnam to destroy an old American bunker filled with missiles before the Viet Cong can get to them. Due to the dangerous nature of the mission, a group of Chinese American soldier convicts are selected to accompany him, led by Tung Ming-sun. Survivors are promised a pardon, U.S. citizenship and $200,000 each. After a brief training session they are dropped into Vietnam. During the jump, Lam learns too late that the mission has been aborted. Once in enemy territory, they are met by some Cambodian guerrillas led by Godenzi and take refuge in a small town. There they meet Weasel (aka Chieh Man-yeh), and his mentally ill "Uncle", Yeung. Later, the squad is captured and incarcerated in a POW camp, where the prisoners are forced to play Russian roulette in a similar manner to the film The Deer Hunter. After escaping, they discover that one of the Cambodian guerrillas is a traitor. With the Vietnamese military in pursuit, they are able to reach the bunker, where a final showdown with the (giggling) Vietnamese general occurs. ===== Describing the plot of the novel itself, Manson said: "The whole story, if you take it from the beginning, is parallel to my own, but just told in metaphors and different symbols that I thought other people could draw from. It's about being innocent and naive, much like Adam was in Paradise before they fall from grace. And seeing something like Hollywood, which I used as a metaphor to represent what people think is the perfect world, and it's about wanting — your whole life — to fit into this world that doesn't think you belong, that doesn't like you, that beats you down every step of the way, fighting and fighting and fighting, and finally getting there, everyone around you are the same people who kept you down in the first place. So you automatically hate everyone around you. You resent them for making you become part of this game you don't realize you were buying into. You trade one prison cell for another in some ways. That becomes the revolution, to be idealistic enough that you think you can change the world, and what you find is you can't change anything but yourself."Palahniuk, Chuck (Dec 2000/Jan 2001 issue). "Destiny's Child", page 75. Gear magazine Manson has also stated that there is a character "that's very much a take on Walt Disney," who was a big inspiration in the writing of both the book and its accompanying album. In describing the setting, he compared Holy Wood, the place, to Disney World: "I thought of how interesting it would be if we created an entire city that was an amusement park, and the thing we were being amused by was violence and sex and everything that people really want to see." ===== Ananuri Church and fortress The novel takes place in 19th century Georgia, when it was occupied by the Russian Empire. It is the love story of Iago, a peasant boy, and Nunu, a beautiful young woman. Nunu's mother died early, and since her father (a member of the coalition army in the Shamil rebellion) is too poor to care for her, she lives with her uncle's family. They disapprove of her match with Iago, as they consider him a mere Plebe. Instead, they are sympathetic towards Grigola, the tyrannical village governor appointed by the Russians. Grigola is married, but in love with the beautiful Nunu. He convinces her family that his brother would like to wed her, though Grigola intends to keep Nunu as his own mistress. To get Nunu, Grigola realizes that he has to get rid of Iago first. Grigola accuses him of stealing state property and gives orders to lock him up in the Ananuri fortress. He then kidnaps and rapes Nunu. Koba, Iago's best friend, witnesses the kidnapping. He fights through Grigola's men to rescue Nunu, but he is too late. Koba swears revenge against Grigola for his shameful behavior. Koba and another friend break Iago out of jail, and they all decide to flee to the Northern Caucasus and hide in Chechnya, since Russian police and Cossacks are looking for them all over Georgia. Despite the fact that many Georgians were fighting on the Russian side, Shamil receives them and offers protection. The author portrays Chechens as free men who fight for their freedom, in contrast to the Georgians, who were kept on a short leash by people like Grigola, unable even to hold town meetings (a tradition since the Middle Ages). Meanwhile, Nunu escapes from Grigola. Koba manages to contact her and tells her to meet them in Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia, along with her father. The night before Iago and Nunu are supposed to see each other again, Iago and Koba's host decides to inform Grigola of their whereabouts, hoping to receive their horses in exchange for the information. After midnight, Grigola shows up and murders Iago, the friend, and Nunu's father, hoping to pin the latter on Nunu and thus have an excuse to send her to Siberia. Koba escapes Grigola's wrath, but upon discovering both her lover and father murdered, Nunu dies from grief. At the end of the story, Koba exacts his revenge for both Iago and Nunu by shooting Grigola and his supervisor in a cab in the forest. Koba is the hero of the story, who respects friendship, defends truth, respects women, and enforces justice. ===== The Flats tells a cautionary tale of friendship and desire played out among a group of 20-somethings transitioning into adulthood. Main character Harper and his buddies make the most of their freedom prior to an impending court-ordered jail sentence. Things get even more serious when Harper and his best friend's girlfriend, Paige, begin a sobering relationship. ===== Lincoln Rhyme is in North Carolina with his aide Thom and his companion and partner Amelia Sachs in order to receive experimental spine surgery, which may improve or further worsen his C4 quadriplegic disability. Whilst there they are approached by a local police sheriff- Jim Bell, the cousin of Rhyme's NYPD colleague Roland Bell- and asked to help in a local case of kidnap and possible rape. They believe the kidnapper to be a local orphaned boy 'Garret', who is believed to be involved in a number of other murders and assaults. One of these involves a hornets nest being thrown at a woman, who suffers a heart attack after 137 stings, and dies. Garret is locally nicknamed 'The insect boy', due to his incredible love of insects. At the start of the novel a nurse, Lydia, is kidnapped by Garret when she visits the place where the first victim- 'Mary- Beth' was kidnapped. A police deputy is killed by a hidden hornets nest whilst searching Garret's hide-out. Lincoln reluctantly agrees to help, and he and Sachs track Garret from the trace evidence found at the scenes. Meanwhile we follow Garret and Lydia as he takes her back to his main hideout. After Rhyme cunningly outwits Garret, he is arrested and Sachs is allowed to question him in order to find out where Mary-Beth is being hidden. Garret tells her it was "The man in the tan overalls" and Sachs believes him, however none of the rest of the police department do. She subsequently breaks him out of jail. The rest of the police, including Rhyme, are trying to track her down, and as they come up close Sachs accidentally shoots one of the deputies dead. She is distraught, and is now being hunted for murder. Eventually they reach Garret's safe house, where he reveals that he was lying about the man in the tan overalls, but he never meant to hurt Mary-Beth. Once a small group of police arrive, along with Thom and Rhyme, they are attacked by a group of local gun- nuts who are attempting to get the reward of $2000 that Mary-Beth's mother has put up. They shoot several deputies dead and are eventually killed by Sachs and one of the deputies, Lucy. Inside the hut it is revealed that Thom has been shot. Back in town, Sachs and Garret are in jail and Thom is in the hospital. Rhyme is curious and thinks things do not fit into place correctly, and eventually confides in Bell that he believes the murders in the town are accountable to a local businessman manufacturing an illegal pesticide. Anyone asking questions about why they were getting ill were killed. It is revealed that numerous deputies in the department are 'in' on the scheme, and have even helped in killing some of the townsfolk. Rhyme also says that he believes that the businessman had Garret's family killed, and a car crash framed, because they refused to sell the land around their house so the businessman could have shipments of the pesticide transported up the river. It is at this point that Bell reveals he is in on it, and attempts to murder Rhyme with a sample of the harmful pesticide they have been analyzing. Lucy, the deputy who helped shoot the gun nuts earlier, is listening and they run in and restrain Bell, who is frustrated to see that Rhyme has tricked him and the sample of the pesticide was merely 'moonshine'. He is arrested. Garret is freed, Mary-Beth has dropped the charges, as Garret was acting to defend her. She unearths the remains of his family, and it earns her a spot on the list of people who are a risk to the business. Sachs is still in jail and is accepting a guilty plea in return for a reduced sentence of 5 years in prison. She is about to be sentenced when Rhyme bursts in with evidence that the deputy she shot was in on the murders, allowing Sachs to be freed on the grounds that her victim was a criminal engaged in pursuit of an officer and thus legitimately making her 'crime' self-defence. Later, Rhyme is in hospital, Thom is going to live and Rhyme is going to undergo the major spine surgery he has postponed while he searched for Mary-Beth. As he is wheeled in, Lydia, the nurse who had been kidnapped earlier, follows him in apparently to thank him and wish him luck. As he is going under anesthesia she reveals to him that she was the sheriff's mistress, and had been reporting who in the town had developed cancer due to pesticide poisoning so that those people could be silenced. As he is trying to fight off the effects of the anesthesia she ominously tells him "accidents happen in spinal surgery". Luckily Sachs notices that Lydia entered a closed surgery ward, and remembers that she is not a neurosurgery nurse, but an oncology nurse, and runs in, realizing what is going to happen. The novel ends with Rhyme, Sachs, Lucy, Thom and Garret in the local cemetery. They are burying the remains of Garret's family. It is hinted that Lucy is to become Garret's foster mother. Rhyme does not have the surgery and is now back on the ventilator, after going into shock as Lydia attempted to stop his oxygen flow, requiring another year to regain his original physical status until he is fit to have the operation again. ===== The novel continues the story of Dermot Michael Coyne and his wife, Nuala Anne McGrail. They now have three children: Mary Margaret (called "Nelliecoyne"), Michael Dermod (called "The Mick"), and Socra Marie (often referred to, in Dermot's personal narration, as the "Tiny Terrorist" or some variation on that title). They also have two dogs, named Fiona and Maeve. Dermot and Nuala decide to employ Damian Thomas O'Sullivan, the youngest son of John Patrick "Jackie" O'Sullivan, as a caretaker for their dogs. However, upon employing Damian, Dermot and Michael find out that Damian is on probation for allegedly running over a man in a traffic collision, and that Damian is also generally disliked by his entire family. Dermot and Nuala become determined to prove Damian's innocence, much to the contempt of John O'Sullivan, who treats Damian as inferior because Damian chose to be a painter rather than pursue a more serious profession. Throughout the novel, Dermot reads the journal of Reverend Richard James Lonigan, a nineteenth century priest in Donegal. Lonigan dealt with two stressful issues in his life: strained relations between the Irish citizens of Donegal and the British officials who patrolled the area; and a strong attraction to his housekeeper, a widow named Mrs. O'Flynn. In the journals Lonigan wrote that one man in Donegal was killed and another was wounded, both by gunshot. In both cases the assassin is not revealed. Nuala, who is believed to be "fey", claims that she knows the solution to both mysteries: who really ran over the man with the O'Sullivan car, and who shot the two people in Donegal. At the end of the novel she tells Dermot which people committed the crimes, although her theories cannot be proven. Dermot's sister, Cindy, defends Damian successfully in court, thus clearing Damian's name. ===== At the start of the game, Ryu Hayabusa is responding to an attack in his village as he rushes to a shrine where the leader of the attack was holed up in. Defeating him, the leader reveals that he was hired by a man named Totenkopf who was a smuggler who sells weapons to a variety of clients. Attempting to find out why would someone would steal the Dragon Sword, Ryu infiltrates the boat and kills Totenkopf, revealing a man named Mr. Tsin who he was selling weapons to in Hong Kong. Ryu defeats Mr. Tsin but not without being captured and brought to India where the person who wants the Dragonsword to start World War III reveals himself to be Shiragane, a demon capable of mind control and with the power of the Dragon Sword, can effectively have almost unlimited power in dominating over the minds of others. Ryu kills him and brings an end to another threat of the world. ===== Ryu Hayabusa is a member of the Dragon Ninja clan, who have protected Japan for generations. One day he is away from home, he receives a message that the Dragon Village, home of the Dragon clan, has been brutally massacred. He rushes home finding that all but one of the village members have been killed. The last survivor of the village tells Ryu with his dying breath that the sacred Bushido scroll has been stolen. The Bushido is a scroll of power so strong that its owner can control the world. As the last Ninja of the Dragon clan, the fate of the world is in its hands. He embarks on a trip to regain the Sacred Scroll of Bushido from the hands of the evil Shogun of Darkness and his minions. Some of the minions Ryu must he must first take on and defeat are the Sumo Wrestler, Yakuza Oyabun, Tsutenkaku Samurai, Jetpack Soldier, Ice Monster, and the Stone Golem. There are two versions of the game that exist; the first version tells the story through the eyes of Ryu himself, explaining his experiences in great detail and the second version is narrated from an outside source, but some details of the plot are not explained as much. Furthermore, certain dialogue and names vary between the two versions as well. ===== The story begins with Samantha (Julianne Nicholson) breaking up with Allegra (Elizabeth Reaser), a lesbian author who has had relationship problems in the past. Allegra meets a man named Philip (Justin Kirk) at a party, with whom she feels a connection. The next day, she meets Grace (Gretchen Mol), Philip's ex- girlfriend, although Allegra does not know about it. Allegra and Philip begin seeing each other, and Philip leaves Grace for good. Allegra sees Grace outside of a movie theater and Grace cries about her boyfriend leaving her. Allegra goes on a date with Philip, but she leaves after thoughts in her mind tell her it is wrong to be with a guy. Allegra goes back and forth on dates with Philip and Grace. After several more dates, Grace shows Allegra a picture of her ex-boyfriend, and she learns that Philip and Grace were together. Philip and Grace go out for dinner, where they reveal to each other that they are seeing someone else. Meanwhile, Allegra caters at a party, which turns out to be Samantha's engagement party. Philip and Grace show up at the party, and they both discover that they have been seeing the same woman. In the end, Allegra is back with Samantha and never sees Philip and Grace again. ===== Harvey Bellinger (Beau Bridges), his wife Lydia (Rosanna Arquette), and their two teenage kids live a well-to-do life in suburbia. This changes, however, when their seventeen-year-old son puts video cameras around their house, and starts to broadcast the family's actions live on the internet. When Harvey finds out about this, he is angry and appalled. But when he realizes that money can be made with the internet broadcasts, the Bellingers start acting crazier, eventually leading to Harvey blowing up the house to get rid of the cameras. ===== ===== Andrew (Steven Brand) meets a young Russian girl, Daria, while on vacation in Europe and falls in love. He goes to Moscow, where he meets Daria's father (Rade Sherbedgia), a rich Russian mafia oligarch, and becomes entwined with his situation, which places them both in grave danger. ===== The story is set in Acadia, which is ruled by its queen, Cassiopeia and her adviser and magician, Solon. Princess Andromeda (Andie) is highly intelligent, finds life in the royal palace dull, and seeks the approval of her mother. When she comes up with the idea of writing up what she's learned from her studies into actionable reports for her mother's chief adviser, she finally gets the acceptance she so craves. Her mother and the adviser call on her assistance in identifying problems, researching difficult points of law, and even give her a new staff with instructions to make her look better. When Andie finds reports that relate Acadia's wealth to mysterious shipwrecks, the plot becomes complicated. A dragon shows up on Acadia, even though there hasn't been one in the country's entire previous history. Traditionally, marauding dragons are soothed only by a virgin sacrifice so the frightened people of Acadia devise a lottery system to choose the victims, while they await a Champion. However something is preventing the sent-for Champions from coming to the kingdom. When Andie is chosen as sacrificial victim she plans to escape. When Andie is tied up awaiting the dragon and busy retrieving picklocks from her hair to release herself, Sir George arrives to confront the dragon; who despite being an excellent fighter is unable to finish off the dragon. Perplexed by the events, Andie offers to help Sir George track the dragon to its lair and complete their job. When George and Andie find the dragon, they discover another problem, there are two dragons being guarded by a group of angry virgins. The group are able to resolve any misunderstandings and get to the root of the problem. A wizard cast a spell, calling the dragons, Adamant and his brother Periapt, to Acadia. The dragons weren't too keen on this idea, and decided to try and rectify things. Sir George is able to clear things up by explaining why he was sent over. The wizard cast a barrier around the kingdom; a clause in his spell prevents any man from entering to fight the dragons. However, George is no man, instead George is Gina, a female Champion. Andie realizes that the wizard can only be Solon, who secretly has been manipulating Cassiopeia the whole time. The motley group decide they need to stop him. With the Tradition helping them, Gina training the girls and Andie and Periapt on tactical side, they seem unstoppable. Unfortunately Andie is reluctant to face off her mother; she is even more distressed when she realizes she has fallen in love with Periapt. The climactic battle becomes a fight for life and things scale out of control when the Royal Palace starts burning down. Godmother Elena arrives to sort things out, when it seems that Andie can’t let go of Periapt, who declares his love for Andie, and Gina and Adamant reveal they’re in love as well. Using the Tradition, Elena is able to transform Gina into a dragon and Periapt into a man. The two couples have a double wedding, Andie and Periapt watch as the two dragons fly off for a honeymoon. ===== Within the Kanagawa prefecture lies the seaside city of Umineko. There, Kaname Okiura, a student in his 2nd year of high school, attends , or Umisho for short. He is also the manager of the Umisho's swim team though he himself doesn't know how to swim. In fact, he is afraid of the water stemming from an incident which occurred some years ago. While he was at the beach, he had nearly drowned when a 'mermaid' pulled him under the water. He joined the school's swimming club in order to learn how to swim, but the club is filled with weirdos, who don't teach him swimming. One day, a floating house arrives at the shores of Umisho bearing two persons. One of these is a cheerful, sunny, happy-go-lucky girl named Amuro Ninagawa, a transfer student to Umisho, and the other is her father. Her incredible swimming speed makes her an instant hit with the swimming club, but Okiura is surprised, as she reminds him of the mermaid he saw only once in his early childhood. After her floating house is destroyed during a storm she moves to Kaname's house. The fictional island, where the series is set, is modeled on the real island of Enoshima in Fujisawa, Kanagawa. ===== Following the death of her husband, Ruth Matthews moves her family to a quiet suburb, hoping to put the past behind them. While her son Michael is able to adapt, her daughter, Sally, is apparently traumatized by the experience and starts displaying unusual behavior. Ruth is later court mandated to see Jake Beerlander, an expert in child autism, to help Sally. ===== Steve (Daniel Hirsch), Larry (Tom Shell), and Rip (Jared Moses) are part of a paintball team known as "The Zero Boys". After winning a paintball tournament, they decide to celebrate. When the trio and their girlfriends take a leisure trip into the mountains, they stumble upon the most gruesome massacre in history. Blood-chilling screams lead the group to a deserted cabin, where they gradually discover the horrors of the killings and the evil causing it. Now the Zero Boys, armed with real weapons of their own, must do what comes best - destroy the enemy. ===== In Phoenix, Arizona, Harry Collins is a cop whose compulsive gambling has indebted him to a local gangster, Chicago. As his losses mount and time counts down, Collins resorts to exploiting a young woman, Veronica, that he has picked up to distract his friends in a poker game. Despite the successful distraction, he still loses, and he rejects Veronica's sexual advances, as he considers her to be bad luck. When Collins drops her off at her house, Veronica's mother sees her daughter in tears and glares at Collins. Collins later tracks down Veronica's mother, Leila, and defends himself, stating that he did not have sex with her. Unimpressed, Leila rebukes him, which causes him to reassess his behavior and offer a sincere apology. Surprised by his apology, Leila slowly warms to Collins, and they begin a romance. Having lost his lucky lighter, Collins asks her for a keepsake, but Leila tells him that he must make his own luck and avoid whatever trouble in which he's become involved. Meanwhile, Chicago cuts off Collins from his bookies and gives him 48 hours to either repay his debt or murder Joey, a young suspect held in custody. Mike Henshaw, Collins' corrupt partner, suggests murdering Chicago, but Collins, unwilling to welch on a bet or murder Joey, decides instead to rob Louie, a local loanshark. Collins recruits Henshaw and another corrupt cop, James Nutter, and, over their objections, brings in a more strait-laced cop, Fred Shuster. Unknown to the others, Shuster has discovered that his wife, Katie, is having an affair with Henshaw. Distraught and feeling betrayed, Shuster agrees to work with Lt. Webber to bring down the corrupt cops. However, the robbery is botched when the trigger-happy Henshaw kills Louie before he can open the safe. Collins hires a local locksmith to crack Louie's safe, and the group splits up. Collins and Shuster arrive at the meeting point, but Lt. Webber is already there; Webber betrays Shuster, killing him, and shoots Collins in the gut. Collins escapes, but Webber steals the money. Nutter and Henshaw, suspecting that Collins has betrayed them, arrive at the meeting point and discover Shuster's body. Before they can track down Collins and kill him, they are surrounded by the police. When Nutter attempts to surrender, Henshaw kills him; Henshaw is killed in turn by the other cops. Collins hitches a ride back to town and surprises Katie and Webber, who are having an affair. Over their objections, Collins burns most of the money while denouncing them both for betraying Fred. After alerting the cops to Webber's involvement, Collins takes enough money to pay off his gambling debt and meets with Chicago. Amused, Chicago accepts the money but mocks Collins' reluctance to murder Joey; Chicago reveals that he has had Joey murdered in prison and points out that had Collins simply murdered Joey, all of this trouble could have been avoided. Enraged, Collins kills Chicago and his bodyguards, then stumbles back to his car, where he apparently dies of his wounds. ===== Structurally, The Tenderness of Wolves is divided into four parts: “Disappearance”, “The Fields of Heaven”, “The Winter Partners”, and “The Sickness of Long Thinking”. The novel opens with the discovery of the murder of a French trapper and trader named Laurent Jammet. Mrs. Ross, the protagonist and first-person narrator of the novel, finds the mysterious trapper in his isolated cabin on the outskirts of settlement called Dove River. Mrs. Ross brings the murder to the attention of the town's magistrate, Andrew Knox, who then calls upon the Hudson's Bay Company to investigate the murder. This brings three men from the Company to Dove River: Mackinley, the leader, Donald Moody, an accountant, and Jacob, a native guide who works for the company and who has named himself Moody's personal protector. Mrs. Ross’ son, Francis, also goes missing on the day that Jammet is found. News of Jammet's unfortunate end travels south as well, bringing it to the attention of Thomas Sturrock, a former journalist and retired searcher whose talents have endeared him to many Indian tribes. His interest in Jammet concerns not so much the man himself but what he possessed. Specifically, Jammet had a small bone tablet with unidentified markings on it in which Sturrock was extremely interested. Sturrock did not have the funds, at the time, to buy it from Jammet, who promised to keep the tablet safe until Sturrock could afford it. Once he hears of the murder, however, Sturrock sets off for Dove River, hoping to discover the fate of the tablet. The mix of people concerned with the death further expands with the addition of William Parker, who is a half- Native American trapper. Initially, he is suspected of having committed the murder and subsequently detained. He is soon released, however, and then becomes Mrs. Ross's guide in her quest to find her son. Once all of these characters have been introduced, the novel then follows their respective journeys—and the discoveries they make along the way—through a land gripped by winter. ===== In the small Australian town of Yackandandah, Vince owns the local cinema and several other businesses, and is having trouble paying his taxes because his ex-wife got everything. The news of a new tax benefit for homosexual couples gives Vince an idea: he and best friend Ralph, a mechanic, can claim to be a couple and receive the benefits. Two complications develop: because of a careless mail delivery person, the postmaster sees their application for benefits and tells one person, and soon the whole town knows. Also, the national government is sending an investigator to make sure the men's relationship is legitimate. Vince and Ralph take lessons in passing as gay from hairdresser Eric. They also visit Sydney and spend time at a gay club. Russell, the investigator, shows up early, and so does Ralph's daughter Carla, who wants to introduce Peta, her girlfriend. It turns out that while Ralph is not gay, Carla is. Ralph and Vince redecorate Ralph's house and complete their interview, and they attend the local Fireman's Ball. Since Russell is there, Ralph and Vince have to continue their charade. Also, their friends from Sydney's gay club show up. Ralph makes a big speech about how his relationship with Vince is no one's business, and that their friends from out of town are normal people despite how they look. Carla is shocked by what her father has done, though Peta is pleased to learn about Ralph. Russell tells the men he was not convinced in the interview, but he believes they are good people with a special relationship and should not be treated like criminals. ===== Keneely and Farrell are detectives with the LAPD vice squad. Although they show great talent for breaking up prostitution and drug rings, many of these enterprises are protected by crime boss Carl Rizzo, who exerts his influence throughout the city and the department. Evidence is altered before trial, colleagues refuse to help with basic policework, and the detectives are pushed to pursue other cases—mostly stakeouts on gay bars and public lavatories. After personally confronting Rizzo, Keneely and Farrell are brutally beaten while investigating one of his prostitutes. Frustrated but without any legal options, they resort to harassing Rizzo and his establishments, warding off customers and following his family around the city. Soon, Rizzo is rushed to the hospital for a heart condition. Realizing that he also used a medical emergency as an alibi during a previous drug sale, Keneely and Farrell head to the hospital and discover that drugs are trading hands there, hidden in flower pots. Rizzo escapes in an ambulance, while Keneely and Farrell make chase in another. The chase ends when both ambulances crash; although Keneely holds Rizzo at gunpoint, Rizzo laughs that the evidence against him is circumstantial—and, at most, will result in a light sentence. The film ends on a freeze-frame of Keneely's face as Rizzo dares him to shoot. In a voice-over, Keneely applies to an employment agency, claiming that he doesn't know why he left his job at the LAPD—finally concluding that he "needed a change." ===== On the edge of the vast forests of Russia, where wolves still roam, lies a little cottage surrounded by a big, high fence. This is where Peter lives with his grumpy grandfather. Pete is an 11-year-old boy who is constantly picked on by the town's people and his grandfather will not let Peter go out into the forest. Peter has a friend, the lovable Ducky (a runner duck in this version), with whom he hangs around grandfather's yard. A bird (a hooded crow in this version) with a broken wing arrives in the yard. Bird is very impatient with Peter and signals to go into the forest. His heart beating fast, Peter tiptoes into the cottage and reaches over his sleeping grandfather and his snoring, overweight tabby cat. Ever so carefully Peter takes the keys to the gate. Peter has the time of his life playing in the forest with his friends. He helps the bird to fly, using a balloon and some rope. Then everyone skates on the frozen lake. Everyone, that is, except the cat. She lunges at the bird to eat him, but is so fat that she crashes straight through the ice and into the freezing water. Grandfather awakes and sees that Peter is in the forest. Very angry, he grabs his gun and rushes outside. He grabs Peter off the ice, drags him back into the cottage and locks the fence. Suddenly the forest goes quiet. Peter looks out through a hole in the fence and sees the wolf on the edge of the forest. The cat manages to climb up the tree for safety, but the wolf swallows the duck whole. Peter slings a heavy net over his shoulder and climbs up the fence and into the tree. Peter falls from the tree and the wolf attacks him. Eventually, after a long and fierce struggle, Peter catches the wolf in the net. Peter's grandfather drives into town with the captured wolf, Peter standing, triumphant, on top of the wolf's cage. However, the people do not acknowledge Peter's success and his grandfather takes credit for the wolf's capture. The bird's broken wing heals and is able to fly again. The town bullies (the very same who pick on Peter) arrive and chastise the defenseless wolf with a gun. After looking into the wolf's sorry eyes and having become disillusioned with both his grandfather as well as the town for its poor treatment to them both, Peter opens the cage and the wolf races back into the forest. The ending is a complete departure from the original, in which the wolf is presumably left caged in the zoo. Throughout the latter parts of the story, the duck can be heard quacking inside the wolf, implying it is still alive. ===== The film is set 200 years ago, with the royal procession of Raja Harimansingh of the sultanate of Bijapur, stranded near the Kali Pahari (the Black Mountain). The Raja is concerned because his daughter Princess Rupali has disappeared near the lair of the devil-worshipper Samri. The princess wanders into the ruins of an old fortress and is promptly captured and tortured by the villainous Samri. His trademark attack is mesmerising the hapless victims apparently sucking out their life force through the eyes, causing their natural eyes to be replaced with demonic white shades. During this process, Samri's eyes gleam blood red. Raja Harimansingh catches Samri in this terrible act and orders the soldiers to capture him. Samri is put on trial, where his terrible litany of crimes is read. He has performed various heinous acts to please his demonic spirit masters and enhance his own evil powers. While the rajpurohit (royal priest) suggests Samri be subjected to pure Agni i.e. to be cremated, the Raja proposes another sentence—Samri is to be decapitated, with the headless body to be buried behind the old temple at Kalighat and the head secured in a strong-box to be kept at the Raja's haveli (mansion). Samri pronounces his curse upon the Raja: "So long as my head is away from my body, every woman in your line shall die at childbirth; and when my head is rejoined to my body, I will arise and wipe out every living person in your dynasty." As the years pass, the princely states merge into the Indian republic after years of British Colony Rule, and the great-great-grandson of Raja Harimansingh, Thakur Ranvir Singh, known for his royal roles), now resides in the city. Samri is long gone, but not forgotten. His evil legend is passed from father to son in the Harimansingh clan. Ranvir Singh's wife died at the birth of his daughter Suman. Suman, now a college student, has a boyfriend Sanjay. When the Thakur learns about their relationship, he severely disapproves of their relationship ostensibly because Sanjay is not of royal birth. Suman is unaware of the ancient curse and resolute in her love, and Sanjay is steadfast in standing by her. They try to confront the intractable Thakur and the latter succumbs and reveals the curse which has been terrorising their families for 200 years. However Suman leaves her home in the middle of the night and convinces Sanjay to accompany her to Bijapur where they can track. They head down to Bijapur accompanied by Sanjay's bosom buddy Anand with his wife Sapna. The haveli has a painting of Raja Harimansingh; this painting shifts its gaze when Suman looks at it; and the eerie likeness of Samri appears through it. Anand and Sanjay smash the wall behind the painting and uncover the strong box that holds Samri's head. Misinterpreting the head to be potentially that of a brave soldier who incurred the king's displeasure, they head back with the intention of sealing the wall the next day. Samri's undead head mesmerises him putting him into a trance. Sanga brings the head to the body behind the old temple and rejoins it in a gruesome ritual by piercing his hand with a dagger and the blood falls on Samri's neck, making Samri whole. Samri begins his murderous rampage to eliminate the descendants of Raja Harimansingh. Misunderstandings and tensions claim the lives of many townspeople and Anand meets a horrific death at the hands of Samri. Thakur Ranvir Singh arrives but he does not know the means to defeat the bloodthirsty Samri. People seek refuge at the temple as Samri cannot enter that holy ground. They perform aarti to Lord Shiva. Divine guidance comes before Sanjay; the trishul holds the key to check the monster. Sanjay and Suman return to the haveli to seek the trishul and offer a battle to Samri. Durjan had moved the trishul to a different location within the haveli itself. After a series of tumultuous events, Sanjay manages to trap Samri in a coffin and, with the trishul in hand to check the monster, drags him out to the village square (next to the old temple). There, they construct a hasty pyre and burn Samri alive once and for all. ===== Described as a comedy/drama/musical/romance, the story revolves around a Ukrainian immigrant named A.K. (Eugene Hütz) who finances his dreams of rock glory by moonlighting as a cross-dressing dominatrix and his two female flatmates: Holly (Holly Weston), a ballet dancer who works as a stripper and pole-dancer at a local club and Juliette (Vicky McClure), a pharmacy assistant who dreams of going to Africa to help starving children. The Gypsy punk band that appears in the film is portrayed by real-life Gypsy punk band, Gogol Bordello, who also contributed three songs to the film's soundtrack. The band's lead singer, Hütz, portrays the main character – a character with a philosophical attitude towards life. Madonna allowed additional dialogue written by Hütz himself to be included in the film. ===== As with other Kai Lung novels, the main plot serves primarily as a vehicle for the presentation of the gem-like, aphorism-laden stories told by the protagonist Kai Lung, an itinerant story-teller of ancient China. In Kai Lung's Golden Hours he is brought before the court of the Mandarin Shan Tien on charges of treason by the Mandarin's confidential agent Ming-shu. In a unique defense, Kai Lung recites his beguiling tales to the Mandarin, successfully postponing his conviction time after time until he is finally set free. In the process he attains the love and hand of the maiden Hwa-Mei. ===== Saga returns to his village after a long absence, and finds that his father has married Nogma, his fiancee, during his leave. Nogma has become his second wife, and by law, Saga's mother. Saga runs away and builds a straw hut near the village. Still in love, Saga and Nogma begin an affair, with Nogma telling her parents she is going to visit her aunt, then running to Saga's hut. After the affair is discovered, Saga's father decrees that he must die for dishonoring the family. Nogma's father hangs himself from a tree, and Nogma is disowned by her mother at her father's funeral. Saga's brother Kougri is selected to execute Saga. He pretends to kill Saga so as to restore the family's honor. Saga and Nogma then run away to another village, and the family falls apart. As Saga and Nogma begin to build a life, Nogma tells Saga that she is pregnant. Meanwhile, Kougri comes to regret his failure to kill Saga. After Saga's birth mother dies, Saga returns to the village, exposing Kougri's failure to carry out his father's orders. Kougri's father tells him he is banished. Kougri then picks up Saga's rifle and shoots him for having brought ruin to the family and his own life. He then walks off into exile and probable death. ===== As the name of the module implies, each of these mini-adventures is designed to focus on a unique treasure in the World of Greyhawk. Such treasures include the Helm of Selnor, the Eye of Nyr Dyv, the Face of Xenous, and the Sword of Azor'alq.. ===== Literature detective Thursday Next, who has the ability to travel between the RealWorld and the BookWorld, disappears before stopping a genre war. Her BookWorld counterpart, Thursday Next, receives a call from the BookWorld Policing Agency because an unknown book narrative is falling from above. The written Thursday Next and Sprockett, a mechanical butler, attempt to discover the reason for the falling narrative and find the RealWorld Thursday Next, while The Men in Plaid try to stop them. ===== Pedro (Alberto Closas) and Julián (Rafael Alonso) are friends and they love the same woman, Adela (Conchita Montes). Madrid, 1905, Pedro and Adela had gotten married but Julian live with them. 1930. Adela discovers she is going to die and the two men had hidden the illness. 1955. Adelita (Conchita Montes), Adela's grand daughter, visits to the two men and they remember their love to Adele. ===== Tong Jia Di (Rainie Yang) led a normal life. Non-stop working and outstanding debts can so called, her uniqueness. Her best friend, Jiang Xiao Nan (Michelle Chen) wants Jia Di to fall in love and she tries to set Jia Di up. Xiao Nan carried out her first plan at a carnival by selling exchange coupons that she wrote on. There, Jia Di meets the two sons of the owner of the company, Huo Yan (Kingone Wang) and Huo Da (Mike He), who buy exchange coupons from Jia Di. Then, on her 20th birthday, Xiao Nan wishes that Jia Di will ask the tenth guy who passes by for his phone number. Huo Da and Huo Yan had a bet and are in an accident on motor bikes they ended up with broken arms (Huo Yan) or broken legs (Huo Da) This resulted in the trio meeting again. During this meeting, Jia Di asks for Huo Yan's phone number which he obliged, however his phone number was accidentally mentioned in their class that it was used online for a bad site which made Huo Yan mistrust Jia Di but they were able to patch things up. Huo Da's dislike for Jia Di soon changes after Jia Di fulfills her roles in accordance to the "angel-owner" service coupon that Huo Da bought. Huo Da soon found out that he had fallen in love with Jia Di. Eventually, Huo Yan and Huo Da both fall in love with Jia Di, and try to win her over in their own ways and Jia Di is soon caught in a love triangle. The drama details the struggle between the half- brothers over Jia Di. However, Jia Di falls in love with Huo Da. Later on, Huo Da is diagnosed with Wilson's disease and is dying. He chose not to reveal his illness to anyone except Yan Shu. Assuming that he will die soon, Huo Da acts coldly in front of Jia Di and even tells Huo Yan that he can have her. Jia Di eventually finds out what happened. She encourages Huo Da to live on for love. Meanwhile, Huo Yan tries to find ways to cure his younger brother's sickness. He soon finds out that his brother will need a liver donation and the former is the only suitable donor. Huo Yan agrees to undergo the transplant despite his heart problems. Viewers are led to believe that the operation ended badly for Huo Da, but it was eventually shown that he happily survived. ===== Nick Freeman (David Essex) is an aspiring motorcycle racer, whose brother has been developing an experimental motorcycle. When his brother dies before being able to test and race the new bike, Nick inherits the responsibility to prove his brother's design. In spite of a series of tough setbacks, including the loss of his girlfriend, Nick goes into the big race at the British Grand Prix with all his energy and concentration bent on winning. However, an underhanded American racer (Beau Bridges) is also among the competitors, and is determined to ruin Nick's chances. Numerous incidents happen before Nick crosses the finish line in first place. Two completely different endings were filmed depicting Nick after he has won the race, and both versions were released. ===== The story begins with the death of Orchid's mother. Empress Orchid's son Tung Chih is also beginning to hate her, much to her despair. In 1849, the Selection of Imperial begins for him is completed. The chosen Empress is a "cat-eyed, eighteen-year-old beauty" called Alute. Orchid's preferred selection for Empress was the daughter of a provincial governor named Foo-cha. It was only due to Empress Nuharoo's rank as the higher wife that Alute was chosen. The Selection of Imperial is followed by the suspicious death of Orchid's close friend and eunuch An-te-hai. His death had a great emotional impact on Empress Orchid. Around one year later, tension begins to mount between Orchid and Alute. Orchid becomes irritated at Alute's lack of co-operation, and is further annoyed with Alute's rude attitude towards her. Her annoyance soon turns to happiness when Alute claims that she is pregnant with Tung Chih's first child. Tung Chih's illness worsens and in 1875 he dies with his mother beside him. Empress Orchid refuses to give up her power, as she believes that Alute only sees the "glamour and glory" of being an Empress. As well as this, she also believes that Alute has little experience with political and court matters – thus rendering her unsuitable for the role as Empress of China. Orchid also realises that Alute may have been mentally disturbed. Yet these possibilities had no effect on foreign journals describing Orchid as a violent character who contributed to the death of her son – whilst portraying Alute as the protagonist of the event. Many foreign reports and articles soon begin printing false reports of Orchid's actions as ruler of China, suggesting that she is solely responsible for China's decline due to her cruel regime. However, such stories are seemingly published only to justify further invasions of China. After the death of Tung Chih and Alute, Orchid adopts her sister Rong's son Tsai-t'ien. Orchid then renames her nephew Guang-hsu upon his succession to the Dragon Throne. Initially, Orchid felt no motherly love for her nephew as she only adopted him to prevent his death at Rong's hand. However, a mother-son bond eventually forms between the two. Shortly after the appointment of Guang-hsu as Orchid's successor, her love Yung Lu announces that he is planning to marry and move away to faraway Sinkiang. Soon after Orchid realises that she is no longer at full health, she receives information that Empress Nuharoo has collapsed from illness. Nuharoo dies, and rumours suggest that Orchid is responsible. Several years later (after increasing attacks by foreign countries), Orchid and Guang-hsu move to Ying-t'ai. An assassination attempt is made on her life. After Guang-hsu learns of the mistake he made that almost cost Orchid's life, he becomes deeply shamed and loses the will to live. His attempted reform of China also fails, and he too succumbs to illness. Attacks by a rebellion group named the Boxers soon force Orchid, Guang-hsu and their servants to flee. They return to the Forbidden City after the attacks subside. From this point, Orchid's health deteriorates further. During this time, she meets with Robert Hart, an important contributor to the stability of China's economy. On November 14, 1908, Emperor Guang-hsu dies. Orchid also dies the following day, after appointing her grandnephew Puyi as her successor. ===== In the rural town of Fly Creek, Georgia, a powerful storm blows down an overhead power line, leaving the area without electricity. The power line lands in wet mud and electrifies the worms underneath. The next morning, Geri Sanders borrows a truck from her neighbor, worm farmer Roger Grimes, to pick up her boyfriend Mick, who is arriving from New York City for a vacation. While Geri and Mick go to town, Roger's shipment of 100,000 bloodworms and sandworms escape from the back of the truck. Mick enters a diner, where a customer says over 300,000 volts are being released into the ground from severed power lines. He orders an egg cream and finds a worm in it, though the owner and Sheriff Jim Reston believe he is joking. Geri introduces Mick to her mother Naomi and sister Alma, before they both leave to browse at antique dealer Aaron Beardsley's house. Outside, Roger's father Willie finds the shipment of worms is missing. Roger sees Mick with Geri and becomes envious of their relationship. After arriving at Beardsley's house, Geri and Mick cannot find him, but Geri sees a human skeleton outside the property. They bring over Sheriff Reston but the skeleton disappears. Thinking it is another prank, Reston threatens to arrest Mick if he returns to the town. While asking locals about Beardsley's whereabouts, they find out he was last seen before the storm. Mick believes he himself unintentionally released the worms; he apologizes to Roger and invites him to go fishing with him and Geri. They find the skeleton in Roger's truck. While on the boat, Mick is bitten by a worm. Roger shows his bitten-off thumb and tells Mick and Geri that worms attack when electrified. Mick gets off the boat to tend to his wound, leaving Geri with Roger; Mick and Alma take the skeleton's skull to an abandoned dental office, where they compare its teeth with X-rays and confirm the skeleton is Beardsley's. Roger makes advances towards Geri, but the worms they brought as bait attack him and crawl into his face. He runs off into the woods and Geri tells Mick what happened. Mick and Geri visit the worm farm to find Roger, but Mick finds Willie's body being eaten by worms. They try telling Sheriff Reston, but he ignores them. Mick deduces the worms killed Beardsley but cannot figure out why they attacked him. While Mick and Geri are eating dinner with Naomi and Alma, the worms eat through the roots of a tree, causing it to crash into the house. Mick realizes electricity is still being released from the power lines and that the wet soil is acting as a conductor; he hypothesizes the worms only come out at night. Mick tells Geri to keep everyone inside equipped with candles and leaves to get plywood to board up the house. Roger, whose face has been deformed by worms, attacks Mick and knocks him unconscious. Roger enters the house and kidnaps Geri. The worms infest the house and attack other places in town. Sheriff Reston and a woman are eaten alive in a jail cell, and people at a bar are attacked and eaten. Mick regains consciousness and finds Naomi's remains, covered in worms, at the house. When he goes upstairs, Roger attacks and chases him downstairs. Mick pushes Roger into a pile of worms, which engulf him. Mick frees Geri and tells her that Naomi, and presumably Alma, are dead. While they try escaping through a window, Roger crawls out of the pile of worms and bites Mick in the leg. Mick beats Roger to death with a flashlight before climbing onto a tree with Geri, where they stay until morning. Upon waking up, they realize the worms had disappeared and a repairman informs them that the power has been restored. Alma, who survived by hiding in a chest, comes out and looks out the window. Geri and Mick rush into the house to meet her. ===== 150 years after the third world war, civilization has been wiped out by nuclear war and much of Earth is a scorched desert. One of the smaller tribes of the few survivors that are barely hanging on are led by Trapper, an adventurer. They must battle rival gangs for the few resources that remain After being told of a mysterious place where food is abundant. Trapper leads the tribe on a search for the Mountain of Life. The Mountain of Life is a near fabled area untouched by the nuclear holocaust, where residents have achieved eternal life. Along the way the enter a forest and encounter Giant Bill and his group, pygmy tribes with mystic healing powers, bands of savage outlaws and a tribe of Amazon women. The pygmies and Amazons live together. The technology level of the various tribes varies greatly The Mountain of Life is ruled by a warrior quen and an evil priest, and appears to be based on the Aztec or Mayan culture, although they do possess advanced technology. The high priest and the queen can shoot lasers from their eyes After a final battle between the queen and high priest, Trapper and his tribe elect to stay at the Mountain of LifeStanley, J. (2000) Creature Feature: 3rd Edition. ===== The story moves back and forth between the adolescence and present of successful author Michael Taylor and his extended family: domineering father, English professor Charles "Charlie"; his mother Lisa; his sister Ryne; as well as Lisa's much younger sister Jane (barely older than Michael – they act more like cousins, instead of aunt and nephew, since their childhood); her husband James "Jimmy"; their son Christopher and daughter Leslie. Included in the family mix is Michael's alcoholic ex-wife Kelly (Michael has only told Jane about the breakup). Charles and Michael have always had quite a strained father-son relationship, with both pushing the other further away. In a flashback to a boyhood road trip, the younger Michael claims to have lost his glasses, knowing full well he has them in his pocket; Charles makes Michael walk home in the rain as a punishment. This tit-for-tat and rule-breaking continues with Charles imposing on all around him, including Jane, who is staying with them as Lisa is expecting a baby boy that later turned out to be a girl (Ryne). She, too, hates Charles' domineering nature and sides with Michael against him. When Michael embarrasses Charles in front of his colleagues by falsely claiming to have written a poem, Fireflies in the Garden, by Robert Frost, he is punished by having to hold his weighted arms horizontal. Later, unable to lift his aching arms, he lets Jane feed him. The conflicts escalate, with Michael eventually intervening in a quarrel between his parents, attacking Charles and forcing him to the ground. Events in the present are driven by a catastrophe. While college senior Ryne picks up Michael at the airport, Charles and Lisa are driving hurriedly to Jane's house for a party in honor of Lisa's college graduation. Charles swerves to avoid colliding with Christopher (retrieving a ball in the road), and their car hits a tree, killing Lisa and severely hurting Charles. The adult Ryne and Michael arrive moments later. Michael attempts to cheer up Jane's children, telling them "Before your mother was a mom, she was my best friend." He takes them "fishing", exploding the caught fish with firecrackers, as he had done with Jane growing up. Concerned with what Charles and Jane will think, he encourages the children to lie to their mother about the firecrackers. Jane lovingly chastises Michael for making her kids lie, while Charles angrily chastises him for nearly everything he does. Michael having noisy sex with Kelly, who was notified by Jane about the funeral, does not help matters. Christopher's guilt and anxiety over the accident cause him to run off one day. Michael sees him running through a field and assures him that he is not to blame for "Aunt" Lisa's death. Christopher insists on walking home alone after their talk. Christopher remains missing for several hours, Jane again blaming Michael, though he eventually deduces that Christopher is at the grave site. More revelations and recriminations ensue, as Michael discovers that his mother was having an affair with her younger professor Addison, and had planned to leave Charles following her graduation. Jane learns from Kelly that she is pregnant (explaining her recent sobriety) and that Michael doesn't know. Michael has chosen the title of the Frost poem as the draft title of his upcoming book about his childhood. The book includes revelations of implied sexual misconduct between Charles and one of his students during Lisa's pregnancy. Charles' grief over the loss of Lisa, Michael's joy over his pending fatherhood, the happiness captured in a rare home movie with pregnant Lisa enjoying time with Charles, Michael and Jane help Charles and Michael begin to reconcile. No longer wanting to extend the harmful tit-for-tat with his father, Michael destroys the manuscript for his autobiography. Michael and Kelly then reconcile and they announce their news as soon-to-be parents to the family before they leave. While discussing baby names with Ryne and Kelly, Michael mentions that he likes the name "Max" for a boy; the name Lisa had intended if Ryne had been a boy. ===== Beth Ayers is stifled and bored by her role as California housewife. Her husband, a successful businessman named Charlie, is frustrated with her lack of affection towards their two children and her unwillingness to tell him why she's unhappy after being married for nine years. Beth becomes intrigued by a casual acquaintance named Vega Purvis, a chic modeling instructor who is physically ravaged by various illnesses, alcohol, and cigarettes. Vega's modeling business in decline after a vaguely detailed scandal. Beth knows Vega is a lesbian and connects her sexuality with Beth's own recurring dreams about Laura Landon, a girl with whom she had an affair in college. Vega calls Beth one evening and asks her to come to a hotel, where Vega shows her the scars that cover her body. Vega becomes emotionally dependent upon Beth over the next several months, as Beth becomes more possessed by the idea of finding Laura once more. Beth begins a correspondence with Nina Spicer, the author of several lesbian books she has been reading. After Beth and Charlie separate, Beth returns to Chicago in search of Laura, who she hasn't contacted in nine years. She learns from Laura's father that she left for New York City many years before. There, Beth and Nina team up to look for Laura in Greenwich Village's gay bars and nightclubs. Nina tests Beth to see whether she's really a lesbian or simply curious, while Beth uses Nina to get to Laura. Beth and Nina eventually sleep together. Afterwards, Beth learns that Vega has been committed to a mental hospital. Tired of Nina's games, Beth ventures to the bars to find Laura herself and finds Beebo Brinker, who is astounded to see her after considering Beth a rival for Laura's affections when they were together years ago. Beebo points Beth in the direction of Laura and Jack's apartment. Beth meets Jack first, who introduces her to their six-year-old daughter. The next morning, Beth surprises Laura and they immediately make love. However, after the surprise has worn off, Laura learns that Beth has left her husband and children, and hurt and angry still from being left long ago asks Beth to think about the reasons why she has embarked on this journey to find her. Beth returns to Greenwich Village and finds herself in Beebo's apartment after drinking too much. Discussing what she's done with Beebo, Beth realizes what she must face in order to know what she wants from life. Returning to her hotel, Beth is held hostage by a deranged Vega, who she eventually shoots herself. After being questioned, Charlie picks her up from the police station. After Beth asks for a divorce from Charlie, she tells Laura what she knows about herself now. Laura loves her as a friend. Beebo invites Beth back to her apartment after confessing she's fallen for her, and they go together hand in hand. ===== At the beginning of the novel Mueller has been given the possessions of a cousin, John Roger, who has recently died. Among them he finds the personal diaries of Dr John Dee, the Elizabethan Magus, Astrologer and Alchemist who served in the court of Queen Elizabeth I and was an ancestor of both Roger and the Baron. As the Baron reads the diaries, which deal with Dee's discovery of his special destiny as a Magus, his efforts to find the secret of immortality contained in the Philosopher's Stone and guide the future of England and his conversations with the Green Angel through the mediumship of the confidence trickster Edward Kelley, he realises not only that he is a descendant of Dee but may even be the reincarnated spirit of Dee himself. In so doing he begins to suspect and that the various people around him are also the reincarnated spirits of those who had played a crucial part in Dee's adventures - his housekeeper may be Dee's wife, Jane, his Russian acquaintance, Lipotin, may be the mysterious 16th Century Muscovite Mascee etc. Mueller finds himself the guardian of the Spear of Hywel Dda, another of his ancestor and part of the quest to prevent the Succubus-like figure of Black Isaïs from gaining control of it, thus completing the work Dee only part managed to achieve. As the book ends, Mueller vanquishes Isaïs in her form as the Princess Shotokalungin and becomes a Man of the Rose, part of a group of humans who have become immortal through their spiritual strivings whose task is to help mankind to develop and grow (a concept similar to that of Ascended masters or Secret Chiefs). ===== Track of the Moon Beast The film takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where mineralogist Paul Carlson (Chase Cordell) is struck by a lunar meteorite while observing a meteor shower. Lodged in his brain, the meteorite causes him to transform into a strong and vicious lizard (the titular "moon beast") whenever the moon comes out. In his lizard form, Paul loses all traces of his human self and goes about killing people at random. While human, Paul is subject to spells of dizziness and nausea, causing his girlfriend Kathy Nolan (Donna Leigh Drake) and friend and former anthropology professor, Johnny "Longbow" Salinas (Gregorio Sala), to become concerned. Eventually it is shown that Paul is the monster, and deduced that the meteorite fragment in his brain is the cause of his transformations. Plans are made to remove it from his skull, but the NASA brain surgeons realize, after another X-ray and Johnny remembering some Native American legends documenting similar phenomena, that the meteorite has disintegrated and will eventually cause Paul to self-combust. When Paul learns of this, he escapes into the desert on a motorcycle, presumably to kill himself so he will not cause any more harm. When Johnny recalls that Paul's favorite place was always Sandia Crest, Kathy, Johnny, and local law enforcement officers follow him there. Johnny shoots him with an arrow made of the original meteorite, which causes him to explode. ===== A 17-year-old high school journalist named Willie Wheeler (voiced by Micky Dolenz of The Monkees) and his girlfriend Dooley Lawrence (voiced by Susan Davis) solve crimes with the help of his superhero motorcycle Wonder Wheels. Whenever Willie goes into action, he utters his catchphrase: "This looks like a job for Won-won-won-won- won-won-won-won-won-won-won-won-wonder Wheels!" and at the press of a button, Willie's beat-up motorcycle transforms into a pimped out version with a mind of its own. ===== Told through a combination of pre-rendered cinematic sequences and in-game dialog, de Blob tells the story of Chroma City, its invasion by the INKT Corporation and its subsequent liberation by the titular Blob and the Color Underground. Initially a lively and colorful city populated by its equally colorful and diverse citizens, the Raydians, Chroma City is suddenly invaded by the INKT Corporation. A corporate military dictatorship, INKT is led by the villainous Comrade Black and dedicated to the eradication of color through its "War on Color". Chroma City quickly falls to the invading army of Inkies and color-draining Leechbots, leaving its landscape barren, its flora withered and its fauna in hiding. The citizens are rounded up and turned into "Graydians", encased in homogeneous gray prison suits distinguished only by a bar code on the back of each shell. The Graydians are forced to serve as both menial labor and as a living resource of ink, the latter of which is mined literally from their sadness. Blob witnesses the takeover of Chroma City from his jungle retreat and goes into action, first rescuing the only remaining pocket of resistance, the Color Underground. Blob joins the group, and under their orders, begins to win back sections of the city and arouse the vicious ire of Comrade Black. In response, Black orders everything from propaganda campaigns to the creation of super soldiers in an attempt to stop Blob, though to no avail. With nearly all of Chroma City in control of the Color Underground, Comrade Black desperately orders all his troops to retreat to his spaceship in Lake Raydia, and attempts to launch all the stolen color into a black hole where it will be lost forever. However, Blob manages to stowaway onto the spaceship and defeat Black, then detonates a device that devours the spacecraft in a burst of color and whimsy. With the Raydians finally safe, Blob returns to his jungle retreat, napping on a tree as he was at the story's beginning. ===== The Peace Tree tells the story of two little girls, one Muslim and one Christian, who dream of celebrating each other’s festivals, Christmas and Eid. But when they share their dreams, they are met with resistance from their parents who express their concerns. Through their struggles, they create a unique symbol—The Peace Tree, a tree that highlights the symbols from all our cultures and faiths to reflect the beauty of "diversity in unity". The Peace Tree shares the voices of the children who try to enlighten their parents to the importance of sharing and celebrating diversity together. The Peace Tree has been invited to over 50 film festivals including Tribeca Film Festival and received twelve international awards. ===== The son of a depressed but doting mother (Hope Davis) and a father who is serving time for tax evasion, wealthy teenager Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) — after being expelled from several private academies for various infractions — enrolls in a public school run by embittered alcoholic Principal Nathan Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.), who was formerly a history teacher. Unable to fit in with most of his fellow students, Charlie is diagnosed with ADHD. He forms an alliance with school bully Murphy Bivens (Tyler Hilton) and offers him half the proceeds from the sale of a variety of prescription drugs Charlie obtains by feigning physical and emotional symptoms during sessions with different psychiatrists. Before long, Charlie's natural charm and likability positions him as the school's resident therapist, offering advice within the confines of the boys' bathroom. Charlie's social life noticeably improves as he gains the confidence and admiration of the student body and begins to date the principal's rebellious daughter, Susan (Kat Dennings). Complications arise when seriously depressed Kip Crombwell (Mark Rendall) attempts suicide by swallowing a handful of anti-depressants provided by Charlie. Charlie befriends Kip after having an in-depth conversation with Principal Gardner. Charlie discovers Kip is writing a play about adolescent issues and pitches it to Gardner who is, at first, unsure but agrees when Kip says that it would make him less inclined to attempt suicide again. One day, Charlie comes by Susan's house to pick her up for a date and he gives her a pharmacy bag. Mr. Gardner comes out and, thinking the bag is full of "inappropriate items", attempts to grab Susan's to make her go into the house. Charlie warns Mr. Gardner not to touch Susan, but he pushes Charlie instead. Charlie then punches Gardner as a reflex, and even though he tries to apologize, the principal is not forgiving. Susan and Charlie drive off, and the bag turns out to contain a nicotine gum to help Susan quit smoking cigarettes. That night, the students are all in the student lounge when the cops arrive. They arrest Charlie for assault, Principal Gardner is fired, and the kids trash the lounge building. Charlie is released, and before the play, stops by Mr. Gardner's house to invite him. Charlie finds Mr. Gardner heavily intoxicated and waving a revolver. They get into a heated argument which culminates in Charlie falling into the pool after attempting to tackle Mr. Gardner, thinking he is about to commit suicide. Mr. Gardner, appearing sober, comes to his senses and dives into the pool to save Charlie and states that he was not attempting to commit suicide because he has too many responsibilities to do such a thing. They talk over their problems about Charlie's father and Susan, and then go to the play. Mr. Gardner takes up his old job as a history teacher again (and is now much happier), and Charlie finally gains the confidence to visit his father in prison (something he had felt uncomfortable about earlier in the film). The film ends with Charlie applying for a summer internship at a psychiatric institute. ===== The film is based loosely around events in December 1995 that culminated in the Rettendon murders of three drug dealers in Rettendon, Essex, UK. ===== Photographer Jordan Wells (Jonathan Tucker) is the son of a very wealthy family which have high expectations for him to take over his father's company. Instead, he has an infatuation with the natural beauty of a woman's naked body and engages in it by taking photos of nude models but excluding their faces for the sake of privacy, with their names known as the name of their favorite shade of lipstick. Unfortunately, the dean of his prep school finds out about his hobby and expels him. He is then transferred to a local public high school, where he then meets Shay Bettencourt, (Nikki Reed) a cellist aspiring to go to Hartley to become a cello player in a professional orchestra. When they first meet at the school library, they get into a heated intellectual argument about woman's rights concerning a book. Shay's friends are uninterested and urge her to leave, but she becomes attracted to Jordan. She mentions she knows about his past and his reasons for transferring schools and his photography hobby. They become friends and he offers to give her a ride home but when he returns to the house to visit Shay, he finds out that she does not live there at all. Jordan confronts Shay who admits to being ashamed of her low-income household which she shares with her drug addicted sister. Shay confides in Jordan that she has found a source of money for tuition at Hartley: an older married man named Wade Chandling (Frank Whaley) who frequents the country club Jordan's family attends. She says that he is going to get her a full scholarship by using some of his connections. Shay asks Jordan to photograph her and Wade in case he ever tries to back out of their deal. In exchange, Shay will allow Jordan to photograph her in any way he wants. Shay and Jordan form a sort of romantic relationship which is cut short when Shay finds out Wade is trying to back out their arrangement. Frustrated, Shay meets Wade in the woods and tries to blackmail him with the pictures Jordan took. However, Wade becomes angry and tries to attack Shay. Jordan tries to save Shay, but they both end up beating Wade to death. They then throw him into a nearby lake, attempt to cover up as much evidence as they can, and find ways to avoid implicating themselves when interviewed by detectives. Eventually, Detective Griffin (Michael O'Keefe) figures out Shay's connection to Wade's death, and tries to set up an exchange with evidence on Jordan for the money Shay stole from the dead Wade. He tries to arrest Jordan during the exchange, but Shay shoots Griffin instead. When Jordan is questioned by the police, Desiree (Julie Gonzalo), another romantic interest of Jordan, saves him by giving him an alibi. Shay tries to take the money and run away to where she'd never be found. She tries to convince Jordan to go along with her plan, but he refuses but allows Shay to have some of the money to get away. The film ends with Jordan driving away, narrating, "With a million dollars to decide what to do next." ===== Suraj (Ali) is a mischievous guy and his mother (Manju Bhargavi) is disappointed with his behavior. Suraj comes to know about his mother's past, his father is a Zamindar and owner of a palace called Swarna Palace, who died because of debts and they lost their entire property. Suraj swears on his mother to again buy their palace in any circumstances and make his mother happy. Lilly (Indraja) is a petty thief, a very greedy woman and Suraj falls in love with her at first sight, but she turns him down. Thota Ramudu (Tanikella Bharani), a rowdy opponent to Lilly, teases Suraj a lot and he falls sick. Meanwhile, in hell, Yamraj (Kaikala Satyanarayana) (God of death) and Chitragupt (Brahmanandam) misplace a book called Bhavishyavaani, which shows the future of man. The book somehow falls on the roof of Suraj's house, he benefits a lot by reading predictions of the future in the book and becomes rich and Thota Ramudu is surprised how Suraj became rich in a short time. Lord Brahma warns Yamraj and Chitragupt that within one month they should find the book, otherwise they lose their supernatural powers. On earth, Suraj again buys their palace and takes her mother to it and he asks her mother if she wants anything else. She asks him to get married, so Suraj again opens the book to see whether his marriage will happen with Lilly or not. He then reads that his mother will die that night at 10 PM. To fulfill his mother's last wish, Suraj plays a marriage drama with Lilly, but accidentally his mother does not die and Lilly reveals all this drama which leads to his mother's anger and she stops talking to him until he really brings back Lilly as her daughter-in-law. Meanwhile, Yamraj and Chitragupt reach earth in search of the book. As they reach earth, they face a lot of problems as everyone thinks of them as some drama company artists. Suraj saves them once and realizes that they are the real Yamraaj and Chitragupt and his mother didn't die because they do not have the book. To protect his mother, Suraj traps Yamraj with the help of a girl Lata. After some time, Yamraj gets to know the truth and also understands that the book is with Suraj. Yamraj asks him to give back the book, but he refuses. From that day, they try for the book in many ways, but fail. One day Thota Ramudu beats Suraj very badly for the secret behind his success, but he doesn't reveal it. Yamraj saves him and asks him why all this, he says for his mother's sake, then Yamraj understands his devotion towards her. Yamraj wants to meet her, Suraj invites them to his house without knowing their real faces and accidentally Yamraj blesses Suraj's mother for complete life. Meanwhile,Thota Ramudu wants to know the secret behind Suraj's success, and he asks Lilly to go and find out the secret. Lilly plays a love drama with Suraj and asks him the secret, he refuses to reveal it, she finally says he has to make a choice of her or his mother, then without any hesitation he chooses his mother and throws her out, then she understands his affection towards his mother and his love towards her. Finally, Thota Ramudu kidnaps Suraj's mother and blackmails him for the book. Yamraj takes advantage of the situation and Suraj gives the book to Thota Ramudu. Yamraj destroys him and collects the book. Finally, Yamraj comes to take Suraj mother's life, but she has complete life because of his blessings. ===== A woman named Jennifer (Kari Wuhrer)runs away from her abusive boyfriend, gives her baby up for adoption, and takes the next bus out of town. She ends up on the streets during a grim and cold winter in Toronto. She's taken in by a prostitute named Ola (played by Rae Dawn Chong). Ola happens to see the local pimp Hassan (Lou Diamond Phillips) murder another prostitute, but refuses to testify against him, knowing that Hassan has associates that would kill her if she snitched. A police officer named McClaren (Lance Henriksen) attempts to interrogate her, and when she refuses to talk she is deported to the USA. Ola eventually makes her way back to Toronto, and Jennefer greets her with relief. Feeling bad for not having found a job to help repay Ola's kindness, Jennifer asks for Ola’s help and becomes a prostitute with Ola taking her under her wing to learn the ropes. Jennifer is later confronted by her boyfriend, who has tracked her down with the intent of killing her for leaving him and putting their baby up for adoption behind his back. She eventually breaks free briefly and shoots him in self-defense, then abandoning his body in his car in a local alley. Meanwhile, Ola, convinced that Hassan had taken Jennefer and was forcing her to work for him and harm her like the rest of his girls, takes her gun and goes over to Hassan's house and demands to know where Jennifer is. Hassan tells her he does not have her, and after a verbal altercation, Ola is beaten violently by Hassan and left to die on the riverbank. Jennifer returns to Ola's apartment looking for her after having killed her boyfriend, but Ola is not there and nobody else seems to know where she is until one of Hassan's girls, Sheila, admits that she saw everything and that Ola is in the hospital near death. Jennifer rushes to Ola's side where she finds Ola seeming to be comatose. She vows revenge and takes her gun to confront Hassan for what he did to Ola. She shoots him several times and stops short of killing him and leaves the scene. Hassan is then arrested shortly after by McClaren. Jennifer returns to Ola's hospital bedside and tells her she got revenge and that Ola cannot die because she loves her. Suddenly Ola opens her eyes to look at Jennifer, seeming to be awake and Jennifer is hopeful. But then her heart monitor signals that her heartbeat flatlined and she dies. The movie ends with Jennifer packing up some keepsakes of Ola and getting on a bus for some unknown destination. ===== In the distant past of Munto when the world of the Heavens did not exist, humans lived a prosperous civilization. One day, beings of unknown origins fell out of the sky and onto human world. These beings could control a power called Akuto, or human emotions. They could take the human spirit, which is an accretion of feelings, wishes and dreams and turn that into a physical power or physical object. These beings, obsessed with their powers, destroyed the human civilization within a few days. However, they did not realize that the humans created the Akuto; these beings who descended from the skies killed off the very source of their power. They then discovered several alternate universes which they could draw more Akuto from. They depleted all the other dimensions of Akuto and used it to create their own empire in the skies above the humans. This new civilization was known as the Heavens and was populated by the Heavenly Beings who could control Akuto. The leaders of the Heavens soon grew corrupt due to the unlimited amount of Akuto they had stolen from other planets in other space times, and the Heavens began to collapse into disarray. At this time, the humans launched an attack against the Heavens. They were the very humans that were defeated when the Heavenly Beings first showed up. The humans who supplied the Akuto then defeated the Heavenly Beings. During the battle, the leaders of the Heavens decided to sever the supply of Akuto, cutting themselves away from Earth rather than be killed by the rebelling humans. They sealed themselves into a parallel dimension in order to sever the link of Akuto, though this resulted in the pillars that connected Earth to the Heavens to fall from the sky causing massive destruction. This day was called the "Calamitous Day" when both worlds lost contact with each other. From that day on, the Heavenly Beings considered linking the two dimensions together to be a taboo and appointed a guardian to guard this link to make sure it is never connected again. In the present day, the Heavens are in disarray due to the lack of Akuto flowing into the Heavens. The Heavens, divided into kingdoms, battle each other. The Magical Kingdom is blamed for using the Akuto the most and the other kingdoms seek to destroy the Magical Kingdom in hopes of preserving what little is left of the Akuto. Should the Heavens be destroyed due to a lack of Akuto, the floating islands in the sky will fall to the Earth and the Heavens and human civilization will perish. The Magical Kingdom is led by their king Munto who believes the only way to save the Heavens from destruction is to seek out Yumemi Hidaka who holds the key to restoring the Akuto to the Heavens. ===== A fascist group who call themselves New Order want to set some "new rules" in town while the police in Halifax, Nova Scotia are on strike. They try to scare the patrons of a gay bar, but by accident the owner of the establishment is killed, and the leader of the bullies then decides to execute all witnesses. One man escapes and takes refuge in an isolated block of flats. The young tenants in the house refuse to hand over the survivor, and the bullies then decide to kill all the residents in the house. This turns out to be not so easy when the young people in the house barricade their apartments and set up traps and arm themselves in order to fight back. ===== Larry meets someone he believes to be a woman, but is actually a transvestite, who turns him into a "queerwolf" by biting him on the buttocks. He transforms into a transvestite at night when there is a full moon. People hunting the werewolf discover the transvestite at Larry's apartment, and they also warn him about a curse. A gypsy offers to help him, but Larry refuses until the first full moon that he experiences. The only way for him to combat the transformation is to look at a medallion with a picture of John Wayne. ===== The film opens, showing that Mya is cheating on her husband Lewis with a man named Ben. Ben attempts to convince Mya to leave the city with him, but she remains noncommittal. As Mya exits, Ben turns the television on and watches a bizarre, psychedelic sequence of images. Mya begins to listen to a compact disc given to her by Ben, but she is menaced by men who are acting strangely in a parking garage. When she reaches her apartment building, she finds more people behaving strangely. Unknown to Mya, the Signal, a static- like interference that is coming through the television, radio and telephone amplifies each person's negative emotional traits, causing them to act irrationally and, in most cases, violently. ===== The film dramatically opens with a voice-over from Augusta (Mika Boorem)'s mother Martha (Sharon Lawrence), in which she states that her daughter was once a sweet girl who had the ability to paint beautiful pictures and loved everybody. In fact, later on in the film, Augusta is described as a 'strong, creative, kind and magnificent person' by her mother. This description is in dissonance to the condition in which Augusta's parents find their daughter at a local party. Her parents realize that they need to take drastic and immediate action when they find Augusta in a drug-induced euphoric state. The problem is, however, they are unsure as to how to proceed. Upon their arrival at home, Augusta seems contrite and willing to make amends. However, her mood abruptly switches when Martha and her husband, Ben (Tim Matheson) attempts to address the situation. When an explosive fight ensues, culminating in Augusta pointing a butcher knife at her parents and later at herself, she begins screaming in a threatening manner: "It's my life! It's my life, period!" The movie then cuts to one year earlier with a 14-year-old Augusta worrying about her weight and what her classmates think of her. Owing to the camera angles, it appears that Augusta has a significantly distorted view of herself and is exceptionally dissatisfied with the image that she sees in the mirror. On face value, Augusta appears to be a good-spirited young artist who is slightly perturbed by the fact that although her mother is speaking to her, her mother fails to notice "how fat" her daughter has become. Martha is a divorced businesswoman who appears to have had a good relationship with her daughter. Underneath the surface, Augusta is very insecure and despises herself. For example, she is overly concerned with her weight and strives to perform well in school. She becomes very anxious when she does not attain perfection and worries about receiving excellent grades in school. Augusta's life becomes complicated and takes a turn for the worse when she becomes friends with Rain (Tamara Hope), the local "bad girl". Augusta then attempts to impress Rain by doing stuff that she would not otherwise do, such as smoking cigarettes. Augusta then adopts a blasé attitude towards her schoolwork, her family, her old friends, and her own well-being. Her self- destructive ways cause her life to spiral out of control. Augusta begins to accept Rain's bad habits and makes a drastic change in her once predictable, sensible and normative life. She begins sneaking out at night, using drugs (even getting her younger brother Jack (Sage Testini) to try marijuana), shoplifting, skipping school, and disrespecting authority. Martha begins to notice the extreme changes in her daughter's behavior and is at a loss at how to help get Augusta back on track. When Augusta calls her mother at work in a state of panic after a drug-laden night, Martha fears for Augusta's safety. Unfortunately, Augusta rejects any form of assistance and insists that she had a cold, and all that she had taken was some medication. At one point in the film, Augusta screams at her mother to give up on her. It is apparent that Martha is not prepared to turn her back on Augusta. With nowhere to turn, Martha goes to a counselor for help. Augusta is quick to dismiss any intervention that her mother makes. The counselor tells Martha that in order to be saved, Augusta must attend a rehabilitation center for teens. Hesitant at first, Martha finally agrees. Martha's pain is exacerbated because Mother's Day is the agreed upon date for Augusta's departure. The police find Augusta, and she is sent to the rehabilitation center. During the transfer, Augusta angrily tells her mother that she hates her and that she is dead to her. Martha is left in tears. During the program, Augusta meets Bridget, a young girl who discloses to Augusta that she was raped by her father's best friend. They become closer when Bridget convinces Augusta to stop cutting herself. Throughout rehab, Augusta begins to appreciate the consequences of her misbehavior. In the end, Augusta seems to have changed, but the counselors don't think that she has been fully rehabilitated. Against Augusta's will, she is sent with Bridget to Circle Mountain, a special school for juvenile delinquents. At the school, Augusta meets a counselor named Rose who finally is able to reach her. She sits down with her parents, confesses what she has done and asks for forgiveness. She lists all the drugs that she has tried and even discloses that she felt suicidal at times. Although her parents are shocked, they are relieved that Augusta has become more open and coherent about her lifestyle. Martha accepts and assures Augusta that she will always be loved and that she will never give up on her. Rose lets Augusta spend time with her parents only if she promises not to run away. What finally gets Augusta to change her ways and realize how good she really has it is seeing Bridget, who has nothing to return to, die of a drug overdose. After the traumatic experience, Augusta, who feels she is successfully rehabilitated, runs away from the program and gets in touch with her mother and asks to go home. Martha agrees but only if Augusta promises to reform. Augusta promises and gets a bus home. Martha meets her at the bus stop, and mother and daughter embrace, while Ben and Jack happily reunite with her as well. It is after this embrace when Augusta and her family walk away from the bus stop, the audience sees the real Martha and Augusta smiling into the camera. ===== Kidstuff (Sammo Hung) has been asked by police superintendent Walter Tso (Cho Tat-wah) to investigate a case of international ammunition trade between two gangs. One of the gangs is the Japanese Yakuza in possession of stolen diamonds, and the other is a group of terrorists with a stockpile of ammunition. Whilst visiting the police station, Kidtuff meets Quito (Sylvia Chang), an old friend from when they were in the orphanage. As they embrace each other in a friendly hug, some passing police officers get the wrong idea and decide to tell her husband, Albert (Karl Maka). Albert refuses to listen to Quito and attempts to fight Kidstuff. Later, when Kidstuff and Quito decide to dine together, Albert secretly hides under their table. Kidstuff goes to ask his old Lucky Stars gang for help (the returning Eric Tsang, Richard Ng and Stanley Fung, and newcomer Michael Miu). However, they refuse to help as they have embarked on a new crime spree, so Kidstuff is forced to find a new gang. First he recruits Top Dog (Alan Tam), so called because of his affinity with (and ability to speak to) dogs. Second is Fat Cat (Kent Cheng), a lazy cop, who joins because Kidstuff throws money at him. Next is Lambo (Andy Lau) a martial arts expert and lady's man, followed by Long Legs (Anthony Chan) and Libbogen (Billy Lau), a pair of timid beat cops who flee in the face of danger. To complete the unlikely group, Yum Yum (Maria Tung) is assigned to teach the gang her skills of self-defence and disguise. ===== Orrie Cather, one of Wolfe's operatives, has been secretly seeing a wealthy man's kept mistress at her secret lovenest. He is arrested when she turns up dead. Orrie is the only one of Wolfe's operatives to have the plot of two Stout books turn on his actions: Death of a Doxy and Stout's final work, A Family Affair. ===== The game box includes a letter which provides background information to establish the premise of the game. Written to the main character from the perspective of a friend "Mike", it outlines how (a presumed mutual friend) Richard's company, Comdata, has had $1.5 million stolen by a rival company named Realco. Furthermore, the police are unable to retrieve the money, so the player is required to hack into a computer system and retrieve the funds. The letter provides a single phone number and entry code, part of the game's simulation of dialing into databases and bulletin boards. The player has to figure out how to get into the proper database to take back the cash. ===== Two daughters are locked up by their parents; an unemployed man and his blind wife, for eleven years. Their neighbours call social workers to investigate the situation and the results lead the girls on a bittersweet path to the rest of the world. ===== A band of guerrillas led by Bandara (Ananda Jayaratne) lead a resistance against Portuguese invaders. Bandara is in love with Sumana (Kanthi Gunatunga). ===== Dale is planning on a ceremony where he and Nancy retake their wedding vows. At Nancy's request and after initial reluctance, his friends decide to find his father, "Bug", and invite Bug to the ceremony. Twenty years ago at their first wedding, Dale's father grabbed Nancy and kissed her without consent, which resulted in both of them slapping him. He and Dale have since been estranged. Hank, Bill, and Boomhauer decide to go track Bug down in order to make amends with his son. However, they discover that not only is Bug gay, but he has been working all this time at a gay rodeo, much to the humor of Bill and Boomhauer. After the show, Hank goes to Bug, who reveals the truth: at the wedding, he was about to kiss a male Filipino caterer, before Dale came in, with whom he was not prepared to be honest, so he "grabbed the nearest thing in a dress", which happened to be Nancy. The conversation is interrupted by Juan Pedro, Bug's lover, who is upset upon learning that Bug had a son and did not tell him. Eventually, Bug returns to Arlen and asks for Dale's forgiveness, without telling Dale he is gay. Although unsure at first, Dale reconciles with his father. Nancy senses, but Dale is completely oblivious to, Bug's homosexuality, with Dale even commenting that his father has "pleased hundreds of women". Bug notices Joseph's lack of resemblance to Dale or Nancy and asks if Joseph is "adopted". She reluctantly admits the truth about her former affair with John Redcorn, and that Hank, Bill, Boomhauer, John Redcorn's sister, Peggy and possibly Bobby know about the affair; he does not ask any further questions. Bug also admits to Nancy he's gay and that he needs to let Dale know. Dale misconstrues Bug's sympathy, believing Bug still has feelings for Nancy, leading to Bug trying to admit to Dale that he is gay. However, his explanation of Juan Pedro being his "partner" and working with him at a gay rodeo are misconstrued by Dale as his father being a government agent, which breaks his heart once again. Dale deserts his second wedding and heads to the gay rodeo, intending to blow his father's cover. After Dale sees Bug at the rodeo, he informs his father that he knows he's a government agent and that he will let everybody at the event know. Bug then says there has been a terrible misunderstanding and that he is gay. Still not trusting Bug, Dale then goes into the rodeo pen and announces that Bug is spying on them and Bug ties him down. After a struggle, Bug finally makes up with Juan Pedro and kisses him in front of Dale, who relents and lets them attend the ceremony. A subplot concerns Nancy dealing with the ceremony as a way to start over after years of adultery her husband is unaware of and anxiety she has on that issue. The final part of the episode reveals that Dale believes John Redcorn to be gay and that this is a major reason why Dale is okay with homosexuals and why he does not suspect that John Redcorn is Joseph's biological father. ===== It has been three weeks since the tragic and surprising turn of events for everyone involved. Betty finds her life is in chaos after a series of very unfortunate events, which begins with a dream telenovela called La Pasiones de Betty, where Betty, dressed as a maid, is crying over losing Henry, who walks in and tells her that he loves her, but is stopped by his fiancé Charlie, who has a gun pointed at the two, only to have Henry dump Betty and run to Charlie. Justin then wakes up Betty from her dream, and as she scrambles to get ready for work Justin tells Betty that he hopes Ignacio will come home soon. She wonders if Hilda will be joining them for breakfast and Justin says back, "Like she would ever leave that room." It appears that Hilda has not left it for those past three weeks. Despite all that's happened, Betty is still in denial about one thing – how much Henry's departure has affected her, even as she tries to figure out why the pregnant Charlie would trick him into thinking that he was the father of her unborn child. This would cause Betty to start stressing throughout the entire day, which in turn would result in Betty bumping into a MODE glass cover and receiving a bruised eye, which required an eye-patch. The past three weeks have been also been hard on Daniel and Alexis in the wake of the car crash. For Daniel, he feels like his ego has been bruised more than his injured bruised legs, even as he tries to keep the paparazzi from photographing the comatose Alexis. Daniel also notices Betty trying to deal with her problems over losing Henry and suggests that she "bury them" in Central Park. While there Daniel tells her to give a eulogy by placing all the things that symbolizes her feelings for Henry. As she does, Daniel decides to bury his drug addiction, which he tells Betty contributed to the car crash and that he blames himself for what happened. The two resolve to make changes and move on after their "funeral." As Daniel returned to the hospital, he sees Alexis coming out of her coma, who appears to have suffered memory loss and still believes herself to be Alex. It has also been difficult for Ignacio as well back in Mexico, as Betty calls to tell him the lawyer is making sure that he will be able to help him return to the United States. Meanwhile, Amanda turns to junk food and to Marc in dealing with the revelation that Fey Sommers was her real mother. As Marc walks in and sees a fat Amanda and opens a drawer full of what Marc call Amanda's "friends with the creamy center" (even Wilhelmina calls her "Betty") he suggests that they pay a visit to Scarsdale, as they try to get the real answer about how close her parents were to the late editor. When they arrive, Amanda is shocked to see her "parents" in their pajamas in the daytime...and having company, another couple also in their pajamas, coming from the bedroom! It turns out that the Tanens are swingers, even after telling Amanda that they don't keep secrets from her. But before Amanda decides to give up, Marc steps up and tells them that Amanda knows about Fey being Amanda's mother. The Tanens tell Amanda that she was adopted because Fey didn't want to damage her career and felt that Amanda would have a better life with another family, plus the Tanens couldn't have children (Mr. Tanen has lethargic sperm). Having learned this, Amanda and Marc decide to look for the other piece of the puzzle...Amanda's father. As they arrive back to the Meade Building, the two are joined in the elevator by Bradford, and as Marc observes closely he sees both Amanda and Bradford making the same movements and mannerisms, leading to speculations that Bradford could be Amanda's father. Marc tells Amanda that the only way to get proof is "Three words...DNA!" After two failed attempts by Amanda, Marc succeeds by telling Bradford about Wilhelmina not liking his ear hairs and clips them. Marc later hands the evidence to a pleased and disgusted Amanda. With Daniel and Alexis out of the way temporarily, Wilhelmina takes advantage of being temporary editor-in-chief by scrapping Daniel's approved spread in favor of one featuring Victoria's Secret, with help from assistant editor Sheila, who can't resist wearing one of their push-up bras. Later on that day Justin, who was supposed to be at day camp, sneaks in to the 28th floor and sees Wilhelmina having a nervous breakdown over fashion concepts. After she overhears him telling a model to lose the belt and quotes Coco Chanel, ("When accesorizing, always take off the last thing you put on") Wilhelmina spots him and likes his idea, calling Justin her little fashion elf. Justin would later learn from Betty that MODE has offered him an internship, thanks to Daniel. And as Wilhelmina schemes to turn the tragic Meade family events to her advantage, Claire and Yoga prepare to make their hideaway plans as Claire tries to stop the wedding plans. While hiding out in a beach house in Long Island, Claire tells Yoga that she needs to find a way to get to Bradford, so Claire decides to call Wilhelmina and tells her that she will sell MODE to her by meeting at Central Park, with Claire showing up as a nun. But their plans to double-cross each other take a surprising turn: At Central Park, it is Marc who shows up in Wilhelmina's dress...but he gets beaten up by Yoga in the nun's outfit, while at Bradford's office, Claire is shocked to see Wilhelmina there, but after Wilhelmina offers Claire a scotch and tells her the police will be arriving in three minutes, Claire punched her out, drinks her scotch and says she'll be gone in one. After licking their wounds, Wilhelmina suspects Claire has friends helping her, prompting Wilhelmina to hire a bodyguard. Finally, as mentioned earlier by Betty and Justin, Hilda and Santos are spending their day in bed, talking about their wedding plans and their future together as a couple. Hilda refuses to let him leave, for his own safety, because she came so close to losing him. They make plans to set another date for their wedding and open up the wedding gifts that they have already received. Hilda tries on her wedding dress for Santos and asks him to read his wedding vows. Santos reads a letter saying that he will always love Hilda and he was sorry it took him many years for this to come out. When Santos tells Hilda that it was time for him to leave, Hilda cries and says she doesn't want him to go and begs him to stay in bed a while longer; he needs to heal from his gunshot wound and he looks at her while heading to the bathroom. Betty opens the door to a dark room to ask Hilda if she would like to join them for dinner and we find Hilda, sitting alone in her bathrobe, holding a pillow and staring at the bathroom door with the light on; it appears that for the past three weeks she hasn't gotten over the fact that Santos has indeed died in the robbery. She finally brings herself to admit that "he's gone" and cries to Betty that she hasn't said this out loud yet. Betty then comforts her sister and tells her everything will be fine. Later that night in Times Square, a bus stops to drop off a passenger: Henry. ===== In 1843, on Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old businessman, does not share the merriment of Christmas. He declines his cheerful nephew Fred's invitation to a Christmas dinner party, and rejects two gentlemen's offer to collect money for charity. His loyal employee Bob Cratchit asks Scrooge to allow him to have a day off on Christmas Day to spend time with his family, to which Scrooge reluctantly agrees before leaving. In his house, Scrooge encounters the ghost of his deceased business partner Jacob Marley, who warns him to repent his wicked ways or he will be condemned in the afterlife like he was, carrying heavy chains forged from his own greediness. Jacob informs Scrooge that he will be haunted by three spirits, who will guide him out of his misery. First, Scrooge is visited by the candle-like Ghost of Christmas Past, who takes him back in time to his childhood and early adult life. They visit Scrooge's boarding school and Scrooge sees his sister Fan, who became the mother of Fred. Scrooge later begins a successful career in business and money lending as an employee under Fezziwig, and he becomes engaged to a woman named Belle. However, the Ghost shows Scrooge how Belle left him when he became obsessed with wealth. A devastated Scrooge extinguishes the spirit with his candle snuffer cap and is rocketed back to the present. Next, Scrooge meets the merry Ghost of Christmas Present, who shows him the joys and wonder of Christmas Day. Scrooge and the Ghost visit Bob's house, learning his family is content with their small dinner. All the while, Scrooge starts to take pity on Bob's ill son Tiny Tim. The Ghost abruptly ages, commenting that Tiny Tim will likely not survive until next Christmas. The Ghost warns Scrooge about the evils of "Ignorance" and "Want"; Big Ben begins tolling midnight as "Ignorance" and "Want" manifest themselves before Scrooge as two wretched children who grow into violent, insane individuals, leaving the spirit withering away. Finally, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come arrives, appearing as a dark shadow, and takes Scrooge into the future. He witnesses a group of businessmen discussing the death of an unnamed colleague, saying they would only attend the funeral if lunch is provided. After being chased across London by the Ghost, Scrooge recognizes his charwoman Mrs. Dilber selling the stolen possessions of the deceased. Shortly afterwards, Scrooge sees the aforementioned colleague's body on a bed, followed by a vision of a family who is relieved that he is dead, as they have more time to pay off their debt. The spirit transports Scrooge to Bob's residence, discovering that Tiny Tim has died. Scrooge is then escorted to a cemetery, where the Ghost points out his own grave, revealing Scrooge as the man who died. Realizing the consequences upon his actions, Scrooge decides to change his ways just as the Ghost forces him to fall into his empty coffin lying in a deep grave that sits above the fires of Hell. Waking up in his own room on Christmas Day, with love and happiness in his heart, a gleeful Scrooge decides to surprise Bob's family with a turkey dinner, and ventures out with the charity workers and the citizens of London to spread happiness in the city, and later attends his nephew's annual Christmas dinner, where he is warmly welcomed. The following day, he gives Cratchit a raise and becomes a father figure to Tiny Tim, who escapes death. A changed man, Scrooge now treats everyone with kindness, generosity and compassion; he now embodies the spirit of Christmas. ===== The novel opens with Khalil, the protagonist, and Naji, a friend, heading to Khalil's room to talk. They discuss the possibility of Naji moving to Saudi Arabia to live with his sisters. The audience learns that Khalil is romantically attracted to Naji, as he repeatedly secretly admires him. As they progress down the streets of Beirut, the narrative digresses to describe the state of things there. It is revealed that people are fleeing the city in droves and are not coming back. War damage to apartments during the same period The next chapter begins with Khalil ritualistically cleaning and straightening his room. He always does this after battles in the streets. Some time has passed since the opening conversation, and Naji decided to leave the area. Khalil visits Naji's abandoned apartment, which he was asked to look after. As Khalil cleans up glass, we learn that Naji and his mother claim that they plan to come back. Khalil does not believe them. Naji is supposed to come over for a visit with Khalil, but he doesn't come. After waiting for a long while, Khalil decides to visit another friend, Nayif. Nayif is having a small party with friends that he knows from his job at a newspaper. We learn that Nayif is involved in a political party. Another car bombing takes place near a market that Khalil often shops at. When Khalil goes to the scene days later, he finds that it has seemingly healed and that life there is back to normal. Next, he visits Naji's house, and, while he is there, the phone rings. He picks it up and it is Naji's sister, whom he has met only once before. She tells him that Naji is dead. Khalil is unable to dwell on this, because the city starts getting bombed in the 1982 Israeli-Lebanese conflict. He hides with others in the newspaper offices where Nayif works. The newspapers have immunity from the bombings. There is a frantic party-like atmosphere here as the reporters rapidly write stories on the bombings. Once the bombings are over, Khalil returns to his apartment, going through war-damaged streets. He comes to his room to find that the window has been blown open and feels that his room has been somehow changed. Disturbed by this he goes outside in time to see an anti-Israeli march pass by. Since the bombings are over, Khalil is forced to face Naji's death. He stops sleeping and spends most of his nights lying awake. Nayif comes over in order to tell him that Naji was killed because he was an agent for a group responsible for attacks. Khalil doesn't want to believe this and uses his usual defense of denial. Later, after much thought, he decides to accept what Nayif has said as true. He isolates himself from everybody. He sleeps all day and spends all night listening to other people's problems on FM radio shows. War damage in Downtown Beirut The bombing starts again, and Khalil hides with others in the higher floors away from the fighting on the street. After several days, the fighting stops and the people go out to see the damaged streets. Khalil's uncle's family comes to Beirut, having fled their village, and Khalil sets them up in Naji's apartment. His daughter, Zahrah, has a crush on Khalil, who is pleased to be loved despite the fact that he feels little attraction to her. Khalil has a crush on her brother, Youssef. The narrative goes on to describe Khalil's own struggles to form his political views and gain acceptance with the other young men his age. This struggle is paralleled by Youssef, who comes to Khalil's apartment to ask his advice on whether or not he should join a local militia. Khalil stays neutral and rather asks Youssef questions to help him think it over. He decides to join the group. Youssef's new job keeps him busy during the day and greatly reduces the time he spends with Khalil, which causes Khalil much distress. Khalil decides to take the job that Nayif offered him at the newspaper. He goes in for an interview and embarrasses himself by saying things that make him seem radical despite his lack of involvement in politics. Sporadic street fighting starts again. In one such episode, Youssef is killed. As Khalil is suffering emotionally from Youssef's death, he becomes sick and starts coughing up blood. He isolates himself from the world much as he did after Naji's death. Nayif comes by the apartment, but Khalil doesn't answer the door, hoping that Nayif will break in out of concern. After doing this twice, he finally answers the door and lets Nayif in. Nayif tells him that one of his political friends, called The Gentlemen, wants to clear out an abandoned apartment in Khalil's building in order to house his mother. They agree to clear out the furniture and sell it. Khalil takes a taxi ride to the hospital to have himself examined as he had acute abdominal pain. On the way there the taxi encounters traffic and the driver decides to take side streets. He accidentally drives up to a roadblock and Khalil and the other passengers are interrogated and nearly killed by armed men. Khalil manages to get by and make it to the hospital. It turns out that Khalil had an ulcer, which he needs an operation to remove. Khalil enjoys the hospital, which he views as a sanctuary. Khalil soon acquires a reputation for cowardice among the hospital staff, who, nevertheless, like him. One of Khalil's neighbors, Mustafa (usually called the bride groom), recommends that Khalil should rent out Naji's apartment. He rent it to a woman and her son. As he looks it over he encounters his memories of Naji and Youssef. Khalil likes his new tenants but has a feeling that the woman dislikes him. At a party with friends of Nayif, Khalil becomes acquainted with the Brother, a man who is involved in Nayif's newspaper and is a leader of a military organization. He suspects that Khalil is gay, which he confirms in a conversation, and reveals that he is gay as well. He makes advances, which confuse Khalil, who ends up going home. The Brother begins inviting him on business dealings, which involve the buying and selling of drugs and weapons. On one walk back to apartment after a deal Khalil is accidentally assaulted by the Brother's men, who apologize and offer to take him home. The author describes the city of Beirut. She explains how is corrupting Khalil and sucking away at his soul. Some time passes before the next scene. Khalil, now referred to as "Mr. Khalil" by Mustafa, is talking about storing weapons he has brought in the apartments. The woman who is still his tenant complains that it is dangerous and he tells her to go upstairs and that he will come and talk to her. He goes up and rapes her. The author explains how her Khalil has changed from how he was to "a man who laughs". ===== Monte Walsh is older cowboy facing the final days of the Old West era. He and his friend Chet Rollins, another longtime cowhand, work on cattle ranches, preferring to do "nothing that can't be done from a horse". Their lives are divided between months on the range and the occasional trip into town. Camaraderie and competition with the other cowboys fill their days. When they find out that the Cross Bar ranch that they had worked "was wiped out during the last winter", they take work at the Slash Y ranch where their old boss Cal Brennan is the "range manager". At the Slash Y, they meet an old friend, Shorty Austin, another cowhand and bronco buster. Monte has a long- term relationship with an old flame, prostitute and saloon girl Martine Bernard, who suffers from tuberculosis. Chet has fallen in love with Mary Eagle, a widow who owns a hardware store. As barbed wire and railroads steadily eliminate the need for the cowboy. Monte and his friends are left with fewer and fewer options. The Slash Y isn't doing too well and Shorty is let go. As there is no other work available, he gets involved in rustling and killing, gunning down a local lawman. At this point, Monte and Chet find that their lives on the range are inexorably redirected. Chet marries Mary and will go to work in the hardware store. He tells Monte that their old way of life is simply disappearing and that, "Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever". Caught up in the spirit of the moment, Monte rides 40 miles to visit Martine and asks her to marry him, and she accepts. Monte goes on a drinking binge and rides an unbroken bucking horse that came from the Slash Y ranch through town, causing considerable damage, smashing through a plate glass window of a "china shop" and shattering the entire store's stock. A wild west roundup show owner, Colonel Wilson, sees him ride the bronco to a halt and offers him a job to perform as "Texas Jack Butler star cowboy, bronco buster and all-around wild man of the west". Monte considers the offer which includes a significant weekly salary and all expenses paid, but decides the work is too degrading and refuses. He tells Colonel Wilson, "I ain't spitting on my whole life". Time goes on, Shorty being desperate, robs Chet's hardware store. He shoots and kills Chet. At Chet's funeral, Cal tells Monte that The Slash Y Ranch has closed leaving Monte out of work. Monte goes after Shorty "to do the law's work". While searching for Shorty, Monte finds out that Martine is "in a bad way". He goes to see her, but he arrives too late. she has died. Monte is mourning at Martine's death bed when Shorty calls him out for a showdown. Monte pursues Shorty through a cattle-processing building. Shorty shoots Monte in the arm. Monte manages to slip around and confront Shorty. Shorty holsters his pistol, and Monte shoots the unarmed Shorty. As Shorty dies, Monte says to him, or maybe to himself as Shorty might already be dead, "I rode the Grey down Shorty... you had to sit him high." Monte is on his own. The theme of the last scene is a repeat of the opening scene where Monte sees a wolf and prepares to shoot it. While aiming, he is talking to his horse (in the opening scene he was talking to Chet) and segues into the same story he told in scene one about a man, Big Joe Abernathy, who used to wrestle wolves. He doesn't shoot the wolf. He rides off into the "New West". ===== Sara Davis (Leah Pipes), a 15-year-old female soccer prodigy, has a chance to join the U.S. National Soccer Team. Her daily life is extremely hectic, as she finds a balance between high school, running, romance, sports, and parental pressure while realizing her own priorities. Sara, coached by her father Gil (Scott Patterson), sacrifices her interest in dance, photography, and her social life to concentrate on her sport. With the encouragement of her best friend Tutti (Lalaine), Sara begins a relationship with Josh (Drew Tyler Bell), the solitary photographer on the school newspaper. As she takes control of her life, Sara faces the challenge of discovering what she really wants, so that she can make the best move of her life. ===== Sire Alain de Maletroit (Charles Laughton), plots revenge on his younger brother Edmond (Paul Cavanagh) for stealing Alain's childhood sweetheart, who died giving birth to Edmond's daughter Blanche (Sally Forrest). Alain secretly imprisons Edmond in his dungeon for 20 years and convinces Blanche that her father is dead. Alain intends to further debase Blanche as revenge against Edmond. Alain tricks a high-born drunken cad, Denis de Beaulieu (Richard Stapley), in to believing he has murdered a man. Denis escapes a mob by entering the Maletroit chateau by an exterior door which has no latch on the inside. Alain makes Denis a captive intending to force the delicate Blanche into marriage with him. Alain goes to the dungeon to torture Edmond with the news Blanche will be married to Denis, an unworthy rogue. After Alain leaves, Edmond asks the family servant Voltan (Boris Karloff) to kill Denis before the wedding. However, Denis shows unanticipated redemptive qualities and he and Blanche fall in love. When Voltan comes to kill Denis, Blanche pleads with Voltan to spare his life and help him escape. Their attempts to escape are foiled by Alain, who then seals Edmond, Blanche and Denis in a stone cell and starts a waterwheel that presses the cell walls inward to crush them to death. Voltan fights Alain and gets the key to the dungeon and pushes Alain into the waterwheel, temporarily stopping the crushing walls. Wounded by the guards, Voltan struggles to the dungeon and, with his dying breath, gets the key to Denis just as the walls start moving in again. Denis, Blanche and her father escape the cell. Denis and Blanche decide to stay together and Edmond has the strange door removed from the chateau. ===== spontaneously combusts. The player takes on the role of Aya Brea, an NYPD rookie, attending an opera at Carnegie Hall with a blind date in New York City on Christmas Eve 1997. During the opera, everyone in the building spontaneously combusts, except for Aya, and an actress on stage named Melissa Pearce. Aya confronts Melissa onstage, and Melissa says that Aya's mitochondria need more time to develop. She flees backstage, with Aya giving chase. Backstage, Melissa then mutates into a beast and flees into the sewers, declaring that her name is now Eve.Melissa: Melissa: ‘I'm Melissa... No... I am... I'm... I am EVE! () The next day, on Christmas, Aya and her partner, Daniel Dollis, go to see a scientist at the Museum of Natural History named Dr. Hans Klamp. He teaches the protagonists about mitochondria, but they do not find his information useful since it does not explain the previous night's events. Later that day, they hear that Eve is in Central Park, and to make matters worse, an audience has gathered at the park's theater intending to see a performance that Melissa Pearce was to give. Aya enters Central Park alone as Daniel is unable to pass through the entrance without spontaneously combusting. She makes it to the theater, but is too late to stop Eve, who causes the theater audience's mitochondria to rebel against their hosts and turns the crowd into a slimy orange mass. Aya chases after Eve and is knocked unconscious after a fight with her aboard a horse-drawn carriage. Daniel discovers that his son, Ben, was at the park, but had left the audience at the Central Park theater when he began to feel ill and when his mother began to act strange. He also learns that Manhattan is being evacuated due to the threat that Eve poses. While Manhattan is being evacuated, a Japanese scientist named Kunihiko Maeda manages to sneak into the city, witnessing a police officer combust into flames in the process. Aya awakens in an apartment in SoHo, with Daniel and Maeda at her side. Maeda reveals the origins of Eve: A scientist tried to culture the cells of his wife after she was involved in a car accident, and the mitochondria in her cells took over her body. Maeda believes that Eve may be trying to give birth to an “Ultimate Being”. The next day, the three go to see Dr. Klamp again. After examining cell samples from that of Eve and Aya's, Maeda concludes that based on selfish gene theory, Aya and Eve's mitochondria are in an evolutionary race for survival. Dr. Klamp suddenly appears and asks a few questions of Aya in a hostile manner. The three leave and head for the St. Francis Hospital, where Maeda thinks Eve may try to get sperm for the Ultimate Being.Maeda: There's a sperm bank around here? / Daniel: A sperm bank? /Maeda: I don't think Eve's body will last much longer. Right now, the mitochondria are just parasites in her body. /Daniel: So she is trying to create this ultimate being, like she did in Japan. /Maeda: I'm afraid so. When they arrive, they find that Eve is already there. Eve takes the sperm and escapes. The next day, Aya sees the orange mass of people from the park enter the city water supply. She goes to Dr. Klamp one more time, and discovers that Dr. Klamp has engineered special sperm for Eve so that she can create the Ultimate Being.Klamp: The mitochondria is passed from the mother, but you see, traces of the father can also be found un minute quantities. According to Eve, her sister in Japan was unable to attain her ultimate goal because the father side of the mitochondria caused a rebellion. For Eve to succeed this time, I created sperm without the male mitochondria DNA He then spontaneously combusts. Aya finds Eve in another part of the museum, where the orange mass has surrounded her, forming an impermeable shield to protect her while the Ultimate Being gestates within her. After several failed attempts to attack Eve, the military asks Aya to attack her from a chopper, as she is the only one who can get close without combusting. The plan works, but Aya has to personally finish the fight on a now-wrecked Statue of Liberty, where Eve finally succumbs to necrosis due to her unstable cells. As Aya rests on a naval vessel, the Ultimate Being is born and attacks the surrounding ships. Aya does battle with the Ultimate Being, but its mitochondria causes it to evolve at an alarming rate. Aya sets the vessel's boiler pressure dangerously high, so as to destroy it with the Ultimate Being on board. In the initial ending, Aya, Daniel, his son Ben, and Maeda attend the opera at Carnegie Hall, where Aya's mitochondrial powers allow her to resonate with the audience members, their eyes ominously glowing. After completing the game once, the player can access the Chrysler Building and have access to the true final boss, who takes the form of Aya's sister, Maya. She explains to Aya that Klamp cultivated the liver cells of the original Eve to analyze. When Melissa was giving birth to the Ultimate Being, she created a nest there. In case Melissa and the Ultimate Being failed, the purebred would remain. Aya speaks with her sister, and they engage in battle against the purebred. After the purebred is defeated, the mitochondria inside Aya's body begin to rebel against her. It is explained that Aya's mitochondria have now reached a higher evolutionary stage than Maya's, but Maya's personality has suddenly become dominant and begun to fight off the Eve persona. Maya eventually wins, purging the Eve persona from herself. Somehow, Maya protects Aya by preventing the original Eve from taking over her. Aya leaves the building by herself, although she apparently has gained some sort of connection with her dead sister. ===== Nagisa Kasumi (the granddaughter of Nagisa Kanou, the heroine of "Fight! Iczer One") has a job as a delivery girl and makes her deliveries with a girl named Kawai on a base in the Moon. The two encounter a new race of alien villains, but are saved by Iczer-3! While Iczer-1 recovers from her long battle against Big Gold's legacy and self-proclaimed successor, Neos Gold, Sister Grey sends young Iczer-3 to Earth, and the child turns out to be the best hope against the new threat. ===== The story revolves around two young men, Apu (Parambrata Chatterjee) and Andy (Shayan Munshi). Apu is leaving for US. He promises his girlfriend, Sheela (Raima Sen) that he will come back soon and take her to the US. Andy, a second-generation Bengali born and brought up in New York City, has dreams of becoming a musician and working in films. He comes to Kolkata to pursue his passion and stays at the house of his paternal uncle and grandfather. In Kolkata he meets Sheela, befriends her and falls in love with her. Meanwhile, Apu, arrives in the US and struggles to find his way in an alien nation. In the process he befriends Rita (played by Peeya Rai Chowdhary) whose parents want to get her married to Apu. The rest of the movie revolves around the socio-comic adventures of Apu and Andy as they struggle to find their calling in life. The movie featured an appearance by Kolkata alt-rock band Cassini's Division. =====