From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Ah Q is known for deluding himself into believing he is the victor every time he loses a fight. In one scene in Chapter 2, Ah Q is beaten and had his silver taels stolen while he was gambling beside the theater. He slaps himself on the face, and because he is the person doing the slapping, he sees himself as the victor. When Mr. Zhao (趙太爺), an honored landlord of the village, beats Ah Q in a fight, Ah Q considers himself important for having even a tiny association with such a person. Though some villagers suspect Ah Q may have no true association with Mr. Zhao, they do not question the matter closely, and instead give Ah Q more respect for a time. Ah Q is often close-minded about petty things. When he ventures into a new town and sees that a "long bench" is called a "straight bench," he believes their way to be instantly inferior and totally wrong. There is a scene in which Ah Q harasses a nun to make himself feel better. He pinches her and blames his problems on her. Instead of crying out at the injustice of Ah Q's bullying, the crowd nearby laughs. One day, news of the Xinhai Revolution comes into town. Both landlord families, the Zhao and the Qian families, become revolutionaries to keep their power. Other people, calling themselves a "revolutionary army", rob the houses of the landlords and rich men. Ah Q also wants to join them and also call himself a revolutionary. But when the time comes, he misses the opportunity to act, because he slept in one morning and no one woke him up. Finally, Ah Q is arrested as a scapegoat for the looting and sentenced to death by the new governor. When Ah Q is asked to sign a confession, he worries that he cannot write his name. The officers tell him to sign a circle instead. Ah Q is so worried about drawing a perfect circle to save face that he is unaware he would be executed until it is too late. Before his death he tries to entertain the crowds watching his execution, but cannot decide on suitable lines from any Chinese opera. So he decides to sing on his own, but he sang for only one line. ===== Two street racers, the Driver (Taylor) and the Mechanic (Wilson) live on the road in their highly modified, primer- gray, 1955 Chevrolet 150 two-door sedan drag car, and drift from town to town making their income by challenging local residents to impromptu drag races. ("Blacktop" means an asphalt road.) As they drive east on Route 66 from Needles, California, they pick up the Girl (Bird), a female hitchhiker, in Flagstaff, Arizona, when she gets into their car at a diner. Although the Driver develops a crush on the Girl, she sleeps with the Mechanic when the Driver goes out drinking one night. In New Mexico they begin to encounter another car driver, GTO (Oates), on the highways. An atmosphere of hostility develops between the two parties. Although GTO is not an overt street racer and seems to know little about cars, a cross-country race to Washington, D.C. is suggested. The Driver proposes that the prize should be "pinks" (pink slips), or legal ownership of the loser's car. Along the way, GTO picks up various hitchhikers, including an importuning homosexual hitchhiker (Harry Dean Stanton). When GTO's inexperience becomes apparent, he, the Driver and the Mechanic form an uneasy alliance; the Driver even drives with him for a while when GTO gets fatigued. Needing money, the Driver, the Mechanic and GTO compete at a race track in Memphis. While the Driver finishes his race, the Girl hops into GTO's car and they leave. The Driver pursues them to a diner located on US-129 (a location today known as the Tail of the Dragon) where the Girl has just rejected GTO's idea to visit Chicago. The Driver proposes going to Columbus, Ohio, to get parts, but the Girl rejects him too. Instead, she leaves with a stranger on a motorcycle, abandoning her belongings in the parking lot. Later, GTO picks up two soldiers and tells them that he won his car by beating two men driving a custom-built 1955 Chevrolet 150 in a cross- country race. At an airstrip in East Tennessee, the Driver races against a Chevrolet El Camino. The film ends abruptly. ===== Strawberry 100% chronicles the school years of Junpei Manaka, a student and aspiring movie director, and his relationships with the girls that enter his life. At the start of the series, he encounters a mysterious and beautiful girl on the roof of his middle school, but does not remember anything about her other than that she wears strawberry-print panties. She leaves before he can talk to her, but he finds a notebook nearby, belonging to Aya Toujou, an ordinary-looking glasses-wearing girl who is a gifted writer. The two become friends with the common ambition of turning great stories into movies. Thinking that Tsukasa Nishino, the most popular girl in his school, might be the mystery girl, he asks her out in a bold confession at the chin-up bar, and is surprised when she accepts. He later realizes Tsukasa is not the mystery girl but chooses to continue their relationship anyway. He places into Izumizaka High, but learns that Aya has given up an offer to the prestigious Oumi Academy to attend Izumizaka with him and that she is the mystery girl. At Izumizaka, Junpei encounters a feisty girl named Satsuki Kitaoji. The two become friends because of common interests, but Satsuki falls in love with him. Junpei tries to join the film club but learns it has been disbanded. He revives the club thanks to Aya, Satsuki, and his high school friends as members. Junpei also discovers that his childhood friend Yui Minamito is moving into his family's home, but she ends up attending Oumi Academy. The film club make one film each year, each written by Aya and directed by Junpei, which is screened at the school festival. Satsuki stars in their first film, Tsukasa is the heroine of their second film, and Aya is the heroine of the third movie. Over the course of his high school life Junpei experiences many awkward moments involving the four girls in his life. Even though he is seeing Tsukasa, he also has feelings for Aya and remains indecisive about whom he really loves. Eventually, Tsukasa grows impatient and breaks up with him. During this time Junpei and Aya's mutual feelings start to grow, but when Junpei finds out that Tsukasa still thinks about him, he becomes confused again. Things get more complicated as the students enter their third year and face education and career choices. Tsukasa plans to become a patissier in Paris and Aya decides to go to the same college Junpei has chosen. She even goes to the same cram school as him even though their friends disagree with her decision to give up better schools just to help Junpei make films. Aya eventually tells Junpei she also wishes to try for the university her parents recommend, much to Junpei's disappointment. Matters come to a head when Junpei sees Aya with her brother and mistakes him for a new boyfriend. Having attended the same high school and made films together, he thought that Aya will always be with him and is unable to accept her supposed new relationship. When Tsukasa confesses that she wants to be Junpei's girlfriend again, he seeks comfort from her, but later denies that it was because of Aya. He later finds out the truth and that Aya has always been in love with him, but Junpei does not want to be unfair to Tsukasa and stays with her. Later, even at the risk of Tsukasa finding someone else, Junpei decides to break with her as he feels that he has not matured enough to be with her and needs to continue developing as both a film-maker and as a person. After graduation, the friends part company, each of them chasing after their own goals and ambitions. Four years later, Satsuki has become the owner of a relative's restaurant and the gang chooses her restaurant as the location for their reunion. Aya went to the prestigious university her academic achievements warranted and has become a successful writer and a more assertive person, even winning the Naoki prize, the Japanese equivalent of the Pulitzer prize. Junpei has won an award and has been accepted into a film studio after years of personal development. He is able to congratulate Aya on her accomplishments without jealousy now and hopes to make her notebook novel into film. In the end, Junpei reunites with Tsukasa, who has returned after several years in Paris, and the two rekindle their relationship. ===== Earth Federation Space Force (EFSF) officers stationed at the asteroid fortress Pezun rebel against the Federation leadership, which has allied with the Anti-Earth Union Group (AEUG). They self-claim themselves "New Desides" and swear to uphold the Titans' ideology of Earthnoid supremacy. The EFSF assembles Task Force Alpha, a force of EFSF, AEUG, and Karaba veterans equipped with the most advanced mobile suits, and sends them to Pezun to suppress the rebellion before it gets out of hand. The most powerful of them, the MSA-0011 S Gundam, is equipped with an artificial intelligence named ALICE (Advanced Logistic and Inconsequence Cognizing Equipment). Task Force Alpha, consisting of four Salamis Kai cruisers ships and the flagship Pegasus III, arrives at Pezun and prepares to attack. In the midst of the action, the rebels launch a volley of guided missiles that destroys two cruisers. A week after the encounter, the Earth Federation sends the Tenth Divisional Fleet to reinforce TF Alpha. However, fleet commander Brian Aeno - who was approached by a New Desides representative days before - announces that his force will side with the rebels. Task Force Alpha and a Federation fleet from the Moon attacks the asteroid, forcing most of the rebels to pull out and head for the city, with a small contingent on Pezun providing cover fire and wiring the base to self-destruct with a nuclear weapon. Task Force Alpha realizes the deception and escape just before the asteroid explodes. Task Force Alpha begins to probe Ayers City with units of Neros which are quickly defeated by the Gundam Mk. V piloted by New Desides leader Brave Cod. The New Desides - which finally meets Aeno's forces after they arrive - launches a powerful counterattack just as Task Force Alpha drops mobile suits into the area. They also use a logic bomb that paralyzes Alpha's mobile suits after spies crack their operating systems' software. The EFSF counters the programming, but orders a retreat because of the high casualties and sends reinforcements, designated Task Force Beta. Task Forces Alpha and Beta launch Operation Eagle Falls, an all-out assault on Ayers City. The New Desides, which wanted to use the Moon as a base to establish a new independent nation, fails to rally nearby other lunar cities to their cause. The fighting is spread out over 11 days. Cod also goes on a rampage, destroying Task Force Alpha's three-man FAZZ squad, but is killed by EFSF pilot Ryu Roots and his Ex-S Gundam. As the city's forces surrender to the Federation, Ayers Mayor Kaiser Pinefield commits suicide after learning of Cod's death while the Neo Zeon arrive to extract the remaining New Desides forces. The New Desides troops that safely escape Ayers rendezvous with the remnants of Aeno's fleet. Master strategist Tosh Cray assumes control of the group, which he formally disbands over issues on whether it should side with the Neo Zeon. He plans to hijack the relay station Penta and use it as a staging area for raiding the Federation Senate at Dakar. To boost the New Desides survivors' chances of success, the Neo Zeon supplies them with the massive Zod'-Iacok mobile armor, which is capable of atmospheric reentry and will be used to bombard the Federation base in the city. The Pegasus III is deployed to pursue the New Desides at Penta. Arriving at the station, the Pegasus III and its remaining mobile suits confront Cray and the Zod'-Iacok. The New Desides' remaining members head for Earth in three shuttles after Aeno surrenders. The S Gundam launches with Roots and pilots Shin Crypt and Tex West aboard with two Zeta Plus units in support. One Zeta Plus mobile suit is destroyed in the chase and the other, having run out of ammunition destroying one shuttle, safely enters the atmosphere. The Zod'-Iacok separates into two halves called Zoans. One Zoan piloted by First Sides explodes because of an overheating mega-particle beam cannon and Josh Offshore tries to stop Roots from intercepting the second. Cray ejects from the Zoan and reboards one of the shuttles before he falls into the atmosphere. Realizing the desperate situation, ALICE, the S Gundam's AI, ejects its Core Fighter with Ryu, Crypt, and West inside. The now-self-aware mobile suit chases and destroys the New Desides survivors during the orbital descent, but breaks up under the blistering heat. ===== While breaking in to the Coburn University dining hall, college friends Felix, (Steve Lemme), Matt (Paul Soter), and Grogan (Kevin Heffernan) are discovered by campus police. Felix manages to escape, but Matt and Grogan are caught, and await a disciplinary trial. Felix meets Suzanne (Kayren Butler), the student lawyer assigned to his friend's case, and begins a casual relationship with her. Suzanne is still dating her boyfriend, Traci (Jamison Selby), who is a rugby player at another school. Suzanne attempts to hide her relationship with Felix from Traci, causing Felix to sleep with Jennifer (Laura Arieh), another student. Suzanne becomes angry with Felix for pursuing another woman, while he insists that she is hypocritical, as she is still dating Traci. Matt and Grogan inform Suzanne that Felix was with them on the night they were caught breaking into the dining hall, forcing her to resign from the case, causing a guilty verdict and a community service sentence. Suzanne breaks up with Traci, only to find that he is scheduled to play against the Coburn rugby team. Suzanne begs Felix not to play in the upcoming game for his own safety, but he insists on playing, only to be significantly injured by Traci. Suzanne attempts to have Felix removed from the game by reporting his crime to campus police, which results in a community service sentence as he recovers from his injuries. Felix and Suzanne admit that they love each other, as Felix begins carrying out his community service. meanwhile, Matt, Grogan, and Freaky Reaky (Erik Stolhanske) are caught later that night stealing food from the kitchen. ===== In 1999, a war between the Pan-American Confederacy and the Eurac Monarchy (comprising Europe, Africa, and Asia) resulted in a nuclear holocaust. 20 years later, radiation has rendered all remaining humans sterile, and the victorious Euracs have occupied Manhattan and hunt survivors for genetic experiments. After winning a motorized deathmatch in Nevada, an ex-Confederate soldier named Parsifal is abducted and taken to the Confederacy's secret base in Alaska. The President of the Confederacy tells him there is a fertile woman somewhere in New York City. He offers Parsifal a place on a Confederate rocketship bound for Alpha Centauri if he can infiltrate the city and retrieve her; otherwise, he will be killed. When Parsifal proposes sending in a cyborg instead, the President reveals the Confederacy eliminated all its cyborgs. Parsifal is accompanied by two Confederate agents, Bronx and Ratchet. After entering Manhattan through the sewers, they are attacked by the Harlem Hunters, a street gang. They escape and come upon the Needle People, a group of scavengers led by the Rat Eater King, preparing to kill a dwarf named Shorty. Parsifal intervenes, and the three agents are captured. Eurac troops raid the scavengers’ hideout and bring Parsifal, Bronx, and Ratchet to their base along with a scavenger girl, Giara. Parsifal escapes and rescues Bronx and Giara. Bronx stays behind and is killed, while Parsifal and Giara are saved by Ratchet. The three escape into the sewers and find refuge in a subterranean dwarf colony with Shorty, who claims to know the location of the fertile woman. The colony is attacked by Euracs using sonic weapons, and Parsifal, Giara, Ratchet, and Shorty flee. They are saved by a group of ape-like mutants, led by Big Ape. When Parsifal explains their mission, Big Ape reveals he is also fertile. That night, Parsifal protects Giara from one of Big Ape's mutants, and they have sex. Shorty leads them to an underground vault, where they find a deceased professor and a life support chamber containing Melissa, the professor's daughter, who entered hibernation before the bombs fell and thus remained fertile. They also find a station wagon to escape through the Lincoln Tunnel. Big Ape and Giara stay with Melissa while Shorty, Parsifal, and Ratchet leave to find armor plating for the car. Big Ape then knocks Giara unconscious and impregnates Melissa. At a junkyard, Shorty distracts the Euracs and sacrifices himself to buy Parsifal and Ratchet time to salvage. They return, collect Melissa, and drive through a cave wall into the tunnel. Parsifal manages to navigate the armored car past several minefields and barricades to freedom, but Big Ape is killed by a laser trap. While driving through the desert to their rendezvous, Parsifal deduces that Ratchet is actually a cyborg. Ratchet attacks him and stabs Giara before Parsifal kills him. Giara begs Parsifal ensure humanity's survival as she dies in his arms. Back at the Confederacy's headquarters, the President reveals that he is terminally ill, and gives Parsifal his place on the rocketship, which is revealed to be the base itself. As the ship blasts off, Parsifal watches Melissa finally awaken. ===== The Serial is divided into 52 short chapters. It chronicles the lives of a group of residents of Marin County, mostly in their mid-to-late 30s and early 40s. The plot revolves around Harvey and Kate Holroyd, a couple in the midst of the mid-1970s Marin County lifestyle who are undergoing marital problems, with many other characters introduced in the book. ===== From the bookjacket > "After a recruiter for the National Security Agency goes AWOL, NSA > information analyst T.C. Steele must track her down." ===== The film tells the story of a little fox kit, Vic (Vuk in the original Hungarian version), who ventures away from his family's den and, upon his return, learns from his uncle Karak that his entire family has been shot and killed by a human hunter (called "Smoothskinner" in the cartoon). Karak then offers for Vic to stay with him, and Karak continues to raise him. As Vic grows older, he develops much cunning and cleverness. Now a young adult fox, he even dares to infiltrate the hunter's house, during which he finds a vixen, named Foxy, held captive in a cage. During a stormy night, he tricks the guard dogs and other animals, as well as the hunter himself, and eventually helps the vixen escape by smashing the cage open with a loaded wagon. Foxy joins Vic and Karak in the woods, but when Autumn comes, Vic's uncle is shot by the hunter during the seasonal hunt. Vic swears revenge on the hunter and finally accomplishes it: first by breaking into the food locker and eating up all the eggs, then taking away all the poultry from the cages while playing many jokes on the hunter's stupid dogs (which results the two dogs to become strays at the end). Eventually, the hunter decides to set up bear-traps around his house, luring Vic with goose roast; however, the two hunting dogs fall into said traps, and the third one seriously injures the hunter himself as well. At the end of the film, Vic and Foxy have cubs of their own.VUK 1981 (Hungarian Version)-Internet Archive ===== In an unspecified future, space adventurer Barbarella is assigned by the President of Earth to retrieve Dr. Durand Durand from the Tau Ceti planetary system. Durand is the inventor of the laser powered super weapon called the positronic ray which Earth leaders fear will fall into the wrong hands. Barbarella crash-lands on Tau Ceti's 16th planet and is knocked unconscious by two children. They bring her into the wreckage of a spaceship where she is bound and attacked by several dolls with razor-sharp teeth. Barbarella is rescued by Mark Hand, the Catchman who patrols the ice looking for errant children. Hand tells her that Durand is in the city of Sogo, and she expresses her appreciation by having sexual intercourse with him, a practice now done on Earth by taking pills. Hand suggests having sex without pills, which Barbarella is initially skeptical of, but she discovers that she enjoys it. Barbarella leaves the planet and crashes into a labyrinth inhabited by outcasts from Sogo. She is found by Pygar, a blind angel who has lost the will to fly. Pygar introduces her to Professor Ping, who offers to repair Barbarella's ship. Pygar flies her to Sogo after she restores his will to fly with sexual intercourse. When they arrive, Pygar and Barbarella are captured by Sogo's Black Queen and her concierge. The concierge describes the Matmos: living energy in liquid form, powered by evil thoughts and used as an energy source in Sogo. Pygar endures a mock crucifixion and Barbarella is placed in a cage, where hundreds of birds prepare to attack her. She is rescued by Dildano, leader of the local underground, who joins in her pursuit of Durand. Dildano offers her an invisible key to a chamber of dreams where the Queen sleeps, and sends her back to Sogo. Barbarella is promptly recaptured by the concierge; he places her in an excessive-pleasure machine, which induces fatal sexual pleasure. She outlasts the machine, which shuts down. The concierge, shocked at its destruction, is revealed as Durand (who has aged 30 years due to the Matmos). He wants to become Sogo's new leader and overthrow the Black Queen, which requires his positronic ray and access to the chamber of dreams. Durand takes Barbarella to the chamber, locking her inside with the invisible key. She meets the Queen, who says that if two people are in the chamber, the Matmos will devour them. Durand seizes control of Sogo, as Dildano and his rebels begin their attack on the city. The Black Queen retaliates, releasing the Matmos to destroy Sogo. Protected by what the Black Queen calls Barbarella's innocence, they escape the Matmos and find Pygar; the angel clutches them in his arms and flies off. When Barbarella asks Pygar why he saved a tyrant, he replies: "An angel has no memory." ===== Roberto della Griva, a 17th-century Italian nobleman, is the sole survivor of a shipwreck during a fierce storm. He finds himself washed up on an abandoned ship in a harbour through which, he convinces himself, runs the International Date Line (roughly 180° longitude). Although the shore is very close, Roberto is unable to swim, and is therefore stranded on the ship. He begins to reminisce about his life and his love. He becomes obsessed about his allegedly evil twin brother, who is split from his own persona through a process reminiscent of the doppelgänger effect, and thus accusing him of all the bad things that happened in his life. The brother takes blame mainly for his bad choices and is present to sweeten the disappointments of life. Through this reminiscence he becomes convinced that all his troubles will end, if only he can reach the land. The story is told from the point of view of a modern editor who has sorted through the man's papers. Exactly how the papers were preserved and eventually handed down to the editor remains a point of conjecture. This work contains references to Eco's previous novels. In one example, there is a mention of a crucial plot point from Eco's first novel The Name of the Rose. ===== The books are set in a realm similar to ours, but separate. They tell the story of the Hath family and the Manth people, who go on a long, harsh journey from their city-prison to their homeland. The main characters, Kestrel and Bowman Hath, are twins who have certain powers that allow them to save their people, and friends, from an evil power called the Morah. The first book tells of the events unfolding near and inside Aramanth, the second one talks about the lives of the Manth people as slaves in The Mastery, and the third book concludes with their voyage to the homeland. The trilogy begins with The Wind Singer, which introduces the protagonists Kestrel and her beloved empath brother, Bowman. They live in a city called Aramanth, where personal freedoms don't exist and success depends solely on performance in universal compulsory examinations. Kestrel is a strong-willed individual who fiercely loves her family and despises the Exams. So great is her hatred of them that she denounces all the values and principles of Aramanth, as well as denying the existence of the Emperor, the unseen ruler of Aramanth. This sets in motion a chain of events that eventually results in Kestrel, Bowman and a neglected boy called Mumpo escaping from the city and going on a quest to save their people from an evil entity known as the Morah, which controls a numberless army of malevolent and deadly beings called the Zars. The children are successful, and a new era dawns for Aramanth. In Slaves of the Mastery the people of Aramanth have become pleasant and passive, no longer in the grip of the Morah. This new meekness attracts the attention of the powerful Mastery, a realm built entirely by slave labour and ruled by the merciless Master. Aramanth is destroyed and survivors of the slaughter - including the Haths- are taken into slavery. Kestrel evades capture and sets off after her family, intent on revenge and the liberation of her people. In the course of the book Bowman finds his psychic powers growing, and discovers that he has a greater part to play in the destiny of his people than he originally knew. Ira Hath also begins to prophesy about the destiny of the Manth people and a return to their homeland. Bowman eventually defeats the Master, destroying the Mastery and leaving his people free to seek out the homeland. The trilogy concludes with Firesong, which sees the remaining Manth people follow prophetess Ira Hath to the Manth homeland. Contending with harsh weather, starvation and various other dangers of the wilderness, the band struggle to survive, whilst Ira grows weaker the closer they get. Bowman and Kestrel leave their family in order to train as Singer people and they finally understand their part to play in what is to come. Kestrel sacrifices herself, along with the Singer people, in a final battle against the Morah, causing the “wind on fire” to sweep the world and purge it of the evil entity. This allows the Manth people to finally reach the homeland, where they begin their lives again. ===== The book begins in the walled city of Aramanth, an extreme meritocracy where endless exams and ratings are the only way to move forward to improved life stations; to be unsuccessful in this is seen as a great source of shame. Using a system based on colour classifications, the governing Examiners dictate what people can wear, where they can live and what jobs they can do. The levels are grey, maroon, orange, scarlet and white, with the muddy Underlake the lowest and white the highest. The Emperor is the only person allowed to wear blue. A minority in their society, the Haths believe more in ideas and dreams than in endless toil and ratings. When young Kestrel defies the harsh classification system of Aramanth she flees, finding herself in the company of the Emperor of Aramanth. Thought to be the ruler of the city, he is found to be merely a puppet of the High Examiner, and the Emperor tells Kestrel of the need to rid Aramanth of the influence of the evil Morah, of the need to return the voice to the mysterious Wind Singer that stands in the city arena. Using an archaic map given to her by the Emperor she sets off, joined by her twin brother, Bowman, and their brave but pitiful new friend, Mumpo, who has an unshakeable affection for Kestrel. They meet a variety of tribes and individuals including the fearsome nomadic clans of Ombaraka and Omchaka. The journey eventually leads them to the Halls of the Morah; the very heart of the evil that has taken control of the city. Here the children finally retrieve the voice of the Wind Singer, in the process waking the terrible Zars, an army of the Morah. Pursued by the beautiful, evil and unstoppable Zars, the children race back to Aramanth, arriving just in time to return the Wind Singer's voice. The voice allows the Wind Singer to emit a powerful song that destroys the Zars and saves Aramanth. ===== At the beginning of the book, the city of Aramanth is greatly changed since events in The Wind Singer. The walls have been torn down, and the poorer districts abandoned. No longer is it run by the strict system of exams; in fact, everyone is pleasant and docile. The change occurred because the city had been released from the grip of an evil force known as the Morah. This new freedom, however, has also severely weakened the city. News of this reaches as far as a distant country known as the Mastery. The country sends an army of a thousand, commanded by young Marius Semeon Ortiz, to destroy the city and take its entire population as slaves. They do so, killing many of the city's residents, enslaving yet more, and leaving no survivors, except for Kestrel Hath. She vows to have revenge on the unknown Mastery, and on Ortiz himself, and begins to follow the trail led by the returning army. The Manth people are brought to the Mastery, a beautiful country built up entirely on slave labor. They are branded and given jobs. Though some of the people begin to actually enjoy work, as they discover that every single person in the Mastery is a slave (except for the Master, ruler of the land, himself). Hanno Hath, father of Kestrel, signs up to be a librarian, while his son Bowman decides to become a night watchman, in order to listen for his approaching sister. Kestrel, meanwhile, faints with exhaustion on her journey. She is rescued by the beautiful Sirharasi (Sisi), Johdila of Gang. As one of the few people who has seen Sisi unveiled, Kestrel becomes her servant and mutual friend. She discovers that Sisi is also travelling to the Mastery to marry Ortiz, the man who led the attack on Aramanth. Kestrel decides to try to use the considerable might of Gang's army, the Johjan Guards, to overthrow the Mastery, and she convinces Zohon, the Guards' conceited leader, that Sisi loves him, and that she will give him a sign to show this. While on a night watch, Bowman is approached by an ancient, one-eyed hermit known as "Dogface", who tells Bowman that, as the son of the prophet (Bowman's mother, Ira Hath, is descended from the ancient prophet, Ira Manth), he has great powers that belong to the Singer people. Bowman tests these new powers by speaking with a cow, moving a stick without touching it, and later speaking to a cat, Mist, that Dogface leaves behind. Mist's ambition is to learn how to fly, but as Bowman's powers are initially limited and untested, he doesn't and can't teach Mist. Meanwhile, Mumpo, another Manth slave, joins the Manaxa. The Manaxa is a fight where two competitors attempt to stab each other with spiked armor until either one dies or is driven out of the arena, and is considered a great honor to compete in the Mastery. He shows considerable talent at this and at the wedding kills the reigning champion and heavy favorite. At the wedding Sisi and Ortiz both fall for people other than those intended, Sisi for Bowman and Ortiz for Kestrel, and chaos ensues. Zohan, believing he is rescuing Sisi from the Mastery, instigates a battle against Ortiz and his men; however the entire population of the Mastery, bound by the Master's will, attacks and outnumbers Zohon's army. Mumpo begins searching for Kestrel to try to save her in the chaos, killing anyone he encounters whether they be Mastery Citizens or in the Johjan Guards. Bowman, using his mind powers, engages in a mind duel with the Master. Kestrel and Ortiz come in. Bowman is temporarily distracted and the Master exploits this and commands Ortiz to kill Kestrel. Despite his love for her, he is unable to resist the Master's will and obeys. With the sword centimeters from her heart, Bowman kills the Master and Ortiz is released from his will. Mumpo enters the room and sees Ortiz with his arms around Kestrel, and gets the wrong idea. Mumpo smashes Ortiz's head and breaks his neck. Released from his power, the Master's army dissipates and sets about destroying the city in a frenzy, and Zohon seizes control. Finally free to leave, Ira Hath asserts that they must seek out the homeland, as "the wind is rising". Though many of the Manth people choose to stay behind and make a life for themselves where they are, a small group resolve to trust in Ira's prophecy, and together along with Sisi and her servant Lunki, they set out in search of the homeland. ===== Firesong begins with the Manth people deliberating over what action to take, now that the Mastery is in ruins. After the defeat of the Master, alone and displaced, they seek a new homeland but have no real destination and very little food. Ira Hath, descendant of Ira Manth, and a great prophetess who is also Kestrel and Bowman's mother, has a vision of the Manth people's true homeland. Throughout the book the Manth people travel with only Ira's guidance, and she becomes weaker as they go, knowing she will eventually die of prophecy. Bowman eagerly awaits a summons from Sirene, and must prepare to sacrifice himself to save his people and the world. Before he is ready for this, however, he must be trained by the great Albard, the Master of the ruined Mastery. The journey is long, and his preparation is tough, especially in the hands of a strange teacher. Jumper, the man-woman Singer who can change forms and personalities to please people, has come for Bowman. Jumper agrees to let Kestrel, Bowman's sister, come along as well. In the end it is revealed that Kestrel is the one who is destined to give her life, having picked up Albard's teachings along the way. Bowman is in fact the Meeting place- the point at which the great evil and the great kindness of the world will annihilate one another. This is because he was once one of the Zars, the army of the Morah (the "spirit" of all evil), and is one of the Singer people too, as he has been trained in their ways. Upon reaching the homeland, Ira's life ends, her destiny fulfilled. Kestrel, too, ends her life with all the other Singers, singing the firesong to destroy the Morah, give humanity a fresh start, and allow the Manth people to finally reach the homeland. The epilogue, set some 8 years later, finds the Manth people established in their new home, with various people married and with young families. Amongst them are Bowman and Sisi (the princess of Gang, and Kestrel's best friend), who are now rulers of Gang due to Sisi's birthright. The ending sees Pinto and Mumpo betrothed, and the Manth people happy at last. ===== Frankfurt, Germany: A young woman races frantically down deserted corridors above a bustling nightclub. Hooded figures similar to the robed men from the previous episode follow her. She dashes through an exterior door, scales down the building, and, believing herself safe, leaves the building at the street level. Robed pursuers appear and push her back through the door. One of the robed figures pulls a long curved dagger. She blocks his swing, but misses the next. The assassins re-sheath their daggers and depart. The young woman opens her deadened eyes and says in a deep, inhuman voice, "From beneath you, it devours." Dawn awakens Buffy from the nightmare in which she witnessed the German woman's murder and Buffy questions the meaning of her dream. Elsewhere in Sunnydale, something large tears through the ground. Spike sneaks around in the school basement he calls home, seemingly headed for a rat while he speaks aloud. Everything around him begins to shake and he falls to the ground, screaming. Xander drives Buffy and Dawn to school and they talk about high school and Xander's relationship problems. Principal Wood introduces Buffy to her new job and cubicle where she'll be working. Buffy sneaks down to the basement in search of Spike, but doesn't find him. In England, Willow struggles with the need to return to Sunnydale where she'll be forced to face her friends and the trouble she caused. A taxi awaits her as Giles listens to her verbalize her fears and he convinces her that even if her friends don't want her back, her presence on the Hellmouth will be important. Back in Sunnydale, a woman walks her small dog along the sidewalk, but while her back is turned, something sucks the dog through the pavement and into the ground. She runs away and right into Xander, who takes her to the safety of Buffy's house. The remaining Scooby Gang console the woman, Nancy, and promise to deal with this unusual creature. Much to everyone's surprise, a cleaned up version of Spike joins them in the living room and offers his assistance in the battle. Spike wants to talk with Buffy, but Dawn and Xander are not happy to see him or with the fact that Buffy didn't inform them that she saw Spike earlier. Buffy goes to talk with Spike privately and he offers to help deal with this underground monster. Buffy eventually agrees to let him help, then explains the game plan to the rest of the group. As Spike leaves with Buffy for patrol, Dawn leaves him with a parting threat that if he ever again harms or touches Buffy, Dawn will set him on fire the next time he goes to sleep. Spike is somewhat unnerved by this which is surprising since Spike is usually not easily frightened. While examining the scene where the dog was eaten, Spike explains that the manifest spirits from the school were the cause of his temporary insanity. Buffy is uncomfortable around him and he doesn't bother apologizing for what he did, just admits to changing. Meanwhile, Xander takes Nancy home and she asks if they can go out sometime. The ground rumbles and a giant worm chases them down a hallway and emerges from the ground with a roar. Once the worm goes away and the two are safe, Nancy starts to talk about her abusive ex-boyfriend and Xander quickly concludes that she made a wish to a vengeance demon. Buffy and the gang confront Anya at the Bronze and get her to admit to making Nancy's ex-boyfriend Ronnie into a Sluggoth demon. Nancy learns that Buffy and Spike, Spike and Anya, and Anya and Xander had been involved. She asks if anyone there hadn't slept together. Spike and Xander look at each other, knowingly. Anya suddenly realizes that Spike has a soul, but Spike tries to stop her from spilling the news to the rest of the group. He starts to attack Anya and she turns on him, using her vengeance demon strength. Buffy steps in and beats up on Spike while he hits back with a verbal assault of what he did instead of his fists. The fight sends Nancy on the run alone, but her wormy ex-boyfriend is hot on her trail. Meanwhile, Xander tries to convince Anya to reverse the curse on Ronnie, but it's not something she can do easily. Buffy arrives in time to rescue Nancy from certain death and before Buffy can begin to battle with the giant worm, Spike intervenes. After a few hits with a metal pole, he goes to stab the worm only to have it turn back into Ronnie's human form before Spike makes contact. Spike's chip fires as he realizes that he's attacked a human being. He is terrified as he feels remorse, and he warns Buffy that "from beneath you, it devours." Anya and Xander arrive on the scene and Anya knows she will pay a steep price for reversing the spell. Buffy chases after Spike and finds him in a church. He's confused and speaks metaphors of what he really is to Buffy. He concludes that she's there to use him like she did before, but Buffy is quick to correct him. He unbuckles his belt telling her that it's time to service the girl. He grabs her throat; she throws him across the room. He tries to explain what he did, to get the missing piece that would allow him to become what she wanted, and that Angel should have warned him of the consequences. Buffy then understands that he got his soul back and is shocked by the revelation. Spike continues to speak of all the voices that are in his head, those of the people he tortured and killed as a vampire, and also that of coming evil beneath. Buffy asks him why he got his soul back, and Spike replies that it was for her forgiveness. Spike turns to a large cross at the front of the church and drapes himself onto it, letting it burn him. Tears flow down Buffy's cheeks as she looks on, as Spike asks "Can we rest now, Buffy?" ===== Told from Neal Cassady's (Thomas Jane) perspective, in a form of a letter, the film follows his life before and after the suicide attempt by his longtime lover, Joan (Claire Forlani). Demonstrating Neal's active mind and ever changing thoughts, the film jumps back and forth between before and after the attempt. The story begins the day of Joan's suicide attempt, with Neal sitting in the hall outside Joan's hospital room. The story then jumps to the day before the suicide attempt, where a rain soaked Neal whisks Joan away from her job. They have an intimate night together. After, she sits on the bed, sad, but Neal keeps professing his love to her. The scene returns to the hospital room, silence between them. Neal is told he has to leave. The story moves ahead, with Ben (Adrien Brody) visiting Neal. He asks Neal if he has been back to the hospital to which Neal replies no. It cuts ahead to Neal wide awake, drinking coffee and eating bread with Ben. In a manic state, Neal tells Ben about the story he wants to write. Neal encounters his friend Harry (Keanu Reeves), who suggests the two of them pick up some girls and take them out on a road trip in a stolen car. They all drive out into the country, flying down the roads. Later, at Neal's job at a tire plant, Neal's friend Jerry finds Neal obviously high, and saves him from getting in trouble. Eventually, Neal makes amends with Joan, and decides to settle down with her. On his way to pick up a suit for their wedding, he runs into a drunk Harry, who asks him to come in for a beer. Neal ends up drunk, and Harry convinces him to call Mary (Gretchen Mol), his teenaged ex-girlfriend. When Mary sneaks out of her house, her mother calls the police, who arrest Neal just as he is about to leave. He is allowed to make a phone call, but he doesn't know Joan's phone number. When Mary refuses to testify against Neal, the charges are dropped. The police nevertheless hold him on the false premise of suspicion of burglary. After spending a two weeks in jail, Neal is released. He goes to Joan's house, but finds it empty; he waits, but eventually it is obvious she isn't coming back. He walks back down the porch, steals a car, and disappears. Neal finishes writing the letter and places it in an envelope. Walking away, he throws the pages of his novel into the air, paper flying and landing everywhere. ===== The protagonist of the novel is a 13-year-old orphan named Tom Mullen. He lives in the Old Swan area of Liverpool with his hostile foster parents and his "brother", Brian. One night, Tom and Brian creep out to investigate a mysterious excavation near their school and discover that the workmen have uncovered an old graveyard. As Tom is examining the burial ground, he falls into the dark endless pit. Tom wakes up in the countryside near the sea. He sees a group of people gathered around the body of a drowned boy who looks exactly like Tom. Everyone thinks the boy is dead, but Tom does CPR and saves him. The boy's name is Tully Monaghan, and Tom is invited to live with his family. As Tom walks into their cottage, he notices a newspaper saying that the date is September 1847. He is not only somehow in Ireland, he has traveled back in time to the height of the Great Famine. When the villagers come under attack from the owners of the land, Tom gets hit on the head and is catapulted back to his own time, 1974. He is devastated that he is no longer with the friendly Monaghans. During football practice Tom realizes he can simply jump back into the pit to return to the past. When he does this, however, he discovers that the Monaghans' cottage has been all but destroyed, Tully's father is dead, and the family has decided to move to Liverpool. Tom goes with them, but later again accidentally returns to the modern day. The next night Tom once again jumps down into the grave. He returns to old Liverpool on March 13, 1848 – four months since he last saw the Monaghans. Tully's mother is now very ill with fever and his brother Brendan catches it too; both die in hospital. Tom tells Tully and his sister Hannah, the only remaining members of the family, about his coming from the future. They figure out that Tully is Tom's great-grandfather and that the reason why Tom came to the past was that if Tully had died on the beach, Tom would never have been born. Tom decides to return to his own time, only to be literally kicked out of the house by his foster parents. That night Tom goes to the grave, takes Ma's and Brendan's coffins and buries them in a church graveyard. A few months later, Tom's football coach asks him why he changed his last name to Monaghan. It turns out that the coach is Tom's long-lost father. ===== The novel tells the story of a fictional famous college football player at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during the early 1950s. The setting of the novel was changed to Louisiana State University for the movie adaptation. The main character, Gavin Grey, wins the Heisman Trophy and then goes on to a professional career, but is sidetracked by alcoholism, failed business ventures, and marital difficulties among other misjudgments. The novel is narrated by Grey's nephew, Donnie McClure, a historian who has written a biography of Confederate war hero J.E.B. Stuart. During his college career, Grey's heroics are often compared to Stuart's actions. Both are celebrated not only for their actions, but for their gentle behavior and consideration for others around them. Grey's greatest moments came away from the football field. At a fraternity party, a carelessly placed cigarette ignites the dress of a young woman, who staggers back in fear and nearly starts a much larger fire by lighting a set of drapes. Despite a strong fear of fire, Grey saves the woman by leaping forward and dousing the flames. A few weeks later, Grey, McClure, and a UNC teammate, Lawrence, venture into a black neighborhood where Grey meets Narvel Blue, another one-time football star whose greatness was never realized because of bad grades, segregation, and bad luck. Blue and Grey compare attributes but decide that a foot-race must be held to determine which is the faster runner. Despite falling behind initially, Grey eventually overcomes Blue by a shade at the end of the race. After a serious knee injury cuts short his professional career, he is miserable in retirement and returns to accept a lesser role with the Baltimore Colts. However, his season, and ultimately his football career, end after a knee injury in his third game. Grey is left calling every team in the NFL, begging for one more chance. Grey is left to constantly reminisce about his glory days on the football field, boring and embarrassing those around him. His once-gawky and awkward nephew Donnie becomes a respected scholar and biographer, and his beauty queen wife, Babs, becomes a successful career woman. All of Grey's former teammates move toward their life off the gridiron with infinitely more grace, while Narvel Blue overcomes racism in the South to become a successful restaurateur. As each day passes, Grey falls farther away from his moments of glory. And with each passing day, his relevance, sense of place, and his grasp of the world around him fade until he is diminished to little more than a ghost. ===== Hannie Caulder (Welch) is a frontier wife, living with her husband at a horse station between towns in the American West. After a disastrous bank raid, the inept Clemens brothers gang arrives at the station. They murder Caulder's husband, gang-rape her, burn down her house,and leave her for dead. The brothers go on a crime spree, while Caulder recruits bounty hunter Thomas Price (Culp) to help her get revenge by training her to be a gunfighter. The pair travels to Mexico to have gunsmith Bailey (Christopher Lee) build her a specialized revolver, to be a fast-draw specialist. When bandidos surround the house, a gun battle erupts, but Hannie is unable to kill a man face-to-face. Price recommends she give up her quest for revenge, but she refuses, telling him to get out and that she was only using him and does not need him anymore. He leaves, telling her she is a bad liar. As he goes, Price sees the Clemens brothers arrive in town. His attempt to take down Frank goes awry, because Emmet throws a knife into Price's belly, mortally wounding him. Hannie goes after them, killing Frank (Jack Elam) in a whorehouse. The two brothers swear revenge on her, but she gets Rufus (Strother Martin) in a store when he tries to kill her. Hannie lures Emmett (Borgnine) to an old prison for a showdown and almost meets the same fate as Price, but Emmett's attempt to throw a knife into her back is thwarted by the Preacher, who shoots it from his hand. Hannie kills Emmett face-to-face, but realizes that Price was right - taking revenge will change her forever. ===== In the North African campaign, the player's (Specter) fireteam consists "Jester" as well as SEALs "Killjoy" and "Simple". Specter's SEAL team battles the North African Patriotic Front (NAPF), the renamed Algerian Patriotic Front from SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs, led by the megalomaniac General Heydar Mahmood and Colonel Sarwat, his second-in-command. Mahmood had gained control of Algeria via a coup d'etat during the previous game, and now the NAPF has just launched an offensive into a neighboring unnamed country, implied to be Morocco, while the SEAL team is enlisted to support local forces trying to repel the NAPF. Upon arriving, Specter rendezvous with local forces, and proceeds to ambush an NAPF convoy, secure a NAPF sanctuary, and demolishes a communications tower. After meeting up with the local fighter leader, the "Sand Lion", Specter's team assists the locals in attacking an NAPF weapons depot. They cut off the NAPF reinforcement route by demolishing a bridge, and unexpectedly encounters an enemy T-72. En route to the weapons depot, the SEALs find dozens of civilians killed by the NAPF. After destroying the depot, the SEALs are redeployed following the Coalition for Humanitarian Aid's (CHA) approval of a military intervention in the area. Via the Strait of Gibraltar, the CHA invades only to be fired upon by NAPF Chinese-made HY-2 cruise missiles. The SEALs rush to deactivate the missile launch sites before the CHA calls off the invasion. The CHA successfully lands, while the SEALs are called to hold off a NAPF preemptive strike against leading CHA forces. Repelling waves of infantry and tanks, reinforcements finally arrive and a counterattack is launched against the NAPF in the ruins of an old fort where troops are amassing. Subsequently, the SEALs enter Mahmood's Field HQ to capture him and Colonel Sarwat, but were delayed due to Marcy Raines, a personnel working for the State Department (from SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs), who was stranded and required extraction. Mahmood takes advantage of the delay, and flees in an Mi-24 helicopter leaving Sarwat for the SEALs. Later, the SEALs search for Mahmood whose helicopter was shot down. After fighting two NAPF tanks, Specter search several villages for him, and finally collects enough data to pinpoint his location at a mountain villa. Mahmood is captured and the African Campaign ends. In the South Asian missions "Killjoy" and "Simple" are replaced by British Special Boat Service operatives "Flash" and "Chopper". In these missions the player battles a piracy organization called "The Fist and Fire". In the missions' plot the Fist and Fire have been wreaking havoc on local shipping and recently captured the freighter "Breackneck", which was loaded with missiles and small arms, in the Bay of Bengal and steered her back to Bangladesh. In the first mission the player assaults a remote Fist and Fire (Often referred to as Raiders by your fireteam) outpost along a river. Once there the team searches for the Breakneck and its cargo of missiles. The player finds the freighter but the cargo was moved to a second, larger outpost. When the player checks a warehouse a cut-scene plays and the missiles are being loaded onto a small boat that soon leaves its dock. In the second mission the player meets a local informant "Magpie" who assists him in searching two villages for a "Mole" who had been leaking information to the Raiders and talking to villagers. After the villages have been searched the team dismantles Raider operations in the villages and their surroundings. En route to the extraction a man runs toward the informant warning him that his village is being looted and burnt by the Raiders. The player and his fireteam then stops the massacre and moves on to complete the final objective. In the last mission, the team enters the Raiders' headquarter on an island in search of their leader, Hari Raman, the Captain and the first mate of the Breakneak who are being held hostage, and the missiles. After securing the beachhead the team finds a small cave system, in these caves and their direct vicinity you locate Raman, the hostages and the missiles. The last missions take place in Poland where the SEALs battle a well funded, ultra-nationalist terrorist organization called the New Slavic Order (NSO). In these missions "Flash" and "Chopper" are replaced by GROM operatives "Deadpan" and "Coldkill". In the first mission the team performs reconnaissance on an NSO controlled house which is the residence of a local cell leader, Bogdan Kurasz codenamed FATCAT, and bug a laptop and a phone for gathering intel for future operations. The second mission begins when the First Lady of Poland, Ludmila Zarobska, is at a boat christening ceremony in the port city of Gdańsk when chemical weapon canisters explode and several NSO terrorists move in to kidnap her. Their plan was to take her hostage and use her as a bargaining chip to force the government to agree to their demands. Unable to contact the First Lady's security detail, the fireteam is sent in to rescue and extract her. After a boat chase through the city's canals and a long firefight, the team secures her and proceeds to extract. On the way the team encounters brutal NSO resistance as they have taken control of the city. Once the team has secured the extraction, an Mi-24 comes to extract the first lady. After the player kills some terrorists that were fleeing from Polish Forces, the mission ends. The third mission takes place where the player's team returns to the site of the first mission to eliminate the NSO presence and capture the cell leader, FATCAT. After an extensive search of the surrounding area and buildings, the team find a cave system underneath a barn. The team continues through the caves and out into a forest where they eventually find and apprehend FATCAT. The fourth mission takes place in the city of Wroclaw near the Polish border with the Czech Republic. The NSO is preparing to flee Poland, because of their recent setbacks, and plan to set up operations elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Fortunately, a storm moved into the region and flooded the city, enabling the team to infiltrate, recon, and pinpoint the creator of the NSO's chemical weapon arsenal, Dr. Mironova, and the NSO's leader, Kryzstof Gryc. Once they're located the team extracts from the area. In the last mission of the game the team goes back to the city to kill all the remaining NSO terrorists as well as Mironova and Gryc, and secure their chemical weapons. The team first clears a safehouse with moderate resistance and then moves on to clear a courtyard where a heavy but brief firefight ensues. The team finally reaches a brewery where the weapons and Mironoava are. Once she is killed, H.Q. warns the team that Gryc has led a suicide assault on the brewery to set off the weapons. Once the team mows down waves of NSO assaults and defends the brewery, Gryc leads a small team himself, once he and his team are killed, the mission is complete. SOCOM 3 U.S. Navy SEALs is playable on five difficulty levels. At the start, the player can only choose from three of these. If the player completes the game on Commander, they can unlock the Captain difficulty level (which unlocks the Admiral difficulty level upon successful completion). Every mission has primary, secondary, bonus, and crosstalk objectives - which are compatible with the Sony PSP game SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo. ===== At the outset of the novel, the Buddha seeks a pilgrim who will travel to India. The hope is to retrieve sacred scriptures by which the Chinese people may be enlightened so that their behaviour may accord with the tenets of Buddhism. The young monk Tripitaka volunteers to undertake the pilgrimage. Along the way, he encounters and frees the Monkey King. He and Monkey thereafter recruit Pigsy and Sandy. They liberate a captive princess and punish her abductor, who has also murdered her father. The father is resurrected and reinstalled as king. They meet several bodhisattvas and fight fierce monsters, before finally arriving at Buddha's palace. ===== The overall plot is very similar to the first story arc in the manga and anime, with eighth-grade girls Hikaru Shidou, Umi Ryuuzaki and Fuu Hououji finding themselves drawn from their respective field trips to the Tokyo Tower into the world of Cephiro. There, Master Mage Clef inform them that, in order to return to Tokyo, the three girls must become the Magic Knights and rescue Cephiro's current Pillar, Princess Emeraude (named as Princess Emerald in the English version), from her abductor, the high priest and antagonist Zagato (named as Zagat in the English version). All of the characters from the first arc of the manga are present in the game, as well as anime-exclusive character Inouva. However, the game presents several new locations and characters, thus considerably expanding the overall plot. The player can also read each of the girls' journals, which receive new entries after key events in the game, providing their individual insights on the events. Unlike in the manga and anime, all of Zagato's minions die throughout the game, including Ascot, Caldina and Rafarga. ===== This documentary records the lives of several old farmers (peasants) in Chheⁿ-liâu Village, Āu-piah (i.e., Houbi Township), Tainan County (now part of Tainan City). It generated discussion and debate in the Taiwanese civil society about the impact on agriculture due to its membership in the World Trade Organization. ===== Barry Wirth (Sam Worthington) is a retired small-time criminal who is released on parole following the death of his mother, so that he can care for his younger brother, Joey (Luke Pegler). Wirth was falsely convicted for murder by corrupt police detective Arnie DeViers (David Field), who is in the employ of criminal kingpin Chicka Martin (Gary Sweet). Shortly after Wirth is released, a corrupt accountant is arrested and his records seized, causing difficulties for Wirth's new employer, Darren "Dabba" Barrington (Timothy Spall), an ex criminal turned restaurateur whose money is seized along with that of Chicka. Wirth's friend Johnny "Spit" Spitieri (David Wenham), a heroin addict and small-time criminal, is arrested while conducting a drug deal and finds himself owing twenty thousand dollars to Chicka. DeViers continues to harass and threaten Wirth, even as the latter finds success as a chef in Dabba's restaurant. Despite his best efforts to remain clean, Wirth finds himself under increasing pressure to return to his criminal ways in order to help both Dabba and Spit. ===== The film depicts the rise and fall of Kate Purley (Hazel O'Connor), an angry but creative young singer and songwriter. At the beginning of the film, she is discovered by Danny (Phil Daniels), a young man who desperately wants to become a promoter of music bands but is stuck working for another agent (who forces him to buy hundreds of copies of the singles of one of his artists, Suzie Sapphire, to fix the music charts). Danny takes an active part in controlling Kate's career, impressed with her talent if not her band, whom he promptly fires. He arranges auditions and reaches out to former friends, and in doing so Kate's new band, Breaking Glass, is formed. Breaking Glass consists of Kate on vocals and keyboard, best friends Tony (Mark Wingett) and Dave (Gary Tibbs) on lead and bass guitar respectively, the heroin-addicted and partially-deaf Ken (Jonathan Pryce) on saxophone and the 'mental' Mick (Peter-Hugo Daly) on drums. Danny does his best to promote the band but finds it hard-going. The best he can do is several nights in a pub frequented by neo-Nazis, which, given Kate's anarchist and liberal tendencies that shine through in her songwriting, doesn't go well. After a brawl breaks out one night and the publican refuses to pay the band, Danny finally manages to persuade the anti-establishment Kate to record a demo tape. Danny and Kate then take the demo tape to some gig promoters who show no interest. The band keep struggling to get by, despite being hassled by the police, and in the meantime Kate realises she is falling in love with Danny. The hard work eventually pays off when the gig promoters finally agree to help out but only by offering the band a contract that Danny describes as "feudal". Several months pass as the band tours the country, building up a large fanbase. On Christmas Eve the band is stranded when their van breaks down and the British Rail train drivers are on strike. It is at this point that Danny and Kate kiss for the first time and become a couple. Danny blackmails his former employer (by threatening to reveal how he paid Danny to rig the charts) into attending a gig in London. However, disaster strikes when the band begins to perform and a power-cut occurs. Encouraged by Danny and Mick, the band continues anyway and wins the hostile crowd over. Their performance greatly impresses the music agents Danny forced into coming, and the band is offered a record contract. Almost immediately things do not go well. Firstly, the band are not amused by how the music agents demand changes to some of the 'offensive' lyrics to secure airplay (such as changing 'kick him in the arse' to 'punch him in the nose'). The recording of the first album does not go well and the agents also reveal that they think Danny is the problem. The chart rise of "Top of the Wheel", the band's first single, parallels the earlier success of Suzie Sapphire. Forced into playing at a Rock Against Racism benefit concert, the band finds the organisation lacking and tries to leave, only to see a neo-Nazi rally approaching. They decide to play anyway (and a particularly controversial song), which results in a riot breaking out. Danny wants the band to leave but Kate insists on taunting the crowd. That changes when a young man who has been stabbed falls right in front of her, screaming in pain and desperation. This causes Kate to scream. While recovering from her trauma, Kate is forced to audition for a famous music producer, Bob Woods (Jon Finch), who makes it clear that he wants to produce her music and also be involved with her. Kate's new songs seem to help her recover mentally, but the rest of the band are not so happy. Danny finds himself being pushed more and more into the sidelines and Ken has no saxophone part to play on the big new single. On tour again, the agents start sowing seeds of discontent among the band, hinting heavily that Danny is the problem. This leads to a confrontation on the tour bus after which Danny storms out and quits. Woods now moves in as the band's manager and becomes Kate's new lover. After much more success, including a platinum record, the band keeps falling apart. Mick quits, claiming to be bored of the simplistic drum patterns he's been given to play. Kate hates the pressures and lack of control that fame has brought her. Dave and Tony treat Ken terribly, hating him for being a junkie, and he quits the group too. By now the band's name has been amended to Kate & Breaking Glass. During a radio show which invites listeners to call in, Kate has trouble understanding her fans and gets angry when she is accused of being controlled by her record company, and even more so when someone she thinks is Danny calls in to accuse her of selling out. The next single released is "Big Brother", which features the 'offensive' lyrics completely changed as the music agents originally wanted, proving she has indeed sold out. Mick and Ken meet with Danny and accuse him of abandoning them and ruining the band but all the same they plead with him to come back and help Kate, yet he refuses. The film ends with a huge concert and the debut of a new song, although already drugged Kate is forced to go on stage by Chris Campbell, who forcibly holds her down while a doctor injects her in the buttocks with more drugs. Kate goes on with the band, performing the song "Eighth Day" (the American release of the film ends the movie after the song). After the song finishes Kate flees the stage into the London Underground, where she begins hallucinating people dressed as her and her former bandmates, and has a nervous breakdown. The final scene shows Kate catatonic at a mental hospital where Danny comes to visit her and to bring her a synthesiser. ===== In Wabasha, Minnesota, retirees John Gustafson and Max Goldman are feuding next- door neighbors. Living alone, they spend their time ice fishing and pulling cruel practical jokes on each other, including John leaving a dead fish in Max’s truck. Their rivalry irritates their friend Chuck, owner of the town bait shop, and Max’s son Jacob, who is running for mayor. Dodging the attempts of IRS Agent Snyder to collect a serious debt, John supports his daughter Melanie when she separates from her husband Mike. John and Max both find themselves attracted to Ariel Truax, a free-spirited art professor who moves in across the street. Chuck has Thanksgiving dinner with Ariel, prompting John and Max to compete for her affections. Chuck dies, and Max discovers John’s IRS debt. John spends time with Ariel, revealing that he and Max used to be childhood friends. John and Ariel have sex – his first time since 1978 – and a jealous Max drives John’s fishing shanty into thin ice, which John narrowly escapes. He confronts Max, and the source of their animosity is revealed: Max resents John for marrying Max’s high school sweetheart. John explains she was unfaithful and Max was happier with the woman he did marry, but Max reminds John that he will have nothing to offer Ariel once the IRS takes his house. With this on his mind, John ends his relationship with Ariel, who warns that he will regret the risks he did not take in life. Jacob is elected mayor, and Max continues courting Ariel. On Christmas, Melanie comes to visit and John is upset to learn she has reconciled with Mike. Giving her the same warning Ariel gave him, John leaves for the local bar. At Melanie’s request, Jacob asks Max to settle things with John, but the fathers are unable to mend their dispute and John storms out of the bar. Max soon follows and finds John in the snow, having suffered a heart attack. At the hospital, Max checks in by declaring he is John’s friend. He tells Ariel what happened, and she reconciles with John as he recovers. Max tries to resolve John’s debt, but the unsympathetic Agent Snyder prepares to sell John’s house and possessions. Barricading the house, Max leaves a fish in Snyder’s car and buries him in snow, while Jacob is able to temporarily block the property’s seizure. Spring arrives, and John and Ariel get married. As a wedding gift, Max informs John that he and Jacob have paid off the debt. The newlyweds drive off, but not before John finds Max has left another fish in the car. Max leaves to find a date of his own, as Jacob and an officially divorced Melanie begin a new romance with each other. ===== The feud between Max (Walter Matthau) and John (Jack Lemmon) has cooled and they have become good friends. Their children, Melanie (Daryl Hannah) and Jacob (Kevin Pollak), have become engaged. Meanwhile, John is enjoying his marriage to new wife Ariel (Ann-Margret). John and Max still call each other "moron" and "putz" respectively, but with friendly intentions. The spring and summer fishing season is in full swing with the annual quest to catch "Catfish Hunter," an unusually large catfish that seems to enjoy eluding anyone that tries to catch it. However, the local bait shop closed after Chuck, the previous owner, died in the first movie. Maria Ragetti (Sophia Loren) has purchased the property with the intent of converting it into a fancy Italian restaurant. Irritated it will no longer be a bait shop, Max and John join forces to sabotage the restaurant. They are successful at first with their practical jokes. However, when Ariel learns what is going on, she tells John to apologize to Maria at once, and he does after Ariel kicks him out of the house. Max and Maria begin dating after discovering a shared passion for fishing, while her mother Francesca (Ann Morgan Guilbert) dates John's father, J.W. (Burgess Meredith). To complicate things further, Jacob and Melanie call off their engagement due to stress from their parents' involvement. Upon hearing the news, John and Max reignite their feud and go back to their childish pranks again such as John cutting a hole in Max's fishing net and detaching the anchor to his boat. Max retaliates by disconnecting John's motor from his boat and broadcasting himself nude (while Ariel was making a clay statue of him) at a Sears department store. Ariel is stressed out because of it and leaves John until things settle down. At the restaurant, Francesca is worried about all the time Maria spends with Max. She reminds her daughter of her five failed marriages and worries that Max will make it six. After being convinced to take a long look at herself, Maria reluctantly stops seeing Max. Distraught over losing Ariel, John heads to the lake for his father's advice but finds that he has died in his favorite spot with a fishing pole in one hand and a can of beer in the other. Following the funeral and the spreading of J.W.'s ashes in the lake, John and Max call off their feud again and John and Ariel reconcile. After realizing that their own inability to properly plan a wedding is what drove their kids to call it off, they decide to set it right. They help Jacob and Melanie reconcile, and manage to catch "Catfish Hunter" but they reluctantly decide to release it so it can be with J.W. in the lake, then clarify their own drama. After they let it go, they realize that they're late for a wedding happening in town and rush to the church as quickly as they can. The wedding is revealed to be for Max and Maria, who have reconciled (Jacob and Melanie have eloped). On the way to their honeymoon, they discover Max's one-eyed bulldog, Lucky, in the car with them, being put there by John earlier as a prank. Ragetti's is also reformed so it will be both a restaurant and a bait shop. ===== The film begins with Finbar "Barry" McMullen standing at the grave of his recently deceased father, along with his mother, who tells him that she's returning to her native Ireland to be with Finbar O'Shaughnessy (after whom Barry is named), her sweetheart of long ago. She tells Barry that while she gave Barry's father 35 of the best years of her life, she's going to start living life her way with the man she really loves. Jack has purchased their parents' home and lives in it with his wife Molly. Jack is torn between his love for Molly and his lust for Ann, a former romantic interest of Barry's. Barry and the youngest brother, Patrick ask to temporarily move in with Jack, to which he reluctantly agrees. Patrick plans to break his engagement to Susan, but becomes depressed when she breaks up with him. After much pleading, Susan decides to take him back. Patrick then decides to end the relationship for good for Leslie, an auto mechanic. They decide to head out to California together in a classic car that Leslie has been working on. Barry shows no interest in a long-term relationship, until he meets Audrey, a woman whom he accuses of "stealing" an apartment that he was trying to rent for himself. Though things do not go well between them at first, they warm up to one another and start a relationship. Molly learns of Jack's affair after finding a wrapped condom in his pants as she is cleaning up after him one day. She confronts Jack, but he refuses to discuss it. Jack finally breaks it off for good with Ann. He then returns home determined to rebuild his wounded marriage, but not before paying a visit to his father's grave, promising (in a voice-over) that he will be a better husband to his wife than his father was, pouring a bottle of Irish whiskey over the grave. Barry decides to move in with Audrey and take their relationship to the next level. The movie ends with all three brothers gathering at the family homestead with a newfound belief in love and a desire to not let the ghosts of the past stand in their way. ===== ===== At a floating crap game in New York City run by gangster Tommy Scalisi (Gary Merrill), the beautiful Morgan Taylor (Gene Tierney) decides to leave for the night, and Texas tycoon Morrison (Harry von Zell) offers to escort her home. Scalisi is clearly upset, as Morrison is up $19,000 at this point. Morrison just says he is in town all week and "you'll get it back another night", but Scalisi's associate Ken Paine (Craig Stevens) tells Morgan she has to stay. She realizes he only brought her to the game so Morrison would follow, and now is determined to leave. Paine slaps Morgan, whereupon Morrison starts a fistfight with Paine. Morrison is knocked out, but when the police arrive he has been stabbed to death. One of the police detectives is Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews), who was just demoted over his heavy use of violence. He hates criminals because his father was one. Two years ago he arrested Scalisi for murder, but Scalisi was acquitted. Scalisi tells several lies about the crime, and implicates Paine. Dixon goes to Paine's apartment and questions him, but Paine becomes angry and they fight briefly. But, unknown to Dixon, a war injury has left Paine with a metal plate in his skull. When he falls, he hits his head and dies. After his recent reprimand, Dixon does not dare report what happened. Borrowing Paine's coat and putting on a bandage where Paine had one on, he lays a false trail suggesting that Paine has left town. Back at Paine's apartment, he is almost seen by Morgan's father, cab driver Jiggs Taylor (Tom Tully), who arrives and noisily threatens Paine, then leaves when there is no answer. Dixon then takes the body and dumps it in the river. It is soon found, but he suggests that Scalisi murdered Paine as well as Morrison. As the case develops, the detectives talk to Morgan and Jiggs Taylor. Morgan is Paine's estranged wife; the night of the murder is the only time she has seen him in months. She and Dixon begin to fall in love. But although Dixon insists that Scalisi is the killer, Jiggs was seen at Paine's apartment and he is arrested. Dixon cannot bear to tell Morgan the truth, but he arranges to pay for a top lawyer for Jiggs, one who has never lost a murder case; however, the lawyer rejects the case, as he thinks he would lose this one. After a fruitless confrontation with Scalisi, Dixon writes a confession, addressing the envelope to Inspector Foley (Robert F. Simon) and marking it "to be opened in the event of my death". He then arranges to meet with Scalisi again, fully expecting to be murdered but reasoning that this time Scalisi will be caught for it; but Scalisi has anticipated this, too, and has realized what happened to Paine. He refuses to kill Dixon. Then one of Scalisi's men arrives with the news that the police have beaten the truth about Morrison out of another gang member. As the gang try to escape in a car elevator, Dixon manages to delay them by stalling it until the police arrive. Back at the 16th Precinct, Foley offers Dixon the unopened letter, but Dixon tells him to read it. Foley arrests Dixon. Morgan asks why, and Dixon asks Foley to show her the letter. Knowing the truth, she still loves him, and declares confidently that he will not be punished for the accidental death. ===== Harry Fabian (Widmark) is an ambitious American hustler and con man operating in London, always looking for a better deal. He maintains a fractured relationship with the honest Mary Bristol (Tierney), nightclub owner and businessman Phil Nosseross (Sullivan), and Helen (Withers), who is Phil's estranged wife. While attempting a con at a wrestling match, Fabian witnesses Gregorius (Zbyszko), a veteran Greek wrestler, arguing with his son Kristo (Lom), who has organised the fight, and who effectively controls all wrestling in London. After denouncing Kristo's event as tasteless exhibitionism that shames the sport's Greco-Roman traditions, Gregorius leaves with Nikolas (Richmond), a fellow wrestler. Fabian catches up with the two and befriends them, having realised that he can host wrestling in London without interference from Kristo if he can persuade his father to support the enterprise. Fabian approaches Phil and Helen with his proposal, then asks for an investment. Incredulous, Phil offers to provide half of the required £400, if Fabian can equal it. Desperate, Fabian asks Figler, a panhandler and unofficial head of an informal society of street criminals, Googin, a forger, and Anna, a Thameside smuggler, but none can offer any help. Fabian is eventually approached by Helen, who offers the £200 in exchange for a licence to continue running her own nightclub, having obtained the money by selling an expensive fur Phil recently bought for her. Fabian agrees, but tricks Helen by having Googin forge the licence. Meanwhile, Phil is visited by associates of Kristo, who warn him to keep Fabian away from London's wrestling scene. Already suspecting Helen of duplicity, Phil neglects to warn Fabian, who proceeds to open his own gym with Gregorius and Nikolas as the stars, and Phil as a silent partner. A furious Kristo visits the gym, only to discover that his father is supporting Fabian's endeavour. Meeting with Phil, the two plot to kill Fabian, but realise that they can only do so if Gregorius leaves Fabian. Phil meets with Fabian and removes his backing, suggesting that Fabian get Nikolas and The Strangler (Mazurki), a showy wrestler favoured by Kristo, into the ring together to keep the business going, knowing that Gregorius would never allow it. Finding The Strangler's manager, Mickey Beer (Farrell), Fabian convinces him to support the fight, and taunts The Strangler into confronting Gregorius and Nikolas. Gregorius agrees to the fight, convinced by Fabian that it will prove that his style of wrestling is superior. Beer asks Fabian for £200 to cover his fee, so Fabian asks Phil for the money. Instead, Phil calls Kristo, informing him that The Strangler is in Fabian's gym. Betrayed, Fabian steals the money from Mary, and returns to the gym. However, The Strangler goads Gregorius into a prolonged and brutal fight, during which Nikolas' wrist is broken. Gregorius eventually defeats The Strangler in the ring as Kristo arrives, but dies minutes later in his son's arms from exhaustion. Seeing that both his business and protection are lost, Fabian flees. In revenge of his father's death, Kristo puts a £1,000 bounty on Fabian's head, sending word to all of London's underworld. Fabian is hunted through the night, first by Kristo's men, then by Figler, who attempts to trap Fabian for the reward. Convinced that her licence is authentic, Helen leaves Phil, only to discover that the work is a worthless forgery. She returns to Phil in desperation, only to discover that he has committed suicide, leaving everything to Molly (Reeve), the club's elderly cleaner and flower stand operator. Fabian eventually finds shelter at Anna's, but has already been tracked down by Kristo. Mary arrives, and Fabian attempts to redeem himself by shouting to Kristo that Mary betrayed him, so that she will get the reward. As he runs towards where Kristo is standing on Hammersmith Bridge, he is caught and killed by The Strangler, who throws his body into the Thames. The Strangler is arrested moments later, and Kristo walks away from the scene. ===== Salammbô by Alfons Mucha (1896) After the First Punic War, Carthage is unable to fulfill promises made to its army of mercenaries, and finds itself under attack. The fictional title character, a priestess and the daughter of Hamilcar Barca, the foremost Carthaginian general, is the object of the obsessive lust of Matho, a leader of the mercenaries. With the help of the scheming freed slave, Spendius, Matho steals the sacred veil of Carthage, the Zaïmph, prompting Salammbô to enter the mercenaries' camp in an attempt to steal it back. The Zaïmph is an ornate bejewelled veil draped about the statue of the goddess Tanit in the sanctum sanctorum of her temple: the veil is the city's guardian and touching it will bring death to the perpetrator. * Chapter 1. "The Feast". “It was at Megara, a suburb of Carthage, in the gardens of Hamilcar.” The novel opens on a feast organized to celebrate the victory of the battle of Eryx, won against Rome. During the libations, the mercenaries ransack the place, spurred on by Hamilcar’s absence, and the memories of the unkind and unfair way Carthage treated them throughout the war. Salammbô, Hamilcar’s daughter, appears. She scolds them for their actions and entreats them to enjoy the feast without destroying the place. Two men stare at her: Narr’Havas, a troop leader from Numidia and Hamilcar’s guest, and Mâtho a Lybian wearing a necklace with a moon pendent. The young woman hands Mâtho a glass full of wine and he drinks from it. A Gaul soldier tells him that, where he’s from, it is a sign of betrothal. Jealous, Narr’Havas throws a javelin and wounds him. In the scuffle that ensues, Salammbô retreats to the palace, leaving Mathô wondering. Spendius, a freed slave, tries to persuade Matho to take Carthage for the mercenaries. * Chapter 2. "At Sicca". Two days, later, after much pleading and promises of payment, the mercenaries agree to leave the city. They walk for 7 days and reach the holy city of Sicca. On the way there, a line of crucified lions creates a sense of unease. There, Spendius realizes that Mathô is haunted by the memory of Salammbô with whom he has fallen in love. The shophet, Hanno, a fat, leprous man, is sent to explain to them that Carthage has no money and will be delaying paying its debt. Since the shophet only speaks a Punic language, Spendius offers to translate for the army and misrepresents Hanno’s message to set the mercenaries against him. To make matters worse, Zarxas arrives and tells them of a treacherous massacre of 300 slingers who had stayed behind. As the dignitary flees in shame, fearing for his life, Spendius convinces the mercenaries to go back to Carthage. * Chapter 3. "Salammbô". By a moonlit night, Salammbô appears on a palace terrace. She invokes Tanit, the goddess of the moon and the city’s tutelary deity, whose moods and phases greatly influence her. Raised within the limits of the palace and destined to a political alliance, Salammbô knows little, but as a priestess of Tanit, she wants to see the statue erected in the temple, in honor of the goddess. Schahabarim, a high priest, forbids it, as the sight of the statue is so powerful it might kill her. From afar, they catch sight of the mercenary army, closing in on Carthage. * Chapter 4. "Beneath the Walls of Carthage". The mercenaries besiege Carthage; Matho and Spendius penetrate via the aqueduct. * Chapter 5. "Tanit". Matho and Spendius steal the Zaïmph. Because Matho is caught while breaking into Salammbô's bedroom to see her again, she falls under suspicion of complicity. * Chapter 6. "Hanno". The mercenaries leave Carthage and split into two groups, attacking Utica and Hippo-Zarytus. Hanno surprises Spendius at Utica, and occupies the city, but flees when Matho arrives and routs his troops. * Chapter 7. "Hamilcar Barca". The hero returns and an attempt is made to blame him for Hanno's losses. He defends himself before the Council and defends the mercenaries, but turns against the barbarians when he sees the damage they have done to his property. * Chapter 8. "The Battle of the Macar". Hamilcar defeats Spendius at the bridge of the Macar, three miles from Utica. * Chapter 9. "In the Field". Hamilcar's troops are trapped by the mercenaries. * Chapter 10. "The Serpent". Schahabarim sends Salammbô in disguise to retrieve the Zaïmph. * Chapter 11. "In the Tent". Salammbô reaches Matho in his tent at the encampment. Believing each other to be divine apparitions, they make love. The mercenaries are attacked and dispersed by Hamilcar's troops. She takes away the Zaïmph, and on meeting her father, Hamilcar has her betrothed to Narr' Havas, a mercenary who has changed sides. * Chapter 12. "The Aqueduct". The Carthaginians return to their city with the mercenaries in pursuit. Spendius cuts off the water supply to Carthage. * Chapter 13. "Moloch". Carthaginian children are sacrificed to Moloch. Hamilcar disguises a slave-child as his son Hannibal and sends him to die in his son's place. * Chapter 14. "The Defile of the Axe". The drought is broken and aid comes. Hamilcar drives the mercenaries away from their encampments. Later, thousands of mercenaries are trapped in a defile and slowly starve (the Battle of "The Saw"). Deaths of Hanno and Spendius, both by crucifixion. * Chapter 15. "Matho". Victory celebrations at Carthage. Matho is tortured before his execution; Salammbô, witnessing this, dies of shock. The Zaïmph has brought death upon those who touched it. ===== Stefanos struggles with his growing unhappiness and tries to drown it in alcohol. He gets drawn into the murder of Calvin Jeter and his conscience pulls him back to his earlier occupation. It becomes a journey through the harshest part of the American capital and the blackest part of the human soul. ===== The story takes place in the town of Snowflake, a small community somewhere in Colorado. The players are visiting the town for pleasure, for business, or are just passing through. The campaign begins on the road to the Clearwater Hotel, where the characters meet for the first time. At the hotel, a woman named Cynthia Carmichael has been killed in her room, seemingly by a wild animal. The players investigate and are blamed for the murder by the local police. In reality, Carmichael was killed by a werewolf named Ian McGuire, a slave to a Wilder Shk'ryth who plans to destroy the human race. He had been imprisoned in a nearby mountain for centuries by a local Native American tribe that had been performing a ritual to keep him trapped. He used Ian McGuire to escape. ===== Captain Vinka Kovelenko (Katharine Hepburn) lands a Russian jet in West German territory, to the surprise of US armed forces, who take her prisoner. However, she is neither on a mission nor defecting, just upset about a personal matter back home. Capt. Chuck Lockwood (Bob Hope) is eager to leave for London and visit his wealthy fiancée Connie (Noelle Middleton). A superior officer named Tarbell (Alan Gifford) cancels his furlough, ordering Chuck to sell the Soviet aviatrix on everything good about America and convince her to permanently come over to their side. The colonel even dangles a $100,000 bonus check made out to Vinka to be given if Lockwood succeeds. Vinka is pursued by her former lover, engineer Ivan (Robert Helpmann). She shows no interest in Chuck, and is just as determined to sell him on Russian virtues as he is on influencing her. He describes her as cold and unappealing, but when Connie makes a surprise visit, Vinka strolls into Chuck's room wearing little else but a pajama top and her military medals. Connie becomes increasingly angry, more so when she finds out that Chuck is not as well-off financially as he has pretended to be. Vinka begins to dress in an increasingly enticing manner. One night, at a Russian restaurant, comrades come to kidnap her. A sleeping potion meant for Chuck ends up in Tarbell's drink instead. Connie is also mistaken for Vinka in a cloakroom and taken captive. The Russians misunderstand Vinka's intentions and charge her with treason. Chuck leads a daring aerial escape, and they end up falling in love. Money does not matter as much to Vinka as it does to Connie. As she and Lockwood are leaving for America, a Russian agent runs up, offering her the $100,000 check. She declines, but Lockwood grabs it. ===== The Biskitts are a group of tiny anthropomorphic dogs who live on Biskitt Island and are committed to guarding the crown jewels of Biskitt Castle. Modeled after Robin Hood, the Biskitts still serve their recently deceased king while performing good deeds for the underprivileged inhabitants of their tiny island. It is explained in the opening narration that due to their good reputation for responsibility and security, other kings have entrusted their treasures to be safeguarded by the Biskitts. The villain of the series is the king's mean-spirited, wasteful, younger brother King Max who rules the neighboring Lower Suburbia. In lieu of a proper coronation, Max constantly schemes to steal the royal treasure with the help of his hench- hounds Fang and Snarl and his jester Shecky. The Biskitts are also in danger of being captured and eaten by a large wildcat named Scratch. ===== Commanders T'Pol and Tucker remain captives of Paxton, who continues to broadcast his demand on all channels and frequencies. Paxton's action has an unsettling effect on the interspecies conference since it is clear that not all humans support it. On Mars, Paxton allows T'Pol and Tucker to see the baby, and T'Pol uses her scanner to learn that the child is unwell (and that Paxton has been using Rigelian gene therapy to treat himself). Seeking to fine-tune their attack, Paxton then threatens T'Pol in order to force Tucker to optimize the targeting system of the array. Enterprise is then ordered to Mars to destroy the array, but is turned away when a warning shot from the weapon damages the ship. Gannet Brooks, now in the brig, reveals to Ensign Mayweather she is a Starfleet Intelligence operative, and that Terra Prime probably has an operative aboard. Under the urging of Minister Samuels, the crew of Enterprise conceive a way to approach the deadly station undetected, using a shuttlepod hidden inside the tail of a comet. Captain Archer elects to lead the away mission, along with Lieutenant Reed, Doctor Phlox, and Mayweather. En route, the shuttle's systems suddenly fail, nearly causing it to crash. Landing on Mars, the team then infiltrate Paxton's ship. Teaming up with Tucker, who has escaped his cell, they battle the Terra Prime followers in the control room. During the shootout, Paxton manages to lock the firing sequence — fortunately, Tucker has altered the targeting, and the beam misses. With Paxton under arrest, the hybrid child, named Elizabeth after Tucker's sister, is brought to Phlox, who unfortunately cannot do anything to save her. Investigations also reveal that Ensign Masaro was the spy, and he dies by his own hand. Back at Starfleet, Archer makes an impassioned speech to convince the delegates to explore the universe's mysteries together. ===== The game's plot follows the player's exposure of a human conspiracy that leads to a planned invasion by insectoid aliens. Ultimately, the player's squad travels to the aliens' homeworld, destroys their queen (whose design is lifted from the Alien design), and seemingly thwarts the invasion. Then, in the final cutscene, Tegel reveals himself as an alien in disguise. He was manipulating the player into assisting the aliens all along, and the final mission on their homeworld was supposed to have been a suicide mission. How the unproduced sequel would have followed up on this revelation is unknown. ===== Senator Vrax (Geno Silva), fresh from the Romulan Senate, is disappointed that Admiral Valdore (Brian Thompson) and scientist Nijil's (J. Michael Flynn) drone program has failed to provoke a rift between Human, Andorian, Vulcan and Tellarite races as they had hoped (seen in "Babel One" and "United"). In fact, the opposite has happened – political discord throughout the Alpha and Beta Quadrants has declined. Now that a second drone vessel is ready to be launched, Valdore suggests a mission against the Enterprise in order to impress the Senate. Nijil argues that the pilot requires time to recover from his previous exertions, but Valdore insists and prioritizes the mission. On Enterprise, analysis of data gathered in the previous encounter with the Romulan ship reveals that the ship is being piloted telepathically by an Andorian. Commander Shran (Jeffrey Combs) explains that the data indicates that the pilot is probably a member of the Aenar, a white-skinned and blind Andorian sub-race. This, however, seems unlikely, since the Aenar are few in number, reclusive pacifists, and inhabitants of the isolated extreme northern polar region of their moon. Shran and Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) then beam down to contact the Aenar. The Aenar's spokesperson, Lissan (Alicia Adams), initially declines to assist as the Aenar do not want to get involved in a war. However, a young Aenar named Jhamel (Alexandra Lydon) decides to help, since doing so may help locate Gareb (Scott Allen Rinker), her missing brother. Meanwhile, Doctor Phlox (John Billingsley), Commander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock), and Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III (Connor Trinneer) work in Sickbay on their own "telepresence" unit to help counter the drone ship. T'Pol volunteers to test it, and a concerned Tucker finds it increasingly difficult to balance his duties and emotions. Jhamel then tests the unit, with better results. Later, when the drone ships reappear and attack, she is able to contact the drone pilot, and it is indeed her long-lost brother, who was tricked into working with the Romulans. Learning the deception of his "helpers", he turns the drones on each other and both are soon destroyed, and Valdore angrily kills him in retribution. With the threat resolved, the Andorians depart Enterprise and Tucker requests to leave the ship to join the Columbia. ===== It is November 2154, and Captain Archer and Ensign Sato spend time preparing for the arrival of Ambassador Gral and the Tellarite delegation, by practicing being blunt, complaining, and arguing. En route to the trade summit on "Babel One", they detect a distress call from the Andorian warship, Kumari, now under attack. Enterprise alters its course to assist, and arrives to find Commander Shran, Lieutenant Talas, and 17 other survivors in escape-pods. Archer goes to meet him in Sickbay, and an angry Shran claims that both the Andorian Ambassador's and his ship were attacked and destroyed by a powerful Tellarite vessel. Scans of the debris indicate Tellarite weapon signatures, and recovered sensor data shows a Tellarite vessel firing. With both delegations on board, and accusations of duplicity rising between the groups, Archer considers taking the Andorians to their homeworld. At full warp, Enterprise is suddenly attacked by an Andorian ship. When attempts at communicating fail, Archer demands that Shran intervene — he complies by explaining how to knock out its shields — but the attempt is ineffective. Enterprise is spared only when the attacking ship has to retreat because of a fluctuating power grid. T'Pol then notices that the "Andorian" and "Tellarite" ships have the same energy signature. The alien vessel is then tracked, and it appears to be capable of holographically disguising itself. Shran is unconvinced, and using Talas as a distraction, manages to escape and capture Gral, before order is restored. However, when Archer convinces Shran to examine the evidence, a member of the Tellarite delegation is able to wrest a weapon from Talas, and shoots her. Meanwhile, Commander Tucker, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed and two MACOs beam aboard the ship, only to find it deserted and without life support. Although the MACOs are beamed back, the transporter is damaged before Tucker and Reed can be rescued. They are able to locate an oxygen supply within the ship's systems, but become stranded when the vessel warps away, and make their way to an empty bridge. On Romulus, it is revealed that the ship is actually a drone, controlled by a pilot under the command of Romulan Admiral Valdore, supported by a scientist called Nijil, in an attempt to prevent a regional détente. ===== In the year 2017, a satellite on Earth detects a gravitational imbalance in the direction of Lyra, initially believed to be a black hole. Its suspicious X-ray emissions are subjected to noise removal algorithms, revealing the voice message recorded aboard a fictional future Voyager spacecraft, still in the solar system. Before the cause can be determined, additional identical signals are detected throughout the year from other distant gravity-based phenomena. This is considered proof of faster-than-light travel, and the wormhole responsible is pinpointed to be in the core of Saturn's moon Titan. By temporarily entering a baby universe still in a state of cosmic inflation, the signal was able to bypass the known laws of physics and travel at infinite speed. The wormholes themselves became known as Inflation Holes. Human travel follows almost two centuries later in 2197. With a tunnel dug into Titan's depths, and a prototype Inflation Drive on board, two astronauts make the first manned faster-than-light voyage, traveling almost three parsecs. Further exploration of Inflation Holes finds a planet 10 parsecs away with a wormhole core similar to Titan's, formerly inhabited by an extinct alien species. The planet is in a bizarre "apple core" shape, with all of the equatorial planetary mass consumed by frequent alien use of Inflation Drive technology. Three giant longitudinal rings surround what is dubbed as the Quantum Core, and ruins exist upon the fragmented Core itself, but electromagnetic radiation inside the Core is severely limited, making exploration slow and difficult. By 2246, a base has been built on the planet and dubbed Watcher's Nest. A 12-member expedition is in progress when an unscheduled arrival is detected by command, but the expedition is already inside the Core and radio signals cannot reach them to deliver the recall order. The expedition team thereby encounters their first Ghoul and are wiped out. Later encounters also follow. Autopsies in 2252 by a group called Alchemy reveal artificial genetic modifications, and these genes become the main focus of research into the Ghoul. When applied to monkeys, the genes expand the scope of the animal's senses, but scientists cannot determine how or why. After two decades of research, by 2272, one of the lead scientists, Doctor Kessler, is frustrated with the project's slow progress on animals. Believing the gene sequences to be a message from an advanced alien species, he leads the effort to begin creating genetically modified humans, to witness the effect on humans as the Ghoul intended. In 2275, Alchemy objects to the use of human guinea pigs, and officially shuts the project down—but not before at least one test subject and one of the only successful Human/Ghoul hybrids is removed by persons unknown. ===== Andrea Sachs, a recent graduate of Brown University with a degree in English, moves to New York City with her best friend, Lily, a graduate student at Columbia. Andrea hopes to find a career in publishing and blankets the city with her résumé. She believes she'll be closer to her dream of working for The New Yorker if she can get a job in the magazine industry. She gets a surprise interview at the Elias-Clark Group and is hired as junior assistant for Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of the fashion magazine Runway. Although she knows little of the fashion world, everyone tells her that "a million girls would die for [her] job". If she manages to work for Miranda for a year, people tell her, she can have her choice of jobs within the magazine industry. At a celebrity party, Andrea meets Christian Collinsworth, a charismatic Yale graduate who is considered one of the hot, new up-and-coming writers of their generation. They are attracted to each other, which complicates her relationship with her boyfriend, Alex. Andrea's relationships become entangled because of her new job. Lily increasingly turns to alcohol and picks up dubious men to relieve the pressure of graduate school. Alex, struggling with his own demanding job as an inner-city schoolteacher, grows frustrated with Andrea's long hours and constant stress. Andrea's relationship with her family also suffers. Matters finally come to a head when her co-worker, Emily, gets mononucleosis and Andrea must travel to Paris with Miranda in her stead. In Paris, she has a surprise encounter with Christian. Later that night, Miranda finally lets down her guard and asks Andrea what she has learned, and where she wants to work afterwards. She promises to place phone calls to people she knows at the New Yorker on Andrea's behalf once her year is up and suggests she take on some small writing assignments at Runway. Back at the hotel, Andrea gets urgent calls from Alex and her parents asking her to call them. She does and learns that Lily is comatose after driving drunk and wrecking a car. Though her family and Alex pressure her to return home, she tells Miranda she will honor her commitment to Runway. Miranda is pleased, and says her future in magazine publishing is bright, but phones with another impossible demand at Christian Dior's Paris fashion show. Andrea decides that her family and friends are more important than her job, and realizes to her horror that she is becoming more and more like Miranda. She refuses to comply with Miranda's latest outrageous request, and when Miranda scolds her publicly, Andrea replies, "Fuck you, Miranda. Fuck you." She is fired on the spot, and returns home to reconnect with friends and family. Her romantic relationship with Alex is beyond repair, but they remain friends. Lily recovers and is lucky to receive only community service for her DUI charge. In the last chapter Andrea learns her dispute with Miranda made her a minor celebrity when the incident made Page Six. Afraid she has been blacklisted from publishing for good, she moves back with her parents. She works on short fiction and finances her unemployment with profits made from reselling the designer clothing she was provided for her Paris trip. Seventeen buys one of her stories. At the novel's end, she returns to the Elias-Clark building to discuss a position at one of the company's other magazines and sees Miranda's new junior assistant, who looks as harried and put-upon as she once did. ===== ===== A brother and sister that are employees at a diamond mineshaft company stumble upon the discovery of a legendary diamond, the "White Fire", and a band of criminals set out to take it from them. ===== Mona Dearly (Bette Midler) leaves her home and tries in vain to unlock her car. Her keys fit her son's Yugo, however, so she takes that and drives off. In a bend, the brakes fail completely and she drives off a cliff into the Hudson River. Clarence (Tracey Walter), fishing in the river, sees it happen. Chief Wyatt Rash (Danny DeVito) later observes that there are no skid marks on the road. Her long-suffering husband Phil (William Fichtner) and son, Jeph (Marcus Thomas), evince no particular grief when they learn of the death of Mona, an abusive, belligerent heavy drinker, loved by none. (Jeph is more concerned about his car.) Ellie Rash (Neve Campbell) (Wyatt's daughter) wants to celebrate because she feels the Dearlys treated Bobby (Casey Affleck), her fiancé and Jeph's business partner, badly. JB Landscaping is not doing well due to Jeph's laziness and poor behavior. Phil and Rona (Jamie Lee Curtis), who are having an affair, meet at the Charm Motel. Phil expresses his happiness about Mona's death but denies involvement. Bobby meets Murph (Mark Pellegrino), his older brother. Due to his financial difficulties, Bobby has been receiving money from Murph, who thinks he had a hand in Mona's death. Wyatt's investigation takes him to Jeph, who claims that Bobby threatened and attacked Mona. Lucinda (Kathleen Wilhoite), the local mechanic specializing in Yugos (which everyone in town drives) informs Wyatt that the car Mona was driving had been tampered with in multiple ways. Phil tells Wyatt that he had been a battered husband since Mona suspected he was having an affair. He also claims Jeph and Mona had had an argument on the evening before the accident. Bobby tells Wyatt that he hated Mona and that they had had an argument over Jeph's pay. Mona would not let him dissolve the partnership unless Bobby bought them out. Phil and Jeph leave Mona's wake very early. Meanwhile, Wyatt breaks into the Dearly house and finds that Mona's and Jeph's car keys had been switched. Phil expresses his gratitude to Bobby for killing Mona. Bobby then confesses to Ellie that he rigged Jeph's car, because Jeph was destroying their business. Ellie then announces that she is pregnant. This conversation is overheard by Clarence. Phil tells Wyatt that he spotted Bobby near the Dearly residence on the night prior to the accident, claiming that he did not say this earlier because Wyatt and Bobby are soon to be family. Jeph, who it turns out is also involved with Rona, finds out about Phil's affair with her. Bobby tells Wyatt that Mona threatened him, not the other way around, and that he was in the Hideaway the evening before the accident, which, as Valerie tells Wyatt, is not true. Murph later tries to cover Bobby on this. Valerie also gives him a sharp gardening tool with the letters "JB" on it. Phil is discovered dead in a pond at the Charm Motel. Murph tells this to Ellie, who fears that Bobby, who left their house that night, has killed again. When Rona finds out, she tries to leave town. It turns out Jeph did not help Phil when he fell into the water after Phil threatened Jeph that he was going to expose him, Rona, and Bobby. Police learn that Jeph is threatening suicide because of Rona's leaving. Jeph reveals that a drunken Mona had, accidentally but unrepentantly, chopped off his right hand when they fought over a bottle of beer. He also states that Phil was not his biological father, adding that, despite all that, he did not kill either of them. Wyatt manages to take the gun away from Jeph. Wyatt then tells Bobby in private that Clarence confessed to killing Phil, because he could not stand the idea of Bobby going to jail, especially with the baby on the way. It turns out that Clarence was watching Phil - who had seen Bobby rig the car - tampering with it some more and then switching the keys in the house. The initial tampering by Bobby had been superficial and did not contribute to the accident, whereas Phil's did. Wyatt promises Bobby to keep quiet about Bobby's involvement as long as he takes good care of Ellie and the baby. Finally, Bobby and Ellie get married and Clarence gets taken away. ===== The story revolves around Yoko Inoue (played by Yo Hitoto), a young Japanese woman doing research on Taiwanese composer Jiang Wen-Ye, whose work is featured on the soundtrack. The late composer's Japanese wife and daughter also make appearances as themselves. ===== In the Arctic, an unknown aircraft is shot down by an American jet fighter. The aircraft crashes and its cargo, an atomic bomb, explodes. The explosion awakens a giant prehistoric turtle monster with tusks. Japanese scientists on an expedition nearby, Dr. Hidaka, his assistant Kyoko and reporter Aoyagi, are given a stone tablet by an Eskimo chief, who explains that the creature is called Gamera. Gamera destroys the expedition ship and escapes. Sightings of flying saucers soon surface in Japan. In Sagami Bay, Toshio (a boy forced to release his pet turtle) and his family encounter Gamera, who attacks their lighthouse. However, Gamera saves Toshio from falling to his death. Toshio becomes attached to Gamera after finding his pet turtle gone, believing it turned into Gamera. Upon returning to Japan, Dr. Hidaka, Kyoko, and Aoyagi accompany the military when Gamera approaches a thermonuclear plant. Despite attempts to prevent its approach, Gamera proceeds to attack the power plant and devours the flames around it. Dr. Hidaka consults with Dr. Murase and the military recommends using experimental freezing bombs. The bombs postpone Gamera's assault as the military rig the area with explosives and succeed in turning the monster on its back. Gamera pulls in its limbs, expels flames, and takes flights, spinning around like a flying saucer. Toshio and his sister Nobuyo visit Dr. Hidaka while staying in Tokyo with their uncle. Toshio explains to Dr. Hidaka that Gamera is lonely and not evil. Dr. Hidaka, meanwhile, has observed that Gamera consumes fossil fuels and may seek atomic bombs for their energy. Meanwhile, disasters and accidents start to occur: Koto Ward is struck by flash floods and ships collide in Tokyo Bay. Dr. Hidaka claims that may be Gamera the cause due to hiding in the bay. An international scientific conference is called upon and decide to use "Z Plan", based at Oshima Island. Gamera lands at Haneda Airport and proceeds to wreak havoc in Tokyo. Toshio and his family evacuate, but Toshio runs away. The military keep Gamera at bay at an oil refinery by feeding it petroleum via trains, while Z Plan continues preparations. As Nobuyo searches for her brother, Toshio makes attempts to breach restricted areas to see Gamera until he is caught at Oshima. Dr. Murase later informs Nobuyo of Toshio's safety. The Z Plan is eventually completed and Gamera is lured to Oshima by lighting an oil slick path. However, a typhoon blows the fire out. Aoyagi starts a bonfire to lure back Gamera but it is also extinguished by the typhoon. A nearby volcano erupts, successfully luring Gamera back. The next day, the Z Plan is put into action: Gamera is lured into the nose cone of a giant rocket and launched to Mars. The world celebrates and Toshio tells Dr. Hidaka he will become a scientist so he can visit Gamera. Toshio bids the monster farewell. ===== Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-sheng), a young salesman, discovers a key to an apartment in its lock and takes it. He soon moves into one of the bedrooms, and one night he attempts to commit suicide by slitting his wrists while lying on the bed. Meanwhile, Ah-jung (Chen Chao-jung) is drinking coffee at a cafe when a beautiful real estate agent, May Lin (Yang Kuei-mei), sits at the table next to his. Intrigued, he follows her as she walks down the street. Lin catches on and eventually joins him. She leads him to a vacant apartment that she is trying to sell — the same apartment that Hsiao-kang is staying in — and they have sex in one of the bedrooms. Hsiao-kang hears them and stops the bleeding from his wrists. Ah-jung steals the key to the apartment from Lin and later returns with his belongings. He moves into one of the adjoining bedrooms. That night, he and Hsiao-kang encounter each other in the apartment and have a short argument. May Lin spends her day trying to sell property. While taking a break, she returns to the apartment when Hsiao-kang and Ah-jung are both there. The two sneak out quietly together and soon form a friendship. One night, Hsiao-kang goes out for a walk and meets Ah-jung selling dresses on the street. May Lin walks past but does not notice them. Soon, Ah-jung joins her at a food stand and the two return to the apartment and sleep together in the same room as they did the first time. Unbeknownst to them, Hsiao-kang is hiding under the bed as they arrive, and he masturbates as the bed creaks above him. The next morning, May Lin gets dressed and leaves. Hsiao-kang lies next to the sleeping Ah-jung and kisses him before slowly pulling away. Lin goes to her car but cannot start it, and instead walks on a path in the unfinished Daan Forest Park. She then sits down on a bench and starts to cry uncontrollably. ===== In a dystopian'RoboCop Trilogy': Life in Dystopian Future Detroit. popMATTERS.com(November 7, 2010). Retrieved on August 26, 2020. future, the city of Detroit is on the verge of bankruptcy after a series of failed business plans and drop of stocks, and are now struggling with their plans to create the new Delta City. Conglomerate Omni Consumer Products (OCP) are set to have the city default on their debt before purchasing the entire city. To speed up the process, OCP creates a heavily armed private security force called the Urban Rehabilitators, nicknamed "Rehabs," under the command of Paul McDaggett. Ostensibly its purpose is to combat rising crime in Old Detroit, augmenting the ranks of the Detroit Police Department in apprehending violent criminals. In reality, it has been set up to forcibly relocate the residents of Cadillac Heights. Nikko, a Japanese-American computer whiz kid, loses her parents in the process. The police force is gradually superseded by the Rehabs, and violent crime begins to spiral out of control. The Delta City dream of the former OCP CEO lives on with the help of the Japanese Kanemitsu Corporation, which has bought a controlling stake in OCP and is trying to finance the plan. Kanemitsu, CEO of the Kanemitsu Corporation, sees the potential in the citywide redevelopment, and moves forward with the plans to remove the current citizens in order to create Delta City. The company develops and uses its own ninja androids called "Otomo" to help McDaggett and the new OCP president overcome the resistance of anti-OCP militia forces. RoboCop and partner Anne Lewis try to defend civilians from the Rehabs one night, but Lewis is mortally wounded by McDaggett and eventually dies. Unable to fight back because of his "Fourth Directive" programming, RoboCop is saved by members of a resistance movement composed of Nikko and residents from Cadillac Heights and eventually joins them. Due to severe damage sustained in the shoot-out, RoboCop's systems efficiency plummets, and he asks the resistance to summon Dr. Lazarus, one of the scientists who created him. Upon arrival she begins to treat him, deleting the Fourth Directive in the process. During an earlier raid on an armory, the resistance picked up a jet-pack prototype, originally intended for RoboCop's use, which Lazarus modifies and upgrades to hold RoboCop. After recovering from his injuries, RoboCop conducts a one-man campaign against the Rehabs and OCP. He finds McDaggett and attempts to subdue him, but McDaggett is able to escape. McDaggett then obtains information from a disgruntled resistance member regarding the location of the resistance fighters' base. The Rehabs attack and most of the resistance members are either killed or taken prisoner. RoboCop returns to the rebel base to find it abandoned. One Otomo unit arrives and attacks him. RoboCop experiences another power drain and his left arm and auto gun is destroyed, but eventually he is able to overcome his opponent with his arm-mounted gun. Nikko infiltrates the OCP building and assists a captured Lazarus in broadcasting an improvised video, revealing OCP's responsibility for the criminality in the city and implicating them in the removal and killing of the Cadillac Heights residents. The broadcast causes OCP's stock to plunge, driving the company into financial ruin and bankruptcy. Meanwhile, McDaggett decides to execute an all-out strike against Cadillac Heights with the help of the Detroit police, but the police officers, enraged at the company's sadistic ways, refuse to comply and instead defect to the resistance, escalating the rebellion against OCP into a full-scale war. As a result, McDaggett turns to hiring street gangs and hooligans to assist with his plans. Having heard Lazarus' broadcast, RoboCop provides aerial support for the entrenched resistance forces. He then proceeds to the OCP building and confronts the waiting McDaggett. RoboCop is then attacked, and nearly defeated, by two Otomo robots. Nikko and Lazarus succeed in reprogramming them using a wireless link from a laptop computer, having them attack each other. The Otomos' self- destruct system activate, forcing RoboCop to flee with Nikko and Lazarus. The flaming discharge from the jetpack immobilizes McDaggett, leaving him to perish in the blast. As Old Detroit is being cleaned up, Kanemitsu arrives and finally comes face to face with RoboCop along with his group, while his translator tells the OCP president on Kanemitsu's behalf that he is fired, as the corporation shuts down OCP for good and plans to leave Detroit. Kanemitsu then bows to RoboCop and the group in respect. The CEO compliments RoboCop and asks for his name, to which he responds with, "My friends call me Murphy. You call me RoboCop." ===== God (George Burns) appears as a kindly old man to Jerry Landers (John Denver), an assistant supermarket manager. After a few failed attempts in trying to set up an "interview," God tells Jerry that he has been selected to be His messenger to the modern world, much like a contemporary Moses. Timidly at first, Landers tells his wife (Teri Garr), children and a religion editor of the Los Angeles Times of his encounters with God and soon becomes a national icon of comedic fodder. Jerry soon appears on television with Dinah Shore and describes the look God takes when he encounters him. The next day, after Jerry is stranded from a car breakdown, God appears as a taxi driver to take Jerry home, where they are met by a bunch of chanting "religious nuts." Before he disappears, God consoles Jerry that he has the "strength that comes from knowing." Skeptical at first, Landers finds his life turned upside down as a group of theologians attempt to discredit him by challenging him to answer a series of questions written in Aramaic while locked in a hotel room alone to prove God is contacting him directly. To Jerry's relief after an agonizing wait, God, working as room service, delivers food to Jerry and answers the questions. After being sued for slander by a charismatic preacher that God directed Jerry to call a "phony", Jerry decides to prove his story in a court of law. Jerry argues that if God's existence is a reasonable possibility, then He can materialize and sit in the witness chair if He so chooses. At first, God fails to appear and the judge threatens to charge Jerry with contempt for "what you apparently thought was a clever stunt." Jerry argues that when everyone waited for a moment to see what would happen when he raised the mere possibility of God making a personal appearance in the courtroom, it proved that He at least deserves the benefit of the doubt. Suddenly, without opening the doors, God appears and asks to be sworn in, concluding the procedure with "So help me Me." "If it pleases the court, and even if it doesn't please the court, I'm God, your honor." God provides some miracles, first in the form of a few rather impressive card tricks for the judge. Then, to help the people believe, he leaves the stand, walks a few steps and, with everyone watching, literally disappears before their eyes. His disembodied voice then issues a parting shot: "It can work. If you find it hard to believe in Me, maybe it will help to know that I believe in you." Sometime later, after hearing the ringing of a public telephone, Jerry meets up with God once again. God states he's going on a trip to spend some time with animals. Jerry expresses worry that they failed, but God compares him to Johnny Appleseed, saying he was given the best seeds and they will take root. Jerry then says he has lost his job and that everybody thinks he's a nut, but God assures him that there are other supermarkets and that he's in "good company". God had said to Jerry earlier: "lose a job; save a world." God gets ready to leave and says that he will not be coming back. Jerry then asks what if he needs to talk with him. God says to him "I'll tell you what, you talk. I'll listen." He then disappears. Jerry smiles as God departs. ===== After tricking Marge into believing that the model for the Burly paper towel corporation Chad Sexington would have dinner with the Simpsons, Homer takes the family to the Pimento Grove to watch live performers as compensation. One of the acts is a hypnotist called Mesmerino. Homer volunteers, and Mesmerino hypnotizes him into thinking he is twelve years old again. As Homer starts to reminisce, he starts screaming incessantly all through the night. The next day, Homer's co-workers Lenny and Carl bring him home early from work, still screaming, and Lisa and Marge finally manage to calm him down with some Yaqui tea. Homer starts to recall the events leading up to the scream-inducing incident: beginning when he, Lenny, and Carl were hiking in the woods and were confronted by a young Fat Tony, only to be saved by a young Moe. Upon noticing that his bar was empty, the present-day Moe arrives at the Simpsons' home and recalls that while they sat by a fire that night, they saw a near-meltdown at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. The next day, they went to the old quarry for a swim, and Homer jumped in, only to find that there was no water but only mud. However, Homer recalls that there was no water in the quarry because something was blocking the inlet pipe. When Homer unblocked it, he found a rotting corpse in his lap, causing him to scream so much his voice changed from puberty. Back in the present, the Simpsons decide to investigate. They go to the old quarry where they meet Chief Wiggum, who comes with them. Marge uses Burly paper towels to drain the water from the quarry. Finding nothing left of the corpse but a skeleton, they take its skull with them and travel through the pipe to emerge through a hatch in Mr. Burns's office. They confront him about the body, but he insists he did not murder anyone. He tells them that the dead man is Waylon Smithers' father, Waylon Smithers Sr. He shows an old surveillance tape, filmed during the imminent meltdown in which Smithers' father sacrificed himself by going into an unstable reactor core in order to prevent the meltdown and succumbed to the radiation. Burns then kept the truth from Smithers, who then enters the room, having heard the entire story. Burns apologizes to him, saying he wanted to spare him from knowing the truth about his father's real death. However, Smithers admits that he is glad that his father died as a real hero rather than from a tribe of savage Amazon women, which Burns told him earlier. Declaring the case of the haunted quarry solved, Homer stores the skull in his "Memories" box, despite Marge's insistence to give it to Smithers. Just then, Moe arrives, having found some clues to the case. Despite Homer and Marge telling him the case has been solved, upon seeing Moe despondent, they decide to humour him by letting him show them his clues, which continues through the credits. ===== Lisa's teacher, Miss Hoover, thinks she has Lyme disease and is replaced by substitute teacher Mr. Bergstrom. Mr. Bergstrom is dressed as a cowboy, setting the scene as Texas, 1830. He adds there are three things wrong with his costume and whoever guesses them will win his hat. Lisa states that his belt said "State of Texas" but Texas was not a state until 1845, the revolver was not invented until 1835 and that Mr. Bergstrom appears to be of Jewish descent and there were no Jewish cowboys. Mr. Bergstrom is impressed by Lisa's knowledge and rewards her with his cowboy hat, also adding that he was wearing a digital watch. Due to his unorthodox teaching methods and friendly nature, Lisa starts falling in love with him. Lisa runs into Mr. Bergstrom at a museum and is embarrassed when Homer displays his ignorance. Sensing a void in their relationship, Mr. Bergstrom takes Homer aside to suggest he be a more positive role model. At Marge's suggestion, Lisa goes to invite Mr. Bergstrom to dinner at their home, but is devastated to find Miss Hoover back and Mr. Bergstrom gone. She rushes to his apartment and learns that he has accepted a new job in Capital City. She rushes to the train station and confesses that she will be lost without him. Mr. Bergstrom replies that the life of a substitute teacher is transient, and he has to help the more needy. He writes her a note and tells her that any time she feels alone, its contents are all she needs to know. He boards the train and departs. Lisa opens the note: it reads "You are Lisa Simpson." Meanwhile, Bart's class prepares to elect a class president. Mrs. Krabappel nominates Martin, while Sherri and Terri nominate Bart. During a debate with Martin, Bart tells jokes and wins the class over. Certain of Bart's victory, none of the children in his class—including Bart—votes, giving Martin the victory with just two votes. Devastated by Mr. Bergstrom's departure, Lisa takes her grief out on the insensitive Homer, calling him a baboon. Marge tells Homer to console Lisa, explaining how their daughter is hurt and needs her father. Homer confesses to Lisa that he cannot imagine her experience, as he has never lost anyone special, and cheers her up by mimicking a monkey. Lisa apologizes for calling him a "baboon". Finding Bart seething over the election result, Homer comforts him by pointing out that being class president would have involved extra work with little reward. Finally, passing Maggie's room, he places her pacifier in her mouth. Homer goes to bed with Marge happily that night, saying he is "on the biggest roll" of his life. ===== The game begins with the player-controlled protagonist and their friend, Drevin, serving as mercenaries in the army of Valdis, a warlord who has aligned himself with a race of Dark Wizards and wields the magical Sword of Zaramoth. The player character and Drevin are ordered to capture a temple held by dryads. After the temple is captured, however, Valdis attacks the mercenaries. Drevin is killed, and the player character is knocked unconscious. The player character regains consciousness in the custody of the dryads. Rather than execute them, the dryads allow the player to earn their freedom by helping them in the war against Valdis. After the protagonist earns freedom, they discover that they are infected with the Plague, a mysterious disease created by the Dark Wizards that drives its victims to insanity. After being cured by the water from an Elven shrine, they return to their hometown. On the way home, the player character rescues an old man from Plague-maddened dryads. The old man describes an event called the Great Cataclysm, caused when the Sword of Zaramoth that Valdis wields struck a magical shield called the Shield of Azunai. The blow shattered the shield, causing a catastrophe that ended the First Age. Valdis hopes to cause another such catastrophe by gathering the shards of the Shield of Azunai so he can shatter it again. The old man explains the Plague, saying that it is caused by crystals created during the Great Cataclysm that give license to the souls of Zaramoth's army to possess the living. After the player character returns home, they begin to gather the pieces of the shield to use it against Valdis. After they gather all of the pieces, they take them to the Agallan giants so that they can re-forge the shield. As they re-forge it, they place a medallion in the center of it for added durability. This medallion had previously been worn by Drevin; he gave it to the player character before he died. With the shield re-forged, the player character travels to Valdis' stronghold known as Zaramoth's Horns. The shield protects them from the Dark Wizards, but the battle with Valdis himself proves to be a stalemate until the old man appears and takes the shield from the player character. He gives the shield to Valdis, revealing that he is a Dark Wizard. Valdis tries to destroy the shield with the Sword of Zaramoth, but when he strikes the shield, his sword shatters instead. Valdis and the player character resume the battle, in which Valdis is killed. ===== The Xindi Council meet to discuss the progress of Enterprise. Although the Reptilians and Insectoids want to attack the humans, Degra advises them to continue with the plan to build the superweapon. On Enterprise, Sub-Commander T'Pol continues to help Commander Tucker with Vulcan neuropressure sessions. The ship, seeking the formula for a compound to reinforce its hull against spatial anomalies, then approaches a planet with a vast floating alien bazaar. Captain Archer leads an away team to meet with B'Rat Ud, a chemist who they have met before. After bartering, he sells them the formula for liquid trellium-D, and also informs them that the Xindi recently visited a merchant nearby. Archer meets the merchant, Zjod, a slaver who tries to sell him a female called Rajiin. Archer refuses and leaves, but Rajiin chases after him. Following a fight between Archer and Zjod, the away team leave with Rajiin, and Archer promises to return her to her home planet. Later she approaches Archer in his quarters, and as she nears him she puts him in a trance, and he no longer remembers her visit. Meanwhile, T'Pol and Tucker attempt to replicate the chemical from B'Rat's formula but the first attempt fails. Afterwards, T'Pol returns to her cabin and is surprised to find Rajiin inside. She tries to resist, but is soon overcome. Rajiin attempts to flee using the transporter, but is quickly captured and placed in the brig. As Archer attempts to question her, Lieutenant Reed informs him that two Reptilian ships are on an intercept course. Rajiin admits she was gathering information for the Xindi. Reptilians, after running battles with the crew, retrieve Rajiin and take her back to one of the ships. Enterprise attempts to pursue, but the Xindi enters a subspace vortex. Afterwards, the Council convenes again to discuss the development and construction of a new bio- weapon, a project helped by Archer's bio-data that was stolen by Rajiin. ===== Kin-dza-dza! begins in 1980s Moscow. Vladimir Mashkov, aka Uncle Vova, a generic but gruff construction foreman is relaxing at home after a stressful day at work. His wife asks him to buy some groceries so Vova goes out to the nearest store. Standing right in the city centre on Kalinin Prospekt, a barefoot man dressed in a tattered coat appeals to anyone with a strange request: "Tell me the number of your planet in the tenture? Or least the number of your galaxy in the spiral?". Uncle Vova and a young Georgian student with a violin (The Violinist), stop and talk to the strange man. During a short conversation the stranger shows them a teleportation device – "traveler". Uncle Vova decides to test the veracity of the stranger's story and, despite the stranger's warnings, presses a random button on the device. Suddenly Uncle Vova and the Violinist find themselves transported to the planet "Pluke" in the "Kin-dza-dza" galaxy. The natives of the planet appear human, with deceptively primitive-looking technology and a barbaric culture, which satirically resembles that of humans. They are telepathic; the only spoken words normally used in their culture are “ku” (koo) and “kyu” (kyoo), the former stands for everything good, the latter being a swear word or stands for every bad thing. However, the Plukanians are able to quickly adapt to understand and speak Russian and Georgian. The society of Pluke is divided into two categories: Chatlanians and Patsaks. The difference is ascertained only by means of a small handheld device (visator), similar to flash drive in appearance; when pointed at a member of the Chatlanian group, an orange light on the device comes on; when pointed at a member of the Patsak group, a green light comes on. It is also noted that the social differences between Patsaks and Chatlanians are not constant: Pluke being a Chatlanian planet, so Chatlanians are privileged, and a system of rituals must be followed by the Patsaks to show flattery; but there are Patsak planets where Patsaks hold the upper hand and Chatlanians are subservient. The "visator" shows that Uncle Vova and the Violinist are Patsaks. The only group allowed to use weapons (“tranklucators”) and enforce their will are the ecilops ("police" spelled backwards in Russian). Outside being a Patsak or Chatlanin, respect towards others is determined by the color of their pants; different shades require those of lower social standing to "ku" at them a predetermined number of times, displaying their submission. The nominal leader of the Plukanian society is Mr. P-Zh; everybody makes their best to display fervent worship to him and disrespect is severely punished; but, when encountered in person, P-Zh appears harmless and dumb. The fuel of Pluke is called luts and is made from water. All naturally present water has apparently been processed into luts, so drinking water is a valuable commodity (in fact, it can only be made from luts). A good deal of the plot is based on the fact that ordinary wooden matchsticks (ketse) (or, rather, the chemicals of the match head) are considered to be extremely valuable on Pluke. Uncle Vova and the Violinist meet two locals, Uef and Bi, who at various points either help or abandon the duo from Earth in their quest to return to Earth, which at various times involves repairing Uef and Bi's ship or raiding P-Zh's private compound. Uncle Vova and the Violinist finally encounter the man from the film's beginning, but he disappears, making it uncertain if he took them with him. The film then jumps back to the very beginning, as Uncle Vova heads outside however there is no man at the city center, where he runs into the Violinist, however they do not recognize each other. Suddenly, a passing tractor with an orange flashing light reminds them of the ecilops and they both reflexively squat and say, "ku!" as was required on Pluke. They immediately recognize each other. Uncle Vova, looking at the sky, hears the sound of a song performed by the Uef and Bi. ===== Ryo was adopted by the Sasaki family as a baby, much to the delight of his new adoptive sister, Ayame. His new parents chose not to tell him that he was adopted, however, and he didn't discover this fact until his teens. Ryo's life was shortly dealt another blow when his adoptive parents were killed in a car accident. Ayame abandoned her nursing studies in order to get a job and support Ryo through high school. One of the first people Ryo met at high school was Kaho Nagira. She begged him to join the literature club, which was in danger of being closed due to low membership. Surprising even himself, Ryo agreed to join, and he and Kaho became friends. Ryo found it difficult to settle into life at his new school, and sometimes had run-ins with other students. It was in the aftermath of one of these fights that he met the school nurse, Kaori Shito, and the two struck up an unlikely friendship. Throughout his time at high school, Ryo often visited her office in order to take naps and skip class, or simply to talk with her. In Ryo's third year of high school, Kyoko Ashihara joined the literature club. She was a first-year student and a friend of Kaho's. Ryo found himself touched by Kyoko's plight—living by herself, apart from both of her parents—and did his best to be kind to her. Ryo has a low opinion of Yuka Otowa. She is looked down upon at the school because she prostitutes herself to other students. However, at the same time, Ryo has found himself defending her to other people and helping her in times of crisis, though he doesn't understand why he bothers. Although Ryo once said he hated Yuka for what she does, his hatred slowly disappears soon after. Tomonori Sugimura is Ryo's best friend at high school. After he met Kaho at the school festival, he asked Ryo to introduce the two of them properly, hoping to develop a relationship with her. Ryo did so, despite his own interest in Kaho. Tomonori and Kaho started dating shortly thereafter. Miyu Shizuhara is a friend of Kaho's who Ryo met when he heard her playing the piano in the music room. Miyu quickly warmed to him, and they soon became friends. ===== Immediately after a young couple named Peter and Rita have exchanged wedding vows, an unknown elderly man asks to kiss the bride. As he does, Rita's soul and the old man's magically exchange bodies. Neither Peter nor the wedding guests grasp what has happened. Peter leaves the wedding with a woman he believes is Rita. During their honeymoon, he comes to realize that Rita's body is no longer inhabited by Rita's true personality. He must find the old man and keep his unconditional love for Rita alive despite the fact that she is now in an unattractive body. ===== Georgia Mozell, Eve Marks and Maddy Mozell are adult sisters. Georgia (Keaton) is the editor of her own wildly successful self-titled women's magazine. She strives for publicity at any cost. Party planner Eve (Ryan) is the mother hen of the group, not only of her own family, but also of her siblings and father as their mother, Pat (Leachman), not only emotionally left their father when they divorced, but her daughters as well. And Maddy (Kudrow) is a vacuous soap opera actress who has always struggled for her own identity. Despite being as busy with her own life as the others, Eve is the only one of the three who deals with the long term hospitalization of their cantankerous seventy-nine-year-old father, Lou Mozell (Matthau), when he enters the early stages of dementia, and the associated outcomes of that hospitalization. Eve is caring for Lou, who himself is a John Wayne fan, despite an especially hurtful incident with him seven years earlier (when he told her she was a mistake). As the emotional aspect of looking after Lou becomes more and more stressful, Eve has to figure out how to maintain her own sanity, while dealing with her sisters, who believe they too are part of their father's care while they don't lift a finger to help. At one point, Lou ruins a birthday party for Eve's son Jesse and is expelled from the household by Eve's husband Joe (Adam Arkin). When their father's health worsens, the three sisters reunite and ask who his favorite actress is. Before dying, Lou replies that it is June Allyson. The three sisters mourn their father's death, while flashbacks reveal of Lou having great times with his three daughters and John Wayne. The three sisters get together for Thanksgiving, while Maddy reveals that she has retired as an actress after her character tries a decaf cappuccino and is randomly murdered. ===== The main story of the film is based on the life of a Japanese academic and author Hyakken Uchida (1889–1971). The film opens with him resigning as professor of German, in the period immediately before the Second World War. The plot is centered on his relationship with his former students, who care for him in his old age. ===== The story describes the joys and pains of the ordinary marriage of Ira and Maggie Moran as they travel from Baltimore to attend a funeral and back home again in one day. It also examines Maggie's attempts to reconcile her son and daughter-in- law. During the journey to the funeral, we learn how both Ira and Maggie have forgone their youthful dreams and feel they have settled for an "ordinary life." We experience how they exasperate each other—Maggie too talkative, too meddling; Ira too logical, uncommunicative, and too judgmental. A few detours during their 90-mile drive reveal Ira and Maggie's "incompatibilities, disappointments, unmet expectations—and lasting love".Teisch, Jessica. "Anne Tyler." Bookmarks (Issue 25). Nov./Dec. 2006. Edward Hoagland describes the novel: "Maggie, surprised by life, which did not live up to her honeymoon, has become an incorrigible prompter. And she has horned in to bring about the birth of her first grandchild by stopping a 17-year-old girl named Fiona at the door of an abortion clinic and steering her into marrying Maggie's son, Jesse, who is the father and, like Fiona, a dropout from high school....The book's principal event is a 90-mile trip that Maggie and Ira make from Baltimore...to a country town in Pennsylvania where a high school classmate has suddenly scheduled an elaborate funeral for her husband. Maggie...indulges her habit of pouring her heart out to every listening stranger, which naturally infuriates Ira, who, uncommunicative to start with, has reached the point where Maggie can divine his moods only from the pop songs of the 1950s that he whistles....Maggie, although exasperating,...is trying to make a difference, to connect or unite people, beat the drum for forgiveness and compromise. As Ira explains, "It's Maggie's weakness. She believes it's all right to alter people's lives. She thinks the people she loves are better than they really are, and so then she starts changing things around to suit her point of view of them."Hoagland, Edward (September 11, 1988), "About Maggie, Who Tried too hard," New York Times ===== Texan William Kennedy can see and talk to ghosts - an ability which complicates his life immensely and threatens his relationships with family and friends. When his cousin calls him in to lay the ghost in the garage, Will finds he has a murderer to deal with. Category:2004 American novels Category:American fantasy novels Category:Novels set in Texas ===== Marianne is a young girl who is bedridden with a long-term illness. She draws a picture to fill her time, and finds that she spends her dreams within the picture she has drawn. As time goes by, she becomes sicker, and starts to spend more and more time trapped within her fantasy world, and her attempts to make things better by adding to and crossing out things in the drawing make things progressively worse. Her only companion in her dreamworld is a boy called Mark, who is also a long-term invalid in the real world. Catherine Storr's later novel Marianne and Mark was a sequel to Marianne Dreams. ===== Shah Guido G. is the nickname of Guido Garshthavastra, the hereditary Secretary-General of the United Nations ("Sekjen"), a tyrant who rules the Earth from a levitating island called Atlantis. Philo Plat is an aristocrat who secretly plots Shah Guido G.'s downfall. When he learns that the stations that power the Sky-Island's anti-gravitational beams are close to critical, Plat convinces Shah Guido G. to order in a division of Waves (female shock-troops whose name derives from the WAVES of the United States Navy) to put down a supposed rebellion by the technicians. As Plat suspected, the weight of the Waves' cruisers is sufficient to overload the Sky-Island's power generators, causing it to plummet to the ground, thereby liberating the people from tyranny. The story ends with the punning punchline: "Why, once more in history, Atlantis sank beneath the Waves." ===== Sultan Bajazeth prisoned by Tamburlaine (1878) by Stanisław Chlebowski Part 1 opens in Persepolis. The Persian emperor, Mycetes, dispatches troops to dispose of Tamburlaine, a Scythian shepherd and, at that point, a nomadic bandit. In the same scene, Mycetes' brother Cosroe plots to overthrow Mycetes and assume the throne. The scene shifts to Scythia, where Tamburlaine is shown wooing, capturing, and winning Zenocrate, the daughter of the Egyptian king. Confronted by Mycetes' soldiers, he persuades first the soldiers and then Cosroe to join him in a fight against Mycetes. Although he promises Cosroe the Persian throne, Tamburlaine reneges on this promise and, after defeating Mycetes, takes personal control of the Persian Empire. Now a powerful figure, Tamburlaine turns his attention to Bajazeth, emperor of the Turks. He defeats Bajazeth and his tributary kings, capturing the emperor and his wife Zabina. The victorious Tamburlaine keeps the defeated ruler in a cage and feeds him scraps from his table, releasing Bajazeth only to use him as a footstool. Bajazeth later kills himself on stage by bashing his head against the bars upon hearing of Tamburlaine's next victory. Upon finding his body, Zabina does likewise. Tamburlaine and Bajazeth (ca. 1700) by Andrea Celesti After conquering Africa and naming himself emperor of that continent, Tamburlaine sets his eyes on Damascus, a target which places the Egyptian sultan, his to- be father-in-law, directly in his path. Zenocrate pleads with her future husband to spare her father. He complies, instead making the sultan a tributary king. The play ends with the wedding of Tamburlaine and Zenocrate, who is crowned Empress of Persia. In Part 2, Tamburlaine grooms his sons to be conquerors in his wake as he continues to attack neighbouring kingdoms. His oldest son, Calyphas, preferring to stay by his mother's side and not risk death, incurs Tamburlaine's wrath. Meanwhile, the son of Bajazeth, Callapine, escapes from Tamburlaine's jail and gathers a group of tributary kings to his side, planning to avenge his father. Callapine and Tamburlaine meet in battle, where Tamburlaine is victorious. But finding that Calyphas remained in his tent during the battle, Tamburlaine kills him in anger. Tamburlaine then forces the defeated kings to pull his chariot to his next battlefield, declaring, : Holla ye pampered jades of Asia! : What, can ye draw but twenty miles a day? Upon reaching Babylon, which holds out against him, Tamburlaine displays further acts of extravagant savagery. When the governor of the city attempts to save his life in return for revealing the city treasury, Tamburlaine has him hanged from the city walls and shot. He orders the inhabitants—men, women, and children—to be bound and thrown into a nearby lake. Lastly, Tamburlaine scornfully burns a copy of the Qur'an and claims to be greater than God. In the final act, he becomes ill but manages to defeat one more foe before he dies. He bids his sons to conquer the remainder of the earth as he departs life. ===== The film tells the story of a woman feeling unfulfilled and unappreciated in her life so she decides to abandon her husband and infant daughter in order to pursue her dreams of superstardom. The story starts off by showing aspiring vocalist, Olivia King (Diana Ross) performing at small lounge in Atlanta, Georgia in 1981. As she takes a break from her performance she heads backstage to see her infant daughter, Kayla (Jayda Brown). A music executive approaches King at the bar and tells her she is talented and should move to the bigger market of New York City to fulfill her dreams. Olivia King initially denies his request and goes home to her husband (Brian Stokes Mitchell). King is shown trying to explain her night to her husband and tell him about the music executive but he brushes her off and tells her moving to New York City is a bad idea. Feeling depressed, conflicted and trapped in her marriage, Olivia King leaves her home in the middle of the night whispering to her daughter that she can't take her along, but will be back for her. The movie then picks back up in St. Louis, Missouri, 18 years later, and it is shown that Kayla Harris (Brandy Norwood), now 19 years old, has won a contest to meet famous superstar Olivia King. Kayla at this time does not know that Olivia is her mother, but she grew up being a huge fan of Olivia King and is extremely excited to meet her idol, completely ignorant to the truth. After enjoying the concert, Kayla then gets the second part of her prize which includes having dinner with Olivia King. At dinner, Kayla lets Olivia know that she also would like to be a singer and invites Olivia to a small performance she would be doing. When Kayla gets home from dinner, her father asks her how it went and he is shocked to hear that the star Kayla got to meet was Olivia King, though he knows the truth he does not press the issue further as he sees his daughter is still in the dark. Next, Kayla is shown getting ready to perform, and she begins to worry that Olivia will not show up but sure enough Olivia shows up as Kayla starts to sing. Kayla is ecstatic that her idol has shown up but after the show Olivia pulls her aside and reveals to Kayla who she really is. Kayla is stunned, upset, and quickly leaves. Kayla is shaken, argues with her father, and refuses to speak to Olivia even when she offers to help her with her career. Kayla's best friend advises her to accept Olivia's help with her music career as it is the least she owes her. Kayla reluctantly agrees to go to New York City with Olivia all the while Olivia continues to make futile attempts to build a relationship with Kayla. Olivia introduces Kayla to the people she knows in the industry, and with Olivia's strong recommendation and Kayla's talent, she is quickly signed. Kayla begins to work on her album and with Olivia's guidance and leadership she records her first song. As the story progresses, the two ladies continue living in Olivia's fancy penthouse apartment with Olivia trying not to step on Kayla's toes as she pursues success. Kayla then finds a steamy romance with a handsome older music executive, Ric Ortega (Allen Payne) whom her mother does not trust and warns her against, but Kayla ignores her mother's warning. Despite her growing success and hit single, Kayla continues to harbor bitter feelings towards Olivia, feelings which boil over during their record label's Grammy Party. After Kayla's performance, Olivia is asked to perform by the head of the label, causing Kayla to resent her mother for "stealing her spotlight". However, after discovering that Ric revealed her true parentage to the press and betrayed her just as her mother had warned, Kayla dissolves her relationship with him. Kayla, feeling down and regretful, heads up to her mother's cabin where Olivia is finding refuge. As they spend time at the cabin and truly communicate the two women begin to understand each other. Eventually, Kayla's feelings about her mother change and she begins to accept the truth about her mother and the events that took place when she was younger. The movie culminates with Olivia and Kayla going back to St. Louis for a concert Kayla is giving. Kayla sings her songs but as the show draws to an end she calls on her mother to come up on stage with her and they sing a wonderful duet together. Kayla's friend and family look on from the audience. The movie was a Nielsen ratings success, debuting at #16 for the week. Along with airing originally on ABC, it was also syndicated by VH1, MTV, BET, Centric and TV One (U.S. TV channel) where it still is a recurrent favorite. ===== Set in the country of South Africa, the story begins with a cheetah cub being orphaned after his mother was killed by lions. The cub is found on the side of the road by a young boy named Xan (Alexander Michaeletos) and his father Peter (Campbell Scott). Initially reluctant to take in a wild animal, Peter agrees to let Xan take care of the cub. They name him “Duma”, the Swahili name for “cheetah”. Over the years, Duma becomes a part of the family, being closely raised by Xan. As he nears adulthood, Peter and Xan decide to teach Duma how to run by having him chase alongside Peter's motorcycle, which can barely keep up with him. But with Duma almost fully grown, to Xan's dismay, his father tells him that it is time to take his friend to his real home before he grows too old to survive in his native habitat. His father says to Xan, “Duma has to live the life he was born to—or he’ll never be fully alive.” Xan reluctantly agrees, but their plans must be put on hold when his father suddenly falls ill and dies and Xan and his mother (Hope Davis) must move to Johannesburg. Duma comes with them, which wreaks havoc on their life in the city. Xan's aunt is terrified of Duma, who likes to sneak up and surprise her, and when Duma escapes and pays a disastrous visit to Xan's school, the two of them must flee the city to keep Duma from being put into captivity. Not knowing where to go, Xan gets an idea—he'll carry out the plan his dad had outlined, taking Duma home in the neighbouring country of Botswana, over the scorching Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, through the Okavango Delta and into the Erongo Mountains. Xan begins to drive to his destination in his father's old motorcycle, with Duma in the sidecar. After running out of fuel and water in the grasslands, they find some shade underneath a crashed airplane. There, they are confronted by Ripkuna (Eamonn Walker), a mysterious drifter on a journey of his own. While Xan isn't at all that sure he can trust Rip, he agrees to go with him. Xan manages to turn the immobile motorcycle into a desert sailboat out of a parachute from the plane wreck, and Xan, Rip and Duma are on their way again, until they encounter the untraversable scrub brush of the Kalahari Desert and must abandon the motorcycle. While trying to find shelter, Rip is trapped in an abandoned diamond mine by a cave in, and Xan decides to leave him, as he suspects that he has been leading him to town instead of the jungle to sell Duma and collect a reward for finding him. However, when Duma is caught in a trap and Xan is knocked unconscious by a boar, Rip rescues both of them, having escaped the mine through a ventilation shaft. Soon, they reach the Okavango Delta, where Xan is attacked by the deadly wildlife and the churning rapids of the Thamalakane River, but it's too late for him to turn back now. Xan, Rip and Duma press through the Okavango, and finally the Erongo Mountains, on the border of Botswana and Namibia are in sight. However, once they get there, Xan is suddenly set upon by a swarm of tsetse flies. To protect him from their lethal bite, Rip huddles over Xan and is bitten by hundreds of flies. He soon develops sleeping sickness, and Xan takes him to a nearby village where he can be cared for; it is soon revealed that those taking care of him are actually his own family. Later that night, outside the village, Duma is out on his own and starts calling out into the mountains. Duma finds another cheetah calling to him, and they bond rather quickly. It is never explained whether this is another male cheetah, or is in fact one of Duma's siblings. Xan hears this activity, and realizes that this is where he and Duma must part. Xan says goodbye to Duma, and Duma comes to Xan and says a final goodbye, and goes back to play with his new friend. Then Xan goes back to the village to Rip. Before the credits, it shows Xan being reunited with his mother and the film ends. ===== Misalliance is an ironic examination of the mating instincts of a varied group of people gathered at a wealthy man's country home on a summer weekend. Most of the romantic interest centers on the host's daughter, Hypatia Tarleton, a typical Shaw heroine who exemplifies his lifelong theory that in courtship, women are the relentless pursuers and men the apprehensively pursued. Hypatia is the daughter of newly-wealthy John Tarleton who made his fortune in the unglamorous but lucrative underwear business. She is fed up with the stuffy conventions that surround her and with the hyperactive talk of the men in her life. Hypatia is engaged to Bentley Summerhays, an intellectually bright but physically and emotionally underdeveloped aristocrat. Hypatia is restless with her engagement as the play starts, even as it is revealed she has also had a proposal of engagement from her betrothed's father, Lord Summerhays. She has no desire to be a nurse to the elderly and is in no hurry to be made a widow. She longs for some adventure to drop out of the sky, and it does ... an aircraft crashes through the roof of the conservatory to close the end of the first act. At the beginning of Act II, it is revealed that the aircraft brings two unexpected guests. The pilot, Joey Percival, is a handsome young man who immediately arouses Hypatia's hunting instinct. The passenger, Lina Szczepanowska, is a female dare-devil of a circus acrobat whose vitality and directness inflame all the other men at the house-party. An additional uninvited guest arrives in the form of Gunner. He is a cashier who is very unhappy with his lot in life. He blames the wealthy class in particular for the plight of the ordinary worker, and he blames John Tarleton in particular for a romantic dalliance that he once had with Gunner's mother. Gunner arrives with intent to kill Tarleton but hides inside a piece of furniture. From this position, he becomes wise to Hypatia's pursuit of Percival. His character comes to introduce the themes of socialism to the play, as well as serving to question the conventional views on marriage and social order. All together there are eight marriage proposals offered for consideration in the course of one summer afternoon. The question of whether any one of these combinations of marriage might be an auspicious alliance, or a misalliance, prompts one of the prospective husbands to utter the famous Shavian speculation: :"If marriages were made by putting all the men's names into one sack and the women's names into another, and having them taken out by a blind-folded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a percentage of happy marriages as we have now." Part of Shaw's premise is in the irony that men spend so much energy courting a woman who will be obedient and subservient to them, when what they really desire is a strong woman who will be their equal. Shaw's idea of such an "ideal woman", one present throughout his works, is embodied in this case by the character of Lina Szczepanowska. She is a death-defying Polish acrobat who accompanies Percival on his flight and subsequently becomes the object of affection for Summerhays, Tarleton, Bentley and Johnny. The affirmation of her role as Shaw's archetypical ideal woman is her speech (the longest by far in the work) in which she rejects Johnny's offer of marriage in favor of retaining her independence...financially, intellectually and physically. She takes Bentley, who finds a shaky new courage, up into the air with her at the conclusion of the play. ===== When the Simpsons' television set breaks, Marge tells her children how she and Homer met in a flashback. Marge and Homer were both high school seniors in 1974. Unlike Homer, Marge was studious, but she was sent to detention for burning a bra at a feminist rally. Homer and his close friend Barney also earned detention for smoking in the boys' restroom. Homer instantly fell in love with Marge the first time he saw her in the detention room. Despite his father Abe's warning that he was aiming too high, Homer was determined to win Marge's heart. To impress Marge, Homer joined her debate team, where he learned she was romantically interested in the more articulate Artie Ziff. Homer asked Marge to tutor him in French and she accepted his invitation to the senior prom. When Homer confessed that he was not enrolled in French class and was only using the ruse to spend time with her, Marge was furious at him for making her needlessly stay awake late the night before a debate tournament. She lost the debate to Artie, who asked her to be his prom date. Homer was unaware Marge accepted Artie's invitation and unexpectedly arrived at her house on prom night. When Artie arrived moments later, Homer despondently left her house and attended the prom alone. Artie and Marge were crowned prom king and queen and shared the first dance. Marge found a heartbroken Homer crying in the hallway and urged him to accept her love for Artie. At Inspiration Point after the prom, Artie tried to make out with Marge in the back seat of his car; when he tore her dress in a fit of passion, Marge slapped him and demanded to be taken home. Homer's limousine rental expired and he walked home because he had no money. Marge and Artie's car passed him walking on the roadside. After Artie dropped Marge at her house, she returned in her car to pick up Homer. She realized she loved Homer and apologized for wounding his heart. Homer fixed the torn strap of Marge's dress with the corsage he had bought for her. Afterward, Homer tells Marge that he has a problem: After arriving at her house he's "gonna want to hold and kiss [her], and never let [her] go". As Marge ends her flashback, Homer adds that he 'never did" let her go. Lisa and Maggie are touched, but Bart makes gagging sounds of disgust. ===== High school student Wendy Christensen visits an amusement park in Pennsylvania with her boyfriend Jason Wise, her best friend Carrie Dreyer, Carrie's boyfriend Kevin Fischer, and their fellow classmates to celebrate their graduation. As they board the Devil's Flight roller coaster, Wendy has a premonition that the hydraulics securing the seat belts and coaster cars will fail during the ride, killing everyone on board. She is able to convince nine people including Kevin, best friends Ashley Freund and Ashlyn Halperin, alumnus Frankie Cheeks, athlete Lewis Romero, and goth couple Ian McKinley and Erin Ulmer, not to ride the roller coaster, but fails to save Jason and Carrie, who are not allowed to leave the ride and are thus killed in the derailment. Several weeks later, Kevin tells Wendy about the explosion of Flight 180 and the subsequent deaths of the survivors, believing they may be in a similar situation. At a tanning salon, Ashley and Ashlyn die after being trapped in malfunctioning tanning beds and burning alive. Now convinced that Death is stalking them, Wendy and Kevin set out to save the remaining survivors using omens hidden in photographs of the survivors that Wendy took on the night of the roller coaster crash. When Wendy and Kevin pull into a drive-thru restaurant and observe Frankie's photo, a runaway semi-trailer truck forces them to escape Kevin's car before it collides. The collision causes a motor to fly out of Kevin's car that kills Frankie by slicing his skull. The next day, Wendy and Kevin fail to save Lewis, whose head is crushed by two weights from a Bowflex machine at the school gym. They find Ian and Erin working at a hardware store, where a chain reaction from a runaway forklift obliges Wendy to save Ian from his death. However, Death then skips to Erin, who falls on a nail gun that shoots repeatedly through her head. While identifying the last two roller coaster survivors from the photographs, whose faces are obscured, Wendy realizes that they are her sister Julie and one of her friends, prompting Wendy and Kevin to rush to the local tricentennial fair to save them. Kevin saves Julie from being impaled on a harrow, but an airborne flagpole fatally impales Julie's friend Perry Malinowski moments later. After Wendy saves Kevin from an exploding propane canister, the trio are confronted by a grief- stricken Ian, who blames Wendy for Erin's death. However, before Ian can take revenge, an unstable cart of firework cannons launches fireworks into a cherry picker that falls and crushes him. Five months later, Wendy experiences more omens while riding on a subway train with her roommate Laura and her friend Sean. As Wendy is about to disembark, she suddenly reunites with Julie and Kevin, who had both also boarded the train. Wendy receives another premonition that the train will crash, killing everyone on board. Panicked, the remaining survivors attempt to stop the train as it is about to crash, leaving their fates unknown. ===== The book follows Phèdre nó Delaunay's life from birth. She's born with a mote in her eye, which makes her appear inappropriate for service as a religious courtesan, but it is revealed that this is actually a sign that she is an 'anguissette' or sexual masochist, deriving sexual pleasure from pain. Her bond is purchased by a nobleman who does train her as a courtesan, and discovers a plot against her homeland which she has a chance to interrupt. ===== The story unfolds in flashbacks, giving details of two separate relationships that become intertwined with each other. During a performance of Café Müller, a dance-theatre piece by Pina Bausch, Benigno Martín and Marco Zuluaga cross paths, but the two men are no more than strangers. Still, Benigno notices that Marco cries. Marco is a journalist and travel writer who happens to see a TV interview with Lydia González, a famous matador. He thinks that an article on her would be interesting and, on the instructions of his editor, he contacts her in a bar, where she asks him to take her to her house. As they talk, she elaborates on the fact that she broke up with her boyfriend “el Niño de Valencia”, another matador, something that has been all over the tabloids. As Marco confesses that he knows nothing of bullfighting and that he is a journalist, she becomes angry and leaves his car without saying a word. As he drives off, he hears a scream inside her house and stops; Lydia rushes off and climbs back into his car: she asks him to kill a snake that she found in her house. He does so and comes out of the house crying. With that new confidence established between them, they become friends and, later on, lovers. Marco attends a wedding in Toledo and is surprised to find Lydia there too, since she had said that she did not want to go. The wedding turns out to be that of Marco's former fiancée, Ángela, who had the same phobia of snakes as Lydia; Marco was very much in love with Ángela and had a very hard time getting over her (which was the reason for his constant crying over things he could not share with her). Lydia says that she has something important to say, but she prefers to wait until after the bullfight that afternoon; but she is gored and becomes comatose. Marco does not leave her side at the hospital and finally befriends Benigno, who recognizes him from the dance-theatre performance. Marco is told by the doctors that people in a coma never wake up and that, while there are miracle-stories of people who have come back, he should not keep his hopes high. Benigno is a personal nurse and caregiver for Alicia Roncero, a beautiful dance student, who lies in a coma, but Benigno sees her as alive; he talks his heart out to her, and brings her all kinds of dancing and silent black and white film mementos. As it turns out, Benigno had been obsessed with Alicia for a while, before she was in a coma, since his apartment is in front of the dance studio where she practiced every day. At first his obsession was only from a distance, since Benigno was taking care of his possessive mother, who seemed to be immobile. For that reason, he became a nurse and also a beautician. Free to move about after his mother dies, he finally picks up the courage to talk to Alicia, after she dropped her wallet on the street. As they walk together to her house, they talk about her discovery of silent black and white films and about dancing. When she walks into her building, Benigno notices that she lives in the house of Dr. Roncero, who is a psychiatrist. Benigno makes an appointment to see the doctor and talks about his unresolved bereavement grief over his mother. But it is all a ruse to gain access to the apartment, where he steals a hair-clip from Alicia's room. That night, Alicia is run over by a car and becomes comatose. By mere chance, Benigno is assigned to Alicia, much to the surprise of her father. But since Benigno's services are the best, he hires him and a colleague permanently to tend for Alicia. Benigno also tells Dr. Roncero that he is gay, possibly so that Alicia's father will not suspect his love for her, or possibly so that he will not question Benigno's particular attachment to her. Benigno keeps telling Marco that he should talk to Lydia because, despite the fact that they are in a coma, women understand and react to men's problems. Eventually, Marco learns from “el Niño de Valencia” that Lydia and him had decided to be together again, and that she intended to tell Marco. So Marco finds himself alone again. As he is about to leave, he comes into Alicia's room, looking for Benigno, but he instead finds himself opening his heart out to her, despite his scepticism over Benigno's theories. Benigno and Marco leave the hospital and, in the parking lot, Benigno tells Marco of his plans to marry Alicia: Marco is taken aback, telling his friend that Alicia is basically dead and cannot express her will in any manner. But Benigno does not hear any reason. During a routine review at the hospital, the supervisors notice that Alicia has missed several periods; since this is a common occurrence with people in a coma, they do not think twice over it. In reality, Alicia was raped months before and is pregnant, Benigno is the main suspect and is later sent to prison. Marco has left Spain to write a book about travelling. Months later, in Jordan, he reads in a newspaper that Lydia has finally died, having never awakened from her coma. He phones the hospital, looking for Benigno, only to hear that Benigno does not work there any more. Marco manages to talk to another nurse whom he had befriended; she tells him that Benigno is now in prison for the alleged rape of Alicia. Marco returns to Spain and visits Benigno, who asks him to hire a new lawyer and find out what happened to Alicia. Marco stays in Benigno's apartment and sees that Alicia has awakened during or after delivering a stillborn baby. Following the urging of Benigno's lawyer, Marco does not tell Benigno about Alicia's unexpected recovery. Desperate, Benigno writes a farewell letter to Marco and takes a large quantity of pills, to try to "escape" into a coma, thus reuniting with Alicia. He dies of an overdose. Meanwhile, Alicia has begun rehabilitation to recover her ability to walk and dance. The film ends in the same theatre where it began, where Marco and Alicia meet by chance. ===== In August 2003, cuts to funding by the Bogota Borough Council threaten the Bogota High School football team, enraging many residents. With a mayoral election ahead, the stage is set for a close election between the incumbent, Republican Steve Lonegan, and former Borough Council Democrat Fred Pesce. Then, in late September, former high school athlete Dave Musikant announces he will run for mayor as a write-in candidate. The three-way race garners national attention, particularly because both Lonegan and Musikant are legally blind. As election day draws near, Musikant scores a coup by hiring Doug Friedline, Jesse Ventura's former campaign manager. In the week before election day, a rumor develops that Pesce is ill and will drop out of the race. However, Pesce continues to the end. As election day dawns, poor weather worries Lonegan, who fears low turnout may cause him to lose. However, Lonegan wins with 1,097 votes, while Pesce has 728, and Musikant has 200. The Republicans also win the City Council. That January, Lonegan is inaugurated as Mayor for his third term. The football team goes on to the state championship, but loses in that game. Pesce also announces his retirement from politics. In September 2004, Musikant succumbs to his eight-year battle with brain cancer. Lonegan goes on to run for the Republican nomination for governor that year, after Jim McGreevey's resignation, but loses the primary. ===== 20 years ago, in a magic-filled dimension, the forces of darkness came into power and a war called the "Great Battle" between good and evil began all while the citizens of the human world remained unaware. An army of monsters, led by a powerful warrior named Morticon, swarmed the land with their sights set on taking over the magical realm, the human realm, and beyond. They were opposed by five wizards, who pushed back against the dark forces. The strongest wizard of all, Leanbow, cast a spell and sent the evil warriors into the Underworld, having the Gatekeeper seal the gates for all eternity. The forces of truth successfully thwarted the dark forces' attempt to take the surface world, but the five wizards lost their lives; including Leanbow, who sealed himself on their side of the Gate to make sure they did not escape. In the present day, the city of Briarwood is struck by an earthquake, which proved powerful to crack the seal and allow evil to renew its attempt to invade the earth. The sorceress Udonna, alerted to their return, sought out the warriors of legend, five teens living in Briarwood, to become the Power Rangers alongside her. While one of the teens was reluctant at first, he realized his destiny and joined the others in the fight against the Master of the Underworld and his numerous minions. When Udonna loses her Ranger powers to the mysterious Koragg, it is up to Nick, Chip, Xander and sisters Madison and Vida to save the Earth on their own. They are assisted by Udonna's bumbling apprentice, Clare, and eventually Jenji the Genie and his master Daggeron, the Solaris Knight. Using their powerful magic and incredible martial arts skills, the Mystic Force Rangers must rely on teamwork to save the day. Later, in a shocking surprise, it is revealed that Koragg is none other than Leanbow, the greatest and strongest of the five original wizards. The good power that was taken from Udonna helps Koragg turn back to his normal self, allowing him to use his powers to transform into the Wolf Warrior. In the end, the Rangers come together to defeat the Master of the Underworld with the help of Briarwood's people and the forest creatures. With the forces of darkness defeated, Nick, Udonna and Leanbow leave Briarwood to meet Nick's adoptive parents while the remaining Rangers stay behind to protect their home. ===== The programme followed the exploits of Simon Bodger and his puppet companion, Badger, a badly-behaved badger with a proclivity for mashed potato. The first four series focused on Bodger's jobs as a handyman and his attempts to hide Badger from his superiors. Series 1 was set at Troff's Nosherama, a café where Bodger worked as a cook. Series 2 and 3 were set at Letsby Avenue Junior School. Series 4 was set at Chessington World of Adventures, a real theme park in Surrey. From series 5, the character Mousey was introduced, a puppeted mouse with a fondness for cheese. The show was now set at Bodger's rented home and later his B&B; hotel. Series 5-7 rarely mentioned Bodger's employment, suggesting he was now unemployed. The later series still focused on Bodger's attempts to hide Badger from figures of authority, his landlady from Series 5-7 and the tourist information officer in series 9. These later episodes increased the slapstick humour with prominent comic sound effects and incidental music. ===== The Monster Squad is a club of pre-teenagers who idolize classic monster-movies and their non-human stars. Club leader Sean Crenshaw (Andre Gower), whose younger sister, Phoebe (Ashley Bank), desperately wants to join the club, is given the diary of legendary monster hunter Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Jack Gwillim), but his excitement abates when he finds it is written in German. Sean and the rest of the Monster Squadhis best friend and second in command Patrick Rhodes (Robby Kiger), clumsy overweight Horace (Brent Chalem), tough older kid Rudy (Ryan Lambert) and little Eugene (Michael Faustino), go to visit an elderly man, known as the "Scary German Guy" (Leonardo Cimino), actually a kind gentleman and a former concentration camp prisoner, to translate the diary. The diary describes, in great detail, an amulet that is composed of concentrated good. One day out of every century, as the forces of good and evil reach a balance, the otherwise indestructible amulet becomes vulnerable to destruction. With the next day of balance happening within a few days, at the stroke of midnight, the kids realize they must gain possession of the amulet and use itwith an incantation from Van Helsing's diaryto open a wormhole in the universe and cast the monsters into Limbo. As shown in the film's prelude, Van Helsing had unsuccessfully attempted this one hundred years ago in order to defeat his old adversary Count Dracula (Duncan Regehr); his apprentices then emigrated to the United States to hide the amulet, where it was out of Dracula's immediate reach. Nevertheless, Dracula seeks to obtain the amulet so that he can take control of the world and plunge it into darkness. To this end, he assembles several of his most dangerous and monstrous allies: The Mummy (Michael MacKay), The Gill-man (Tom Woodruff Jr.), The Wolf Man (Carl Thibault), and in addition, three school girls (Mary Albee, Joan-Carrol Baron, and Julie Merrill) whom the Count transforms into his vampiric consorts. Dracula then steals a crate from a B-25 Mitchell in flight, containing Frankenstein's monster (Tom Noonan), thus completing his army. However, Frankenstein's monster is reluctant to aid Dracula, and wanders into the forest where he encounters Phoebe. Rather than being afraid, she shows him the kindness he has always sought, and they become friends. After Phoebe proves to the Monster Squad that Frankenstein's monster is not evil, he chooses to help the boys instead of Dracula. The Wolfman, when reverting to human form (Jonathan Gries), is a recalcitrant follower of Dracula, and has been making calls to the police about the forthcoming carnage, which are dismissed as prank calls. The amulet is buried in a stone room beneath a house that Dracula and the other monsters now occupy and where Van Helsing's diary was found. The secret room is littered with wards which prevent the monsters from taking it. The Monster Squad break into the house and acquire the amulet and narrowly escape Dracula's grasp. They confer with The Scary German Guy who informs them that the incantation must be read by a female virgin. As midnight approaches, the Squad makes their way to a local cathedral to make their last stand. Meanwhile, Dracula destroys their clubhouse with dynamite, drawing the attention of Sean's father, Police Detective Del (Stephen Macht), who has been charged with investigating the strange occurrences in town (as caused by Dracula's cohorts), but remains quite skeptical about their supernatural causes until he sees Dracula in person. Unfortunately, the doors to the cathedral are locked, so the incantation must be read on the stoop, leaving the Squad vulnerable. They enlist Patrick's beautiful elder sister Lisa (Lisa Fuller) to help them, as she is the only virgin they know. However, the incantation fails since Lisa is actually not a virgin anymore. As the monsters close in, the Squad deduces that Phoebe must complete the task of opening the portal, and the German Guy attempts to help her read the incantation as the rest of the Squad fends off the monsters. In the ensuing battle, Dracula's consorts, the Mummy, the Gill-man, and the Wolfman are defeated. Dracula arrives to destroy the amulet when Frankenstein's monster intervenes, impaling him on a wrought-iron cross. Phoebe finishes the incantation, opening the portal which begins to consume the bodies of the monsters. Dracula, still alive, attempts to drag Sean in with him. Sean impales Dracula with a wooden stake as Patrick grabs Sean before he can be sucked into the portal; then Van Helsing appears, having briefly escaped from Limbo gives a thumbs up to Sean on a job well done, and pulls Dracula to his doom. As Frankenstein's monster is drawn into the portal, Phoebe holds onto him and pleads for him to stay. Knowing he doesn't belong on Earth, Frankenstein's monster lets go of Phoebe's hand, but accepts her gift of a stuffed animal to remember her by. The portal then closes, ensuring the world's safety. In the aftermath, the United States Army arrives on the scene, having received a letter from Eugene earlier on asking for their help against the monsters. When the confused General fails to make sense of the situation, Sean steps forward and presents the man with his business card, identifying himself and his friends as "The Monster Squad". ===== The series starred a Tyrannosaurus, a Triceratops, a Stegosaurus, and a Pteranodon that were transformed into super warriors by an interdimensional criminal named Argor Zardok. They rebelled against the alien criminal and battle with Argor's second group of warriors known as the evil Raptors. Eventually, the Raptors' objective is to cause global warming by increasing the Earth's temperature, which will make life on earth more comfortable for dinosaurs. ===== Savage Empire is a novel in which two societies have been warring for many years: the psionic Aventine Empire and the barbarians who practice magic. ===== During the final days of the American Civil War, the Union army payroll train is hijacked by Confederates led by Capt. Pierre Cordona and Sgt. Tuscarora Phillips. Their scheme suggests that the Confederates must have gotten detailed inside information about the transport. Col. Cord McNally's close friend, Lt. Ned Forsythe, is fatally injured in the raid, and during the pursuit McNally's squad is spread thinner and thinner until he is left on his own. After Cordona and his men capture him, McNally tricks them by leading them into a Union camp and raising the alarm. Cordona and Tuscarora are captured, but will not reveal to McNally the identity of the traitor who sold them the information about the train. Despite this development, the three men gain a mutual respect for each other, and after the war ends, McNally visits Cordona and Phillips as they are being released. He asks them once more about the traitors, but all they can provide is a physical description. McNally then tells Cordona and Tuscarora that if they should come across these men again, to contact him through a friend of his, Pat Cronin, who is the sheriff of Blackthorne in Texas. Sometime later, McNally is contacted by Pat with a message from Cordona, who is staying at the local hotel. When he arrives in Blackthorne, McNally meets a young woman, Shasta Delaney, who has come to report the murder of her employer by a deputy of Rio Lobo's sheriff, "Blue Tom" Hendricks. Shortly afterwards, a posse from Rio Lobo arrives and wants to take Delaney away. Delaney identifies their leader, "Whitey" Carter, as the murderer she was referring to. When one of the posse aims a gun at Cronin, Delaney shoots Whitey from under the table, resulting in a shoot-out in which McNally, Cronin and Cordona finish off the posse. Cordona identifies Whitey as one of the traitors McNally is looking for. He tells McNally that Tuscarora had contacted him and told him that his father and other ranchers are being bullied by a rich man named Ketcham, who had the previous sheriff killed and installed Hendricks in his place. McNally, Cordona, and Delaney go to Rio Lobo, where they find the people living in terror of Hendricks and his men. Tuscarora's girlfriend Maria hides them in her house, and her friend Amelita helps Cordona scout out the territory. Hendricks has Tuscarora arrested on trumped-up charges, so McNally's group goes to get help from Tuscarora's father, Old Man Philips. McNally, Cordona, and Philips sneak into Ketcham's ranch, and McNally discovers that Ketcham is really Union Sergeant Major Ike Gorman, the second traitor he was searching for. McNally attacks Ketcham, who fights back with an oil lamp, accidentally setting himself and his house ablaze. McNally refuses to put out the fire until Ketcham agrees to sign the deeds back to their rightful owners. Taking the wounded Ketcham hostage, they send Cordona ahead to find the United States Cavalry. Upon arrival in Rio Lobo, they discover that Hendricks has beaten Maria and brutally slashed Amelita's face, for helping McNally. Amelita swears to McNally she will kill Hendricks. The men force Hendricks' party out of the jail and hole up there with Tuscarora to await the Cavalry. However, Ketcham's men capture Cordona before he gets far, and offer to trade him for Ketcham. During the prisoner exchange, Cordona manages to give his captors the slip. McNally yells out that Ketcham is now bankrupt, having signed the deeds back, so the furious sheriff guns Ketcham down, and in turn McNally shoots Hendricks in the leg, starting a firefight. After a failed attempt to blow up the cantina McNally's men are using as a base, the remaining bandits are outflanked by the rest of the townspeople, who have rallied to help. Hendrick's men realize that all is lost, and they flee. Hendricks shoots at them, but he has been using his rifle as a crutch and, with its muzzle clogged with dust, it explodes in his face. As he stumbles to his horse, Amelita guns him down, thus keeping her promise and ridding the town of its final menace. ===== Oldbuck shows Lovel an historical landmark At the opening of the story, Lovel meets Oldbuck while taking a coach from Edinburgh. Oldbuck, interested as he is in antiquities, has with him Gordon's Itinerarium, a book about Roman ruins. The book interests Lovel, to the surprise of Oldbuck and by their shared interest the two become friends. Oldbuck invites Lovel to come to Monkbarns and takes the opportunity of a willing listener to divulge his ancient knowledge. In the process of which, Oldbuck shows Lovel a plot of land he purchased at great cost where he found an inscription "A.D.L.L", which Oldbuck takes to mean "Agricola Dicavit Libens Lubens". Edie Ochiltree, the local beggar, disputes the antiquary's history, in one of the more amusing scenes of the story (see image at left). Taking refuge on a cliff Oldbuck decides to introduce Lovel to his good friend, Sir Arthur Wardour. When Sir Arthur arrives, Lovel meets Arthur's daughter, Isabella and the two realize they have seen each other before. Because Lovel is illegitimate, she knows her father would not approve of a marriage between them. When she sees Lovel standing in the road waiting to talk to her, she convinces her father to take the long way home, walking down to the beach. Luckily, Edie Ochiltree, having the insight that someone may be trapped on the beach not knowing that the tide was coming in, finds the Wardours and helps them escape the rising waters. Then, Lovel appears and gets them to relative safety, huddling on the side of a rocky cliff. Finally, Oldbuck arrives with men and ropes to pull the four up over the cliff to safety. A while later, Oldbuck takes Lovel, the Wardours, his niece and nephew, Dousterswivel and a minister to the ancient ruins of Saint Ruth on Sir Arthur's property. While exploring the property, they discuss an ancient treasure that they believe to be buried at the ruins. Captain M'Intyre dominates Isabella's attention, which she leaves in favor of Lovel's to the dismay of M'Intyre. M'Intyre, angered at this slight, discovers that Lovel is in the military, but realizes he knows of no one named Lovel in his division and calls him out upon the topic. They agree to a duel and return to the scene to fight for their individual honor. Lovel's bullet strikes best and leaves M'Intyre bleeding on the ground, when Lovel flees with Edie to avoid a potential arrest. In their hiding, Edie and Lovel see Dousterswivel and Sir Arthur return to the ruins, looking for treasure. They see Dousterswivel attempting to convince Sir Arthur of his magical abilities to find gold and he does conveniently find a small bag under a stone. After they leave, Lovel boards a military ship and departs. Sir Arthur and Dousterswivel Searching for the Treasure, the Dalziel Brothers, 1886. Oldbuck, understanding Dousterswivel's knavery, confronts him about his cons and takes Sir Arthur back to the ruins to look for treasure without Dousterswivel's magical intervention. Digging further under the same stone under which Dousterswivel had previously found treasure, they discover a chest full of silver, which Sir Arthur promptly takes back home. Edie hangs behind and whispers for Dousterswivel to join him. Then, showing the con artist the lid to the chest, with the phrase "Search 1" written on it. Edie convinces the German mage that this phrase means there is a second chest nearby, this time full of gold. They return at night and dig, but cannot find another chest. Just as Dousterswivel is starting to realize that Edie is mocking him, Steenie Mucklebackit jumps from the shadows and knocks Dousterswivel unconscious. Steenie and Edie flee to Steenie's house, where Steenie shows him Dousterswivel's pocketbook, accidentally picked up during the excitement. Edie makes him promise to return the pocketbook and then leaves. Alas, Steenie is not long for this world and dies in a fishing accident the next day. As the family is in mourning, Elspeth, Steenie's grandmother, comes out of a long senility to tell Edie to take a ring and a message to Lord Glenallan. Oldbuck, whose land the Mucklebackits occupy, comes to help carry the casket and pay his respects, to the awe and thanks of the family. Edie meets Lord Glenallan and gives him the ring and tells him to go visit Elspeth. Glenallan does and learns from her his own history. He had married a woman named Eveline Neville, who his mother helped convince was his sister after she had already become pregnant. Eveline attempts to commit suicide by jumping into the sea. She is taken from the water barely alive and dies after giving birth. The child is taken by another maid named Theresa and is raised by Glenallan's younger brother as his own illegitimate son. Glenallan does not know this. Glenallan never recovers from believing that he committed a violation of nature. Elspeth tells him that Eveline was not his sister and that his marriage with her was perfectly legitimate. It relieves his mind and he desires to find his son. Meanwhile, Edie is arrested for attacking Douster-swivel. Oldbuck proves that Dousterswivel is merely a thief and frees Edie, who immediately goes upon a mission. Oldbuck then receives word that Sir Arthur, who has been heavily in debt, is under arrest and has the valuables of his home being taken. Edie returns with money sent by Wardour's son and an order to stop the arrest. Finally, a mistake causes the national warning system—a series of towers with fires that can be lit to warn of invasion—to be lit and everyone believes the French are invading. Oldbuck dons his sword and travels to town to help with defence along with his nephew, who promptly assumes the role of a commander. As they prepare for the defence, Lord Glenallan comes in with his highland troops. Finally, Lovel and Captain Wardour arrive to take command of the defence and it is revealed that Lovel is actually Major Neville. Further, Oldbuck realizes that Major Neville is Glenallan's son and the two are reunited. Major Neville becomes the next Lord Glenallan and is now free to marry Isabella Wardour. ===== In the 1930s Eric Stoner, nicknamed "The Kid", is an up-and-coming poker player in New Orleans. He hears that Lancey Howard, a longtime master of the game nicknamed "The Man", is in town, and sees it as his chance to finally become the Man himself. The Kid's friend Shooter cautions him, reminding the Kid how Shooter thought he was the best five-card stud player in the world, until Howard "gutted" him when they played. Howard arranges a game with wealthy William Jefferson Slade, who secures Shooter's services as dealer. Howard wins $6,000 from Slade over a 30-hour game, angering Slade and wounding his pride. That night at Slade's home, he tries to bribe Shooter into cheating in the Kid's favor when the two players meet. Shooter declines, but Slade calls in Shooter's markers worth $12,000, and blackmails him by threatening to reveal damaging information about Shooter's wild wife, Melba. Shooter agonizes over his decision, having spent the last 25 years building a reputation for integrity. With the Kid's girl Christian visiting her parents, Melba tries to seduce him, even though she and Christian are close friends. Out of respect for Shooter, he rebuffs her, and spends the day before the game with Christian at her family's farm. The Kid intentionally arrives late to the game. The big game starts with six players, including Howard and the Kid, with Shooter playing as he deals and Lady Fingers relieving him whenever Shooter needs a break. In the first big confrontation between the Kid and Howard, the Kid is short $2,000 and Slade steps in to stake him. Several hours later, Howard busts a player called Pig, perhaps with a bluff, and the remaining players take a break. Following the break, Lady Fingers, who has been delighting in needling Howard all evening, takes over as dealer and continues to needle him. As the game wears on, Shooter only deals, and then after another hand when Howard outplays them, two more players, Yeller and Sokal, drop out. That leaves just Howard and the Kid. After a few unlikely wins, the Kid calls for a break and confronts Shooter, who admits to being forced into cheating by Slade. The Kid insists he can win on his own and tells Shooter to deal straight or he will blow the whistle, destroying Shooter's reputation. Before the game resumes, Melba succeeds in seducing the Kid. Christian makes a surprise visit to the room, catches them after the fact and walks out on the Kid. Slade tells the Kid that Shooter will continue to cheat for him and confronts him with a menacing thug, but the Kid flatly refuses. Back at the game, the Kid maneuvers to have Shooter replaced by Lady Fingers, lying that Shooter is ill. He then wins several major pots from Howard, who is visibly losing confidence. During the final hand Howard beats the Kid with a queen- high straight flush. The Kid turns over his cards to show he has a full house, aces full of tens. This loss devastates the Kid, who not only loses all his money in this final hand, but also an additional $5,000 raise from Howard which the Kid called before Howard showed his hand. Howard then mocks the Kid, telling him that he will always be "second best" as long as Howard is around. As the Kid leaves the table, he is ridiculed by both Slade and Melba, and consoled by Shooter. Following the game, the Kid leaves the hotel and loses a penny pitch to the shoe shine boy he had beaten at the same game at the film's opening. Around the corner, he runs into Christian and they embrace. ===== The Gun Seller tells the story of retired Army officer Thomas Lang, who lives a somewhat hand-to-mouth existence in London, his attention focused mainly on drinking whisky and riding his motorcycle. His income stems from a variety of bodyguard, strong-arm and mercenary jobs he undertakes, utilizing the skills he learned and contacts he made during his time in the Army. After being approached in Amsterdam by a man asking him to assassinate American businessman Alexander Woolf, Lang attempts to warn the intended victim at his Belgravia flat, finding Woolf gone and instead clashing with (and incapacitating) a mercenary, then encountering Woolf's daughter Sarah. Afterward Lang finds himself under intense scrutiny from both the Ministry of Defence and the Central Intelligence Agency, who claim Woolf is an international drug smuggler currently under investigation. Intrigued by the sudden interest of two government agencies, Lang attempts to track down the man who approached him in Amsterdam, unexpectedly finding him in London, and even more unexpectedly discovering that the man is Alexander Woolf himself. Eventually Woolf and his daughter agree to meet Lang at dinner and answer his questions. The elder Woolf explains that he tried to hire Lang as a hitman to see if he was a "good man", and admits he is under investigation, but not for selling drugs. Rather, Woolf is of interest because of what he knows about a next-generation light attack helicopter. More disturbingly, Woolf and Sarah claim that a conspiracy is under way to stage a terrorist attack and subsequently promote the light helicopter by sending one in to eliminate the terrorists. Lang is skeptical, but begins to believe the story after he is kidnapped and interrogated about Woolf. He frees himself, finding a heavily tortured Alexander Woolf in a nearby room. Woolf is killed shortly thereafter as Lang makes his escape, killing his captors in the process. With Sarah missing and now certain the conspiracy is real, Lang attempts to determine the main conspirators, aided by a friend of Sarah's named Ronnie. After some investigating he centers on a CIA Deputy Director named Barnes, who (forcibly) takes him to meet the head conspirator: billionaire Naimh Murdah. Murdah, owner of the company that manufactures the helicopter, openly admits to the plot and plainly states that Lang will be helping to carry out the terrorist attack, backing up his declaration with an open and explicit threat on Sarah's life. To illustrate his point, Murdah casually kills a CIA agent who accompanied Lang and Barnes to his home. Lang is placed within a small terrorist group called the Sword of Justice as a Minnesotan named Ricky, officially to gather intelligence and minimize casualties. A Dutch politician is seemingly shot dead by Lang in Switzerland as a warm up activity by the Sword of Justice, although it was a set-up and the politician was briefed and was wearing body armour. During a brief return to London Lang encounters Sarah and confronts her regarding pictures, provided to him by his friend and handler Solomon, showing Sarah and Barnes together. Sarah admits to being a part of the conspiracy, but swears her father's death was never part of the arrangement. Lang and Sword of Justice arrive in Casablanca and successfully take control of the American embassy there, holding a number of hostages. Barnes, Murdah, Sarah, and a number of other conspirators arrive in Casablanca to direct Lang and ensure the success of the plot. Lang covertly leaves the Embassy as directed, but as Murdah is talking to him Lang pulls a gun, slipped to him by Sarah as part of a plan they made in London. Lang forces Murdah into the Embassy at gunpoint and handcuffs him to a fire escape on the roof, then orders him to call off the helicopter attack. Murdah refuses, certain the attack will not come since he is in the line of fire, but Lang contends the greed of the remaining conspirators will ensure the attack goes as planned. Just as Lang predicted, the helicopter attacks, killing one of the terrorists, but before it can make another pass Lang shoots it down with a Javelin missile he smuggled into the embassy earlier. Footage of the helicopter's attack and destruction is shown worldwide via news networks covering the siege, ruining any chance of any military investing in the helicopter. Lang releases a statement (via the terrorists) to CNN outlining the conspiracy, ensuring that the plot is thwarted. The Ministry of Defence flies a tired Lang and Solomon back to England. After landing Lang is greeted by Ronnie, who managed to force the Ministry to allow her to ride with him from the airport, and makes it quite clear she is happy to see him. ===== Sometime in the future, computers have evolved into sentient, mobile life-forms known as 'Rakonans'. They then proceed to conquer numerous planets, depleting the natural resources until nothing is left, and then swarming in a locust-like fashion to the next planet. The consequence of this is that humans then enter into conflict with the Rakonans in order to survive. The game sees the player acting as a Llanerk (a type of assault aircraft in the form of a flying saucer) pilot for the 'Royal Guild of Spacing'. During the course of the game, nine planets must be 'sterilised' by removing a set number of Rakonan units. Apocalypse is notable for the extremely high review scores awarded by The Micro User, and was only the second game on the Archimedes to feature fast, realtime true 3D polygon graphics (the first being David Braben's Zarch (1988), published by Superior Software). Category:1990 video games Category:Shoot 'em ups Category:Acorn Archimedes games Category:Video games developed in the United Kingdom ===== In the spring of 1777 16-year-old Ezra Ross, a soldier in the Continental Army, fell ill en route to his home in Linebrook, a village in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Bathsheba nursed him back to health. On his travels to and from army service, he visited the Spooner home in July and December 1777. On the latter occasion he stayed into the new year, traveled with Joshua Spooner on business trips and had an affair with Bathsheba. She became pregnant mid-January and began urging Ross to kill her husband. In February 1778 Ross accompanied Joshua Spooner on an extended trip to Princeton, Massachusetts. He brought along a bottle of nitric acid, given to him by Bathsheba, which he planned to use to poison Spooner. Ross backed out of the plan and returned directly to his Linebrook home. While Ross and Joshua Spooner were in Princeton, Bathsheba invited two runaway British soldiers—escaped prisoners of war Pvt. Williams Brooks and Sgt. James Buchanan—to stay at the Spooner home and discussed ideas for killing her husband with them. When Joshua Spooner returned home, she recruited them to assist her. She also wrote to Ross to inform him of these developments, and he returned to Brookfield on February 28. When Spooner returned home from a local tavern the following evening, Brooks committed the murder and Buchanan and Ross helped hide the body in the Spooners' well. Bathsheba distributed paper money from her husband's lockbox and articles of his clothing to the three men, who then took one of the Spooner horses to Worcester, 14 miles away. Brooks and Buchanan spent the remainder of the night drinking, and the next morning Brooks showed off Joshua Spooner's silver shoe buckles engraved with his initials. Once the murder was discovered, the three men were arrested in Worcester within 24 hours. When Ross was discovered hiding in the attic of a tavern, he asked for a confessor. The trio implicated Bathsheba Spooner and three of her household servants in the crime. Brooks was charged with the assault on Joshua Spooner, Buchanan and Ross with aiding and abetting in the murder and Bathsheba Spooner with inciting, abetting and procuring the manner and form of the murder. All were arraigned and pleaded not guilty. ===== It is a first-person account of a travelling drug salesman. He goes to different places around the world, peddling a memory erasing drug. Various minor characters act as outlets for the authors musings on memory. Told through a mental haze of pretty much every drug ever invented and smattered with promiscuous sexual encounters of all varieties, the protagonist eventually begins sampling his own product. Pages of deja vu and disjointed thought lead him to meet with the inventor of the drug in Arizona. The author is an epileptic and took his seizures and temporary memory loss as part of his inspiration for the book. The memory loss also gives him an interesting transitional device for forwarding the plot without having to get caught up in details he wishes to omit. ===== Discharged because of a battle wound, a young Roman officer Marcus Flavius Aquila tries to discover the truth about the disappearance of his father's legion in northern Britain. Disguised as a Greek oculist and travelling beyond Hadrian's Wall with his freed ex-slave, Esca, Marcus finds that a demoralized and mutinous Ninth Legion was annihilated by a great rising of the northern tribes. In part, this disgrace was redeemed through a heroic last stand by a small remnant (including Marcus's father) around the legion's eagle standard. Marcus's hope of seeing the lost legion re-established is dashed, but he is able to bring back the gilded bronze eagle so that it can no longer serve as a symbol of Roman defeat – and thus will no longer be a danger to the frontier's security. ===== The Demon Lord Makamuge intends to conquer both the game world and the real world, and it's up to Goemon and his friends to prevent this from happening. ===== Hepburn stars as Laura Lansing, a wealthy, world-famous pampered novelist who faces the crisis of her career when her publisher rejects her latest book. Faced with retirement, she makes a bet to prove that she has not lost touch with her readers: she will live with a middle-class family in the suburbs for seven days or give up writing forever. In the home of Walter and Melody Gomphers, Lansing turns the family's life upside down with her outlandish behavior. She struggles to relate to their children, meddles in the couple's marital matters and jeopardizes the conditions of her bet. ===== The plot of the game centers around a megalomaniac named Kreel who has become a global threat and is threatening various nations with his seemingly unstoppable armies. Players take the role of two pilots named 'Hatch' and 'Walker', who are part of an international force devoted to fighting Kreel and his varied minions. As the campaign progresses, the source of Kreel's power is revealed to be Red Mercury, which provides his forces with their nigh-invulnerability. The game has various endings depending on what actions the player takes. These include a costly nuclear war, Kreel choking to death on a chicken bone, a happy ending selling "I survived the Red Mercury war" baseball caps, both pilots being served as the main course at Kreel's grand victory ceremony, or Hatch being brainwashed by the Red Mercury and becoming Kreel's willing servant and destroying the mothership and remaining planetary defense forces. ===== While exploring a "hypergiant", Enterprise makes first contact with an advanced and very friendly alien race known as the Vissians. The two starships' crews are happy to intermingle. Commander Tucker becomes intrigued when he meets a Vissian couple in the mess hall accompanied by a third member of their race, and learns that the being, which has no name, is a "cogenitor" - a third gender in Vissian biology. Cogenitors are needed to complete reproduction: they do not genetically contribute to offspring, but supply an enzyme required for fertilization. Since cogenitors only constitute 3% of the population, Vissians must apply to have a cogenitor assigned to them when they intend to conceive a child. Cogenitors are considered mentally deficient, and they are not citizens on equal terms with men and women. Meanwhile, elsewhere on the ship, Lieutenant Reed finds himself the romantic focus of a female Vissian crewmember - their tactical officer. Captain Archer bonds with the alien captain while on a three-day reconnaissance of the star in a small probe. Tucker, however, becomes increasingly intent on the rights of the cogenitor and learns, with the help of Doctor Phlox, that they are actually equally intelligent. On the alien vessel, without the couple's knowledge, Tucker secretly encourages the cogenitor to learn to read, while building a friendship with them. Despite having a near-total lack of education available, they are an insatiable learner. Soon learning the importance of names, they then ask to be called Charles (Commander Tucker's own first name). 'Charles' soon realizes that future life in Vissian society would be unfulfilling; they then leave and request political asylum. Archer now returns to find himself in the middle of a first contact diplomatic crisis, with the Vissians confused and defensive at Tucker's interference in their traditions. Tucker appeals to Archer's sense of justice, but he sides with the Vissians. With the cogenitor returned, the Vissians hope good relations with the humans can continue. Later communications, however, reveal that the now despondent Charles has committed suicide, thereby delaying the birth of the Vissian's child, and straining the relations between the two species. Archer then summons Tucker and severely reprimands him for his lack of professionalism and judgment. ===== This is the story of two lifelong friends, Terry Cahill (David Lawrence) and Dean Murdoch (Paul Spence), who have grown up together: Shotgunning their first beers, forming their first garage band, and growing the great Canadian mullet known as "Hockey Hair". The lives of these Alberta everymen are brought to the big screen by documentarian Farrel Mitchner (Gordon Skilling), a young director who decides to take a look at Terry and Dean through a lens, exploring the depths of friendship, the fragility of life, growing up gracefully, and the art and science of drinking beer "like a man". Their lives are complicated by a snubbing by their "party leader" Troy, better known as Tron (Andrew Sparacino). When Farrel discovers that Dean is hiding a serious case of testicular cancer, the wheels are set in motion for Dean to seek treatment from Dr. S.C. Lim (Dr. S.C. Lim). With Dean's last weekend before surgery approaching, Terry decides to take Dean, Farrel and the film crew camping. Things take an unexpected turn by the third day, and Terry and Dean must cope with further tragedy.Slone, M. & Michael Ladano: Story Synopsis (first paragraph) written by Mark Slone. Story Synopsis (second paragraph) written by Michael A. Ladano ===== ===== In summary, the film deals with the film production of the Passion of Jesus with a director acting like Pasolini yet played by Orson Welles. The most biting social critique is shown through the main character of Stracci (meaning "rags"). Stracci is a poor and starving man who works as an extra (ironically, the "good thief") who is not given pity or mercy. Stracci tries everything to get something to eat and he finally does. Unfortunately the ricotta cheese he avidly gorges on, combined with the awkward position he's forced to assume while being "crucified" in front of the camera prove a fatal combination and he dies from indigestion. Stracci represents the poor and the marginalized people, "the ones who hunger for bread" who, according to Pasolini, are neglected by a society, which prides itself on being Christian. Thus, in this view, the Roman Catholicism of Italy is more concerned with status and prominence than helping the poor, a teaching of Christ that Pasolini admired greatly. The production of the Passion, done outside of Rome, represents a corrupted society who is interested in superficial beauty and yet possesses a corrupted core. This is demonstrated with the extras' lack of interest with the film itself, preferring instead to dance to ya-ya twist music , lying around during break time and tormenting Stracci. This is also demonstrated in the elaborate poses the director has set up, evoking the great Italian Renaissance, particularly of Pontormo and Fiorentino and yet are far from respected. ===== Dahlia battles her ex-husband Kyle for custody of their daughter Cecilia, who is a 5-year-old kindergartener. Kyle wants Cecilia to live closer to his apartment in Jersey City, but Dahlia wants to move to the cheaper Roosevelt Island, where she has found a good school. Dahlia and Cecilia view an apartment in a dilapidated complex on Roosevelt Island, a few blocks from Cecilia's new school. Cecilia sneaks to the roof and finds a Hello Kitty backpack near the building's water tower; the manager, Murray, explains that no one has claimed it. Cecilia initially dislikes the apartment but decides she wants to live there. Dahlia makes an offer the same day. Shortly after they move in, the bedroom ceiling begins to leak dark water. Dahlia finds the apartment above flooded from every faucet. She finds a family portrait of the former tenants, the Rimsky family: a mother, father, and a girl Cecilia's age. Dahlia complains to Murray and the superintendent Veeck about the water, but Veeck insists that he is not a plumber and blames teenage vandals. The ceiling, shoddily patched by Veeck, leaks again. Dahlia is intimidated by teenagers in the apartment, and sees the face of a screaming girl in a washing machine. This isn't helped by a recurring nightmare she has, seeing Natasha's mother warning her not to tell the police what she's done to her own daughter or else she will harm Cecilia. Cecilia's teacher is troubled by Cecilia's "imaginary friend", Natasha. Cecilia appears to argue with Natasha and lose control of her hand as she paints. After Dahlia catches Cecilia playing with dolls and talking to Natasha in the elevator, she forbids Cecilia to talk to Natasha again. In the bathroom, Cecilia passes out as dark water gushes from the toilets and sinks. As Dahlia is busy meeting her lawyer, Jeff Platzer, Kyle takes Cecilia to his apartment. Dahlia feels some form of relief knowing that Kyle will keep her safe. That night, Dahlia follows footsteps to the roof and sees that water is spilling from the water tower. Inside she finds Natasha's body and horrified by this, she calls the police. Veeck is arrested for negligence as he was aware of her body. This was why he refused to fix the complex's plumbing problems and he's being taken away. Veeck kept claiming that Natasha's parents paid him money to keep quiet about their willful abandonment of their daughter and lie for them that she was with either of them. Dahlia and Platzer discover that her parents had cruelly abandoned her willingly. In turn, they also conclude that Natasha was left to fend for herself. She fell into the water tower and drowned, leaving her as a vengeful ghost who is jealous of Cecilia because she had Dahlia as her mother. Dahlia agrees to move closer to Kyle so shared custody will be easier. As she packs, a girl in a hooded bathrobe who resembles Cecilia asks her to read to her. When Dahlia hears Cecilia playing in the bathtub, she realizes that the girl is Natasha. Natasha begs Dahlia not to leave but Dahlia rushes into the bathroom to save Cecilia. Natasha locks Cecilia in the shower compartment and holds her underwater. Dahlia pleads with Natasha to let her daughter go, promising to be her mother forever. Floods overwhelm the apartment, and Natasha and the ghost of Dahlia walk the hall as mother and daughter. Three weeks later, Kyle and Cecilia pick up the rest of their belongings. In the elevator, Dahlia braids Cecilia's hair, telling her she will always be with her. ===== Four spheres of light descend from the night sky, come together, and collide at an isolated desert crossroads. Their collision reveals, in a bright flash, a sleek, all-black Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor, driven by a helmeted, all black-clad figure. In the town of Brooks, Arizona, Packard Walsh, the leader of a gang of car thieves, coerces people with sporty cars into racing for pink slips. He controls everyone through intimidation, including Keri Johnson, whom he views as his property. Keri's boyfriend James "Jamie" Hankins was mysteriously murdered, leaving no trace; Keri, who was with him, was hospitalized with no memory of the traumatic event. Jacob "Jake" Kesey arrives in Brooks riding a Honda XL350R Enduro dirt bike. He befriends both Keri and Jamie's brother William "Billy" Hankins, who both work at Big Kay's, the local burger drive-in; they later meet up at a sun-and-swim gathering on a local river, where Jake is seen to have knife scars on his neck and back. Packard's control of the illegal races comes to a sudden end when the Turbo Interceptor appears, seemingly from nowhere. The mysterious driver of this supercar is covered head-to-toe in black body armor and a black race helmet. The armor is adorned with metal braces resembling those worn by victims recovering from severe physical trauma. The driver wordlessly challenges Packard's gang to race, explosively killing Oggie Fisher and later Minty in high-speed, fiery crashes which leave their bodies untouched except for burned-out eye sockets; the Turbo Interceptor then mysteriously reconstructs itself. Sheriff Loomis and his lawmen are always in hot pursuit, but the Turbo vanishes in a cloud of glowing light. Two more gang members, Skank and Gutterboy, always high on drugs, are later obliterated when the Wraith races the Turbo through the gang's isolated warehouse garage, causing a huge explosion. With Packard's gang now destroyed, Rughead, the gang's tech-geek, who alone among them had not participated in Jamie's murder, realizes, too late, why the gang had been targeted. When Sheriff Loomis arrives at the scene of the destruction, Rughead tells him everything. After Packard witnesses Keri kissing Jake, he kidnaps her from Big Kay's, beating up Billy when he tries to intervene. When Packard tells her they are going to California, Keri stands up to him and says she will never love him. Just as he gets out of the car and draws his knife on her, the Turbo arrives ready to challenge Packard to a race; a challenge he readily takes up, telling Keri, "We'll finish this later." But just like the other members of his gang, Packard is killed in an explosive head-on collision with the Turbo. Sheriff Loomis calls off the hunt for the mysterious driver, observing, "Roadblocks won't stop something that can't be stopped." He adds, "It's over. There's no one in Packard's gang left to kill." As Keri arrives home that night, the Turbo pulls up, and the armored driver emerges, transforming into Jake. "You know who I am," he says to her. Keri now realizes that Jake is actually a returned version of her dead boyfriend Jamie, who admits, "This is as close as I could come to who I once was. Think of this as a second chance; we were meant to be together." He then asks her to wait for him because he has one last thing to do.... Jake startles Billy by driving the supercar to Big Kay's and handing him the Turbo's keys while extolling its special features. He then tells Billy that his work is finished, but then Billy asks, "Who are you, bro?" Jake wryly replies, "You said it, Billy." As Jake rides off on his dirt bike, Billy calls after him "Jake"... and then, realizing at last, “Jamie!" Jake picks up Keri, whom Sheriff Loomis is now watching from a distance. Together they ride off along the desert highway under a huge moon, leaving the past behind. ===== Lexy Gold (Lindsay Lohan) lives amongst the wealthy and elite of Manhattan, New York. Clad in Prada, she prides herself on her ability to get the scoop and serve it up in her school newspaper's advice column. She competes for status on the newspaper with middle-class Jack Downey (Bug Hall), the editor. When an article and photograph Lexy has taken of her teacher, Mr. Orlando Walker (Ian Gomez), is published in the city's daily paper, he goes missing and his car is found in the East River. With help from Lexy's best friend Jen (Brenda Song) and one of her schoolmates Gabe (Ali Mukaddam), Lexy and Jack set out to solve the mystery behind the disappearance. Their teacher, Miss Gertrude Dawson (Amanda Plummer), becomes involved as she and Mr. Walker were romantically involved. Jack receives a message from Mr. Walker about a scholarship. Lexy and Jack search his old apartment, where they run into Detective Charles Meany (Charles Shaughnessy), who is searching for Mr. Walker. Jen and Gabe watch Miss Dawson at Gabe's house with a video camera to keep an eye on her. Lexy and Jack later meet Mr. Walker's mother, Mrs. Petrossian (Sylvia Lennick), at her house. They discover that Mr. Walker changed his identity after being accused of stealing $10,000,000. Mr. Walker later receives a letter from the real person who stole the money, framing Mr. Walker. The group and Mr. Walker meet at a hotel to pretend to receive the money. Miss Dawson shows up at the hotel and is taken hostage by the real thief. Lexy and Jack search the halls for the man, who is revealed to be Detective Meany, whose real name is Falco Grandville, Mr. Walker's boss when he worked at a bank in Arizona, and the man who had framed Mr. Walker for the money theft. The team catches up with him and he is later arrested. It is later revealed that Mr. Walker's mother found a brooch at Falco's office by chance and decided to keep it; Falcon has purchased the expensive canary diamond brooch to hide the stolen $10 million, and blamed Walker for its loss. After Mr. Walker is pronounced a free man at last, he later asks Miss Dawson to marry him. At the end, it shows the wedding with Jack, Lexy, Jen, and Gabe. Jack and Lexy share a moment between themselves before the four teens walk down the street talking about going bowling. ===== Sisters Fiona, Evelyn, and Susie Gaylord, are orphaned when first their mother goes down with the Lusitania and then their wealthy father, Major Penn Gaylord, is killed in France in World War I. Before Penn left for France, he told Fiona, the eldest, that the Gaylords have never sold the land they have acquired. However, their half billion dollar inheritance is held up in probate for decades; Fiona complains that they have practically grown up in court. Though they have a New York City Fifth Avenue mansion, the sisters have had to borrow money to live. A French charity claims that Penn made a later will before he died, leaving 10% of the Gaylord estate to it. Though the Gaylords are now willing to give up the 10%, their real antagonist, Charles Barclay, who wants their mansion, and the choice land on which it sits too, so he can tear it down as part of his real estate development, Barclay Square. Fiona is determined not to give in to this. Meanwhile, Evelyn has married an English nobleman, now fighting in the RAF, while Susie is in love with painter Gig Young, despite being married herself. Susanna only stayed with her husband for a few hours, but he refuses to grant her an annulment unless she pays him a great deal of money, to which of course she does not have access. When Evelyn returns home from England, she becomes attracted to Gig herself and tries to steal him away. In 1941, Fiona fires the longtime Gaylord lawyer, Hershell Gibbon, when he appears to be too sympathetic to Charles. She hires Ralph Pedloch as his replacement. It is revealed that Fiona and Charles have a prior history together. Six years before, a relative died and left the sisters $100,000 on condition that Fiona be married. Fiona decided to go through with a sham marriage to a cousin, but ran into Charles, then a construction crew foreman, and found him much more attractive. Within a few days, she manipulated the lovestruck man into proposing. On their wedding night, she pretended to faint. While he went to purchase some medicine, she packed up, leaving a letter with $25,000, her wedding ring and an explanation. However, he returned before she left and forced her to have sex before letting her go. Fiona gave birth to a boy, Austin, and had him raised by a trusted friend. When that friend died, Fiona brought the now six-year-old to live with her. Unexpectedly, she finds herself becoming very fond of the child. When Susie tries to commit suicide after it appears that she has lost Gig, Fiona finally realizes the toll her stubborn determination has exacted on her family. She gives up the mansion and grants Charles sole custody of Austin. In the end, Gig chooses the now-single Susie, and Charles tells Fiona he still loves her. Fiona embraces and kisses him. ===== The pirate Yellowbeard (Graham Chapman) is incarcerated for 20 years for tax evasion. He survives the sentence, but he has not disclosed the whereabouts of his vast treasure. The Royal Navy hatches a plot to increase his sentence by 140 years, knowing that he will escape to set out for his treasure. He does so, recruiting a motley crew of companions. He had left a map of the treasure in the chimney of his wife's pub, but she burned it and had the map tattooed on their son's head. Things go wrong when his traitorous former bosun Mr. Moon (Peter Boyle) takes over the ship. With the Head of the British Secret Service (Eric Idle) hot on their trail, they eventually find the island, where the terrible despot "El Nebuloso" (Tommy Chong) and his majordomo "El Segundo" (Cheech Marin) have taken residence with the treasure, and the battle for the prize commences. ===== In 1971, five-year-old Billy Chapman and his family go to visit a nursing home where his catatonic grandfather stays; when Billy remains alone with him for a few minutes, his grandfather suddenly awakens and tells Billy to fear Santa Claus, as he gives presents only to the children who have been good all year, and punishes the ones who have been naughty, no matter how briefly. While driving back, a man dressed in a Santa outfit seemingly has car trouble and gets Billy's family's attention. As they pull over to help, the Santa-clad criminal shoots the father with a pistol. He forcibly removes the mother, attempts to rape her and slashes her throat with a switchblade. Billy runs off to hide, leaving his baby brother Ricky in the car. Three years later in 1974, Billy and Ricky are celebrating Christmas in an orphanage run by Mother Superior, a strict disciplinarian who persistently strikes children who misbehave and considers punishment to be a necessary and good thing. Sister Margaret, the only one who sympathizes with the children, tries to help Billy play with the other children, but Billy is constantly subject to Mother Superior's scrutinizing eyes and regularly punished. On Christmas morning, the orphanage invites a man in a Santa Claus suit to visit the children; Billy gets dragged by Mother Superior and he punches the man before fleeing to his room in horror. 10 years later, in the spring of 1984, a now-adult Billy leaves the orphanage to find a normal life, and obtains a job as a stock boy at a local toy store, thanks to Sister Margaret. At the store, he develops a crush on his co-worker Pamela; he has sexual thoughts regarding her which are often interrupted by morbid visions of his parents' murders. On Christmas Eve, the employee who plays the store's Santa Claus has been injured the night before and as a result Billy's boss Mr. Sims makes him take his place. After the store closes, the staff has a Christmas Eve party. Billy (still dressed in a Santa Claus suit) tries to have a good time at the party, but he keeps having memories of his parents' murders, causing him to feel depressed. At one point, he sees his co-worker Andy making out with Pamela and they both walk into the back room. Billy walks after them and sees Andy trying to rape Pamela. This finally, psychologically, triggers his insanity; he hangs Andy with a string of Christmas lights and stabs Pamela with a utility knife, uttering darkly that punishment is good. A highly intoxicated Mr. Sims goes into the back room to check on the noises he heard. Just when he is about to leave, Billy murders him with a hammer. Billy turns off the store's lights, causing his manager, Mrs. Randall, to go check out the back room. She screams at the sight of Mr. Sims' corpse and tries to call police, but Billy cuts the phone line using a double-bit axe, causing her to run and hide. Billy walks around the store trying to find her and, at one point, Mrs. Randall jumps out and trips Billy, stealing his axe. Before she can escape, Billy shoots and kills her with a bow and arrow. As Sister Margaret discovers the carnage and returns to the orphanage to seek help via telephone, Billy breaks into a nearby house where a young couple named Denise and Tommy are having sex and a little girl named Cindy is sleeping; Billy then impales Denise on a set of deer antlers and throws Tommy through a window. When this awakens Cindy, Billy then confronts her and asks her if she has been nice or naughty; she says she has been nice, and he gives her the utility knife he had used earlier. After this, he witnesses bullies picking on two sledding teenage boys and decapitates one of the bullies with his axe as the other screams in horror. The next morning, the orphanage is secured with Officer Barnes and Captain Richards aided by Sister Margaret, who knows that Billy has committed the murders. The deaf pastor, Father O'Brien, who was dressed in a Santa outfit, is mistakenly shot by Barnes upon coming forward, mistaking him to be Billy. Barnes is then axed by Billy while distracted. Due to his Santa outfit, Billy gains access into the orphanage and confronts Mother Superior, now in a wheelchair. She taunts Billy due to her disbelief in Santa Claus and just as he prepares to kill her with his axe, Richards appears and shoots him in the back, much to Sister Margaret's shock. As the dying Billy lays on the ground, he utters to the nearby children "You're safe now, Santa Claus is gone." before succumbing to his wounds. As the children gather around, Ricky, coldly staring at Mother Superior, utters "Naughty". ===== The opening chapters of Dirty White Boys articulately sets an impressionable tone for the remainder of the novel, as the story's main antagonist, Lamar Pye, a physically powerful, charismatic, aggressive, and intelligent "alpha male" in his late thirties, uses brutal violence to avoid being raped by a giant black inmate in the showers at McAlester State Penitentiary (the Mac). Despite his position as a "Prince" (a ranking prisoner) amongst the Dirty White Boys, a white gang element of the prisoner populace, the rape was ordered as revenge for a slight made by Lamar's retarded, behemoth cousin Odell against the white gang chief. After his sale to the black inmate gang, Lamar knows that the revenge is inevitable if he remains in the prison. Richard, Lamar's failed artist cell mate, a timid man imprisoned for the gruesome murder of his own mother, joins Lamar as he uses his quick wit and unrestrained capacity for violence to abscond "the Mac" with Odell. Bud Pewtie, the novel's main protagonist, is a State Trooper called to participate in the search for the escaped criminals. He is initially portrayed as a responsible father with two teenage boys, but it quickly emerges that he is having an affair with the young wife of his partner, Ted, a confused young man with unarticulated doubts about his role as a trooper. The troopers are briefed about the escape by the embittered alcoholic Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Lieutenant C. D. Henderson, a once star law enforcement officer who once served with Earl Swagger as a detective. A series of tips leads the troopers to the remote farmhouse of an old couple, where the Pyes and Richard have taken refuge, arming themselves with the old man's firearms. An ambush by the Pyes ensues, with Pewtie and Ted ducking for cover. While Pewtie performs distinctly well under fire of the Pyes, Ted caves under the pressure of the assault. As a result, Pewtie is severely wounded and left for dead by Lamar, and watches in horror as Lamar brutally executes his helpless partner. The Pyes escape but Pewtie survives having been unknowingly shot by Lamar with lightweight bird hunting shot. The Pyes flee to the remote house of a mentally ill young woman, Ruta Beth Tull, who has been writing confused letters to Richard about their "mystic connection". Tull, it later emerges, murdered her own parents as a juvenile and sees this as her link to Richard. Tull immediately takes to Lamar and the group forms into a twisted family unit as the search for them loses momentum. Pewtie returns to the house where he was ambushed to thank the owner, who also survived being kidnapped by Lamar and raised the alarm about the shootout. While at the house he is given pictures of lions drawn by Richard, and overlooked by investigators, as Richard's value to Lamar rests on his ability to draw pictures as Lamar orders him to; Lamar being amused and intrigued by the artist's ability. Pewtie also returns to his affair with his dead partner's wife Holly and frustrations at the conflicting demands of his newfound romance and his family life continue to build. Lamar and his "family" carry out a bloody robbery of a restaurant in a small Texas town from which Lamar narrowly escapes with his life. The bloodshed of the robbery intensifies the manhunt for Lamar and Pewtie is one of the officers who drops by the scene of the crime. There he finds more pictures of lions drawn by Richard at the restaurant. He is questioned by a suspicious LT Henderson about his find but does not explain it or the earlier pictures. Lamar now reveals to his family that Richard has in fact been working on the design for a tattoo and they begin a search for a top quality tattoo artist to carry out the work and finding Jimmy Ky outside a small town. After discussing the drawings with a local art teacher Bud also begins to suspect that Lamar is working on a tattoo, and obtains information about Jimmy Ky. The stage is now set for the second bloody confrontation between Bud Pewtie and Lamar. Pewtie literally stumbles in as Lamar is being tattooed and watched over by Odell. A gunfight ensues which ends with Pewtie killing Odell in a gun battle that only ends after Bud expends all his ammunition from his 3 handguns into Odell and blasting two fingers off Lamar's left hand. Pewtie himself is once again badly injured and Lamar escapes after the intervention of Richard and Ruta. As Bud struggles with his choices Lamar plots a terrible revenge for the death of his cousin. The stage is set for the final confrontation between Pewtie and Lamar. Pewtie fails at first to shoot Lamar with a rifle, his bullet deflected just enough by an unseen glass door to miss his intended target and wound Ruta. The firefight leads to Lamar breaking out of a window using Holly as a shield while running across the fields towards a patch of trees with Pewtie chasing. Holly breaks away from Lamar and runs back towards the house leaving Bud to face Lamar. Bud again confirms to Holly that they are through. Lamar ambushes Bud in the patch of trees but fails to shoot him with his final bullet; the two men begin a desperate hand-to-hand struggle for Bud's gun, which the physically stronger Lamar is sure to win. As the men fight, Pewtie desperately manages to fire a shot, which hideously wounds Lamar. The fight finishes as Bud uses his back-up gun to shoot Lamar twice in the head. As the medics and SWAT teams arrive all seems to be settled, but Richard is still alive and decides he should help Lamar. He finds Bud near a creek with the just-arrived Henderson. Both of the policemen talk quietly to Richard, trying to convince him to drop his gun and telling him that they know he was not responsible for the crimes committed by the Pyes. Richard responds by firing at Bud with the gun that Lamar took from Pewtie after their first confrontation at the old couples' farmhouse. Henderson moves in front of Bud and takes the brunt of the bullet's damage, though the bullet hits Pewtie after going through Henderson. Bud is severely injured but lives as Henderson dies. The final scene is of a recovered Richard (having been shot by other policemen after firing) being transferred back to "the Mac" where he finds his previous fear of the prison and its brutal inmates is gone and he is a feared member of the criminal community. ===== On November 15, 1924, various individuals board the luxury yacht Oneida in San Pedro, California, including its owner, publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, and his mistress, silent film star Marion Davies; motion picture mogul Thomas H. Ince, whose birthday is the reason for the weekend cruise, and his mistress, starlet Margaret Livingston (who would portray "the Woman From the City" in F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans three years later); international film star Charlie Chaplin; English writer Elinor Glyn; and Louella Parsons, a film critic for Hearst's New York American. Several of those participating in the weekend's festivities are at a crossroads in their lives and/or careers. Chaplin, still dealing with the critical and commercial failure of A Woman of Paris and rumors he has impregnated 16-year-old Lita Grey (who appeared in his film The Kid), is in the midst of preparing The Gold Rush. Davies longs to appear in a slapstick comedy rather than the somber costume dramas to which Hearst has kept her confined. Ince's eponymous film studio is in dire financial straits, so he hopes to convince Hearst to take him on as a partner in Cosmopolitan Pictures. Parsons would like to relocate from the East Coast to more glamorous Hollywood. Hearst suspects Davies and Chaplin have engaged in an affair, a suspicion shared by Ince, who seeks proof he can present to Hearst in order to curry favor with him. In the wastepaper basket in Chaplin's stateroom, Ince discovers a discarded love letter to Davies and pockets it with plans to produce it at an opportune moment. When he finally does, Hearst is enraged. His anger is fueled further when he finds a brooch he had given Davies in Chaplin's cabin. Hearst concludes it was lost there during a romantic liaison, and he rifles Marion's room for further evidence. Armed with a pistol, Hearst searches the yacht for Chaplin in the middle of the night. Ince, meanwhile, runs into Davies and the two sit and talk with Ince donning a hat Chaplin had worn. Davies explains to Ince her love for Hearst and her regret at an earlier affair with Chaplin. She states "I never loved him" just as Hearst arrives behind them. Thinking Davies is referring to him, and mistaking Ince for Chaplin, a jealous Hearst shoots Ince. The assault is witnessed by Parsons, who had heard noises and went to investigate. Hearst arranges to dock in San Diego and have a waiting ambulance take the dying Ince home. He phones the injured man's wife and tells her Ince attempted suicide when Livingston tried to end their affair, assuring her the truth won't reach the media. To the rest of his guests he announces Ince's ulcer flared up and required immediate medical attention. Davies, of course, knows the truth, and confides in Chaplin. Also armed with that knowledge is Parsons, who assures Hearst his secret will be safe in exchange for a lifetime contract with the Hearst Corporation, thus laying the groundwork for her lengthy career as one of Hollywood's most powerful gossip columnists. After seeing Ince off, Hearst confronts Davies and Chaplin. He is berated by Chaplin, who expects Davies to join him. Hearst, however, challenges Chaplin to guarantee Davies that he can promise her a happy life. When Chaplin fails to answer, Hearst informs Chaplin of the vow of silence he and the fellow guests have made to keep the weekend's activities a secret. Chaplin despairs as he realizes the murder has strengthened Davies' love for Hearst. The film concludes with the guests leaving Ince's funeral, as Glyn relates what became of them: * Livingston went on to star in a number of successful films and her film salary "inexplicably" went from $300 to $1000 a film. * Davies starred in more of Hearst's films before finally being allowed to feature in a comedy The Hollywood Revue of 1929, which was (as Chaplin predicted) a success. She stayed by Hearst's side until his death in 1951. * Chaplin married his teenage lover Lita Grey in Mexico and his film The Gold Rush was an overwhelming success. * Parsons worked for Hearst for many years and subsequently became one of the most successful writers in the history of American journalism. Tom Ince was largely forgotten after the events of his death. Very few newspapers reported it, no police action was taken, and of all the people on board only one was ever questioned. It is concluded that in Hollywood, "the place just off the coast of the planet Earth," no two accounts of the story are the same. ===== Franz Roberti (Charles Boyer) is a passionate and eminent musical conductor; Constance Dane (Katharine Hepburn) is an aspiring but unknown composer. She wants to see his concert, but it is all sold out. When she sneaks into his rehearsal he is smitten by her devotion and gets his orchestra to get it right as they play just for her. Constance marries Franz: he says she is "a most exciting creature" and she has been in love with him for a long time (i.e., "since late this afternoon"). Not long after they get married Constance finds Franz having dinner with a female friend. So Constance responds by going out with her own friend, Johnny Lawrence (John Beal). Johnny wants to marry Constance, but she cannot forget her husband. Franz has been hitting the bottle and pretty much throwing away his career, although exactly which of his many sins is driving him to drink is not really clear. Fortunately, Constance has been working on her concerto. ===== In Victorian London, Pamela defies her autocratic father (Donald Crisp), and has a baby out of wedlock with her lover, Gerald Waring (Van Heflin, in his screen debut). Pamela's pregnant sister Flora (Elizabeth Allan) hears of the death of her young husband, faints, hurting herself, and dies. Pamela raises her illegitimate daughter as her niece and becomes a crusading journalist for women's rights. Eventually she agrees to marry diplomat Thomas Lane (Herbert Marshall) after being unfairly named as co-respondent in Waring's divorce. ===== The play revolves around a dysfunctional family consisting of single mother Beatrice and her two daughters, Ruth and Tillie, who try to cope with their abysmal status in life. The play is a lyrical drama, reminiscent of Tennessee Williams' style. Shy Matilda Hunsdorfer, nicknamed Tillie, prepares an experiment involving marigolds raised from seeds exposed to radioactivity for her science fair. She is, however, constantly thwarted by her mother Beatrice, who is self-centered and abusive, and by her extroverted and unstable sister Ruth, who submits to her mother's will. Over the course of the play, Beatrice constantly tries to stamp out any opportunities Tillie has of succeeding, due to her own lack of success in life. As the play progresses, the paths of the three characters diverge: Ruth has a nervous collapse while attempting to stand up to Beatrice, who, driven to the verge of insanity by her deep-seated enmity, impulsively kills the girls' pet rabbit Peter and wallows in her own perceived insignificance. Tillie meanwhile (much like her project's deformed yet beautiful, hardy marigolds) wins the science fair through sheer perseverance. ===== Hours after the events of the first game, Gabriel Logan and Lian Xing are enemies of the state to the Agency after uncovering its connection to Syphon Filter, labeled as terrorists to the general public. Agency operative Dillon Morgan captures Lian at the PharCom warehouses, forcing Gabe and the CBDC soldiers to rendezvous with ex- Agency operative Teresa Lipan in Arizona. Simultaneously, the Agency scrambles a squadron of F-22 Raptors to intercept their transport over the Colorado Rockies, so Gabe and CBDC Lieutenant Jason Chance head down the mountain in search of their plane and a box of PharCom data disks. Agency operative Steven Archer attempts to stop them at all costs. A group of conspirators, including Mara Aramov and Agency director Lyle Stevens, make a deal to deliver the virus to a rogue Chinese general named Shi-Hao. Meanwhile, Lian recovers in a U.S. Air Force base where Morgan, Derek Falkan, and Thomas Holman are working with Dr. Elsa Weissinger of PharCom to extract infected plasma from test subjects. Lian learns that the other subject was PharCom CEO Jonathan Phagan, who survived his gunshot wound long enough for the Agency to take the plasma. Weissinger protests that Phagan is useful and should be kept alive for further research, but Morgan, not intending that the U.S. government find Pharcom's CEO infected with an unknown virus, deactivates his life support, tying up a loose end. Lian escapes the medical building and interrogates Holman to learn that Morgan is planning another operation to the PharCom Expo Center to find an encryption disk. She leaves the base in a helicopter after killing Falkan and teams up with Gabe to battle Archer's forces. Gabe shoots Archer during his escape, and recovers the PharCom data. The protagonists follow Holman's lead to the Expo Center and kill Morgan before he can recover the disk he sought. After decrypting the PharCom data, Teresa realises that some information is missing. The other half must be with Russian SVR director Uri Gregorov, who appeared at the warehouses before Gabe left. Since Lian and Uri know each other, they agree to meet in Moscow. Aramov instigates a gunfight while they meet and Lian pursues Gregorov. Lian later learns he is an impostor working for Mara and trying to find the other half of the data. The man admits that the real Gregorov is in a Russian gulag, Aljir Prison, which once held Lian captive. Gregorov uncovered a plot to sell the virus to Shi-Hao, so Aramov intervened. Lian stops Gregorov's execution, but is almost killed by the virus and collapses. Gabe takes her back to the States, while Gregorov promises to handle Shi-Hao. Gabe and Teresa arrive back at the Virginia safehouse overseen by Lawrence Mujari, a freelance pathologist. They decide to trade the PharCom data to the Agency for Lian's vaccine. Director Stevens double-crosses Gabe in the Agency's New York City labs, but Logan escapes and forces Dr. Weissinger to give him the vaccine. Gabe also finds out that Chance survived the mission in Colorado, and sets him free. Pursued by NYPD SWAT cops and Agency personnel, Gabe hurries back to their helicopter. Along the way, Logan is forced to provide cover for a SWAT officer whose partner is wounded. He does so, but Stevens, who later takes the cop hostage, orders him to drop his weapons. Despite Logan complying in surrender, Stevens kills the officer anyway. Before he can get shot, Gabe is thrown into the sewers by an explosion that Teresa sets off. Gabe assumes that Chance was killed in the labs since Teresa says he never made it to the helicopter. Gabe and Teresa eventually corner Stevens and Gabe shoots him in cold blood. Gabe and Teresa reach the helicopter to find Chance waiting in impenetrable Agency-issued body armor. He was really working for them, and he shoots Teresa. Gabe suspected it since the Agency always knew where he was in Colorado. Both men fight, and Gabe kills the man he trusted with an assault shotgun that drives Chance into the helicopter blades, decapitating him. A news report reveals that the Agency's existence is now public, and U.S. Secretary of State Vincent Hadden promises that the government will investigate. Gabe cures Lian and demarcates a grave for Teresa. He, Lian, and Lawrence hold a small memorial and promise to keep fighting, while soldiers watch them from a distance. In a post-credits scene, Hadden and Aramov emerge from a helicopter, with Aramov saying that the Administration will soon fall allowing Hadden to become President. Although a team of soldiers requests for permission to kill Gabe and his team, Hadden calls off the operation, telling Mara he has other plans for Gabe. Aramov laughs as the screen fades to black. ===== ===== The Doctor discovers Iris Wildthyme in a nunnery, on a medieval world called Artaris. ===== A thousand years after his first visit to the planet Artaris, the Doctor returns, in his Sixth incarnation. The city of Excelis has grown, spreading a vast Empire throughout the globe. Science and engineering have provided a new Age of Reason. But the more things change, the more they stay the same, and once again death follows the mysterious Relic through the halls of the Imperial Museum. When the Doctor finds himself helping the Curator and the local authorities with this mystery, he finds himself crossing paths with a familiar face from Excelis’ history—but no-one lives for a thousand years, do they? ===== Hatari! is the story of a group of adventurers in East Africa, engaged in the exciting and lucrative but dangerous business of catching wild animals for delivery to zoos around the world. As "Momella Game Ltd.", they operate from a compound near the town of Arusha. The head of the group is Sean Mercer (John Wayne); the others are safari veteran Little Wolf, also known as "the Indian" (Bruce Cabot); drivers "Pockets" (Red Buttons), a former Brooklyn taxi driver, and Kurt (Hardy Krüger), a German auto racing driver; roper Luis (Valentin de Vargas), a former Mexican bullfighter, and Brandy (Michele Girardon), a young woman whose late father was a member of the group; she grew up there and owns the business. Their method (shown in several action sequences) is to chase the selected animal across the plains with a truck, driven by Pockets. Sean stands in the bed of the truck with a rope noose on a long pole, and snags the animal by its head. (For smaller animals, Sean rides in a seat mounted on the truck's left front fender.) A smaller, faster "herding car," driven by Kurt, swings outside, driving the animal back toward the "catching truck". Once the animal is snagged, Luis, an expert roper, catches its legs and secures it. The animal is then moved into a travel crate and carried on a third truck, driven by Brandy. The captured animals are held in pens in the compound, tended by native workers, until they are shipped out at the end of the hunting season. In the opening sequence, the team chases a rhinoceros, but it attacks the herding car and severely gores the Indian, who has to be transported to the Arusha hospital. While they are waiting to hear about the Indian's condition, a young Frenchman (Gerard Blain) approaches Sean about taking the Indian's job. This offends Kurt, who knocks the Frenchman down. Then Dr. Sanderson (Eduard Franz) says the Indian may die without a transfusion of rare type AB Negative blood. However, the Frenchman has that blood type. He agrees to donate his blood for the transfusion. The group returns to the compound after celebrating the Indian's survival. Sean is surprised to find a strange woman sleeping in his bed, and a comedic exchange between Sean, Pockets, and Kurt ensues as they try to figure out what she's doing there. The next morning, she introduces herself as Anna Maria D'Alessandro ("Just call me Dallas") (Elsa Martinelli), a photojournalist sent by the Basel Zoo to record the capture of the animals they have ordered. Sean is annoyed, but under the contract with the zoo they must accommodate her. Dallas quickly makes friends with the others, especially Pockets. She rides along on the group's catching runs, snapping pictures. Dallas is immediately attracted to Sean, and (she thinks) he to her, but he treats her brusquely. Pockets explains that a few years earlier, Sean was engaged to a woman who came to the compound, hated Sean's life there, and abruptly left him. Ever since, he distrusts women, especially those to whom he is attracted. The young Frenchman comes to the compound and, after proving himself a crack shot, is hired to replace the Indian for the rest of the catching season. His name is Charles Maurey, but Sean dubs him "Chips". His job is to ride with Kurt in the herding car, carrying a rifle in case an animal attacks. The Indian returns, and urges Sean to forego catching any rhinos this season. A "nice Belgian kid" was killed in an earlier rhino chase, as was Brandy's father; now the Indian was nearly killed. He suggests there is a jinx. Sean agrees only to postpone rhino to the end of the season. Dallas makes some progress with Sean, but friction between them continues, especially after Dallas adopts first one, then two, and finally three orphaned elephant calves. This leads to her adoption into the local Warusha tribe as "Mama Tembo" ("Mother of Elephants"). Chips and Kurt flirt with Brandy, but as things turn out, it is Pockets Brandy falls for. This becomes clear to everyone on a day when the herding car flips over, dislocating Kurt's shoulder and cutting Chips up. Brandy doesn't react much to their injuries, but when Pockets falls off a fence and wrenches his back, she is nearly hysterical with worry over his "injury." Animal chases continue, with the group capturing a zebra, a giraffe, a gazelle, a buffalo, and a wildebeest. They also trap a leopard in a baited cage. When the herding car is mired during a river crossing, Chips shoots a crocodile that is threatening Kurt, and a strong friendship develops between them. Pockets spends several days privately tinkering in the compound workshop. He invents a method of flinging a net over a tree full of monkeys, which the zoos want. His rocket-net (which Sean declares a "Rube Goldberg machine") is a success, catching over 500 of them. With all other orders filled, the group catches a rhino without serious incident, and the Indian agrees that the jinx is broken. The group goes to Arusha to celebrate the end of the season, but Dallas declines to go along. She is frustrated, because though she has had some intimate moments with Sean, he has never clearly declared how he feels about her. When Sean urges her to join the group's excursion, she lashes out at him and bursts into tears, leaving him baffled. The next morning, Dallas has vanished, leaving a farewell letter with Pockets. Sean and the group rush to Arusha to catch her. To help locate Dallas they take along Tembo, the first of Dallas's baby elephants, to track her by scent. Not wanting to be left behind, the other two follow the trucks to Arusha. The ensuing chase ends when the three baby elephants corner Dallas in a hotel lobby in town. In the final scene, Dallas is again in Sean's bed when he enters the room, and they reprise the dialogue from their first meeting. As before, Pockets also comes in drunk and again asks Sean "What is she doing in your bed?" But this time, Sean announces "We got married today!" After Sean herds Pockets out of their room, Tembo and his two brothers push their way in and break Sean's bed as the newlyweds try to figure out how to deal with them. ===== The Seventh Doctor again visits Artaris and is finally able to resolve the mystery that two of his incarnations have encountered. ===== The story takes place in a dystopic portrayal of the year 2023, and centers around Nike Hatzfield, a man with extraordinary memory who uses his skill to recall his violent childhood in Sarajevo under the siege during the 1990s Bosnian War. ===== The story of Saint Tail follows a simple formula: middle school girl Meimi Haneoka transforms into the mysterious thief Saint Tail and steals back random belongings that were stolen using magic tricks. She's assisted by her best friend, classmate, and sister-in-training, Seira Mimori, whose position in the church after school each day allows her to hear the troubles of those who have been wronged and have come to pray to God. While Saint Tail steals to right the wrongs done to innocent people, she's considered a thief by the police force. Her classmate, Daiki Asuka Jr.—called Asuka Jr.—and son of Detective Asuka, is hot on her trail. Saint Tail delivers notices of her planned capers to Asuka Jr., to give him a fair chance to catch her. ===== Marge disapproves of Bart and Milhouse watching South Park, so she unsuccessfully tries to get them to watch Good Heavens on PAX. The boys soon find themselves outside the house and bored, and decide to tie a thread to a fly. When the fly enters the Flanders house and is eaten by a cat, Bart and Milhouse find themselves inside the home, unsupervised. They take the opportunity to cause mischief, and discover Ned's collection of Beatles memorabilia in the basement. They drink from cans of a 40-year-old novelty beverage and start to hallucinate, with Bart seeing Milhouse as John Lennon through various stages of his life. When Ned, Rod and Todd return home and discover the damage caused by Bart and Milhouse, they flee to their panic room and call the police. Chief Wiggum and his crew subsequently catch the boys in the basement, and call their parents. They decide that Bart and Milhouse should spend all their time under parental supervision. Bart is also forbidden from playing with Milhouse, who Marge believes incites Bart into his bad behavior. Marge subsequently establishes a peer group based on Native American life, called the "Pre-Teen Braves" — composed of Bart, Ralph Wiggum, Nelson Muntz, and Database, with herself as tribe leader after Homer fails in his leadership skills. Later, when Marge takes the boys on a nature walk, they meet a Mohican man who shows them a field that is in need of cleaning up. The Pre-Teen Braves agree to the job, but discover that it has already been cleaned by another peer group, the "Cavalry Kids" — led by Milhouse's father, Kirk Van Houten, composed of Milhouse, Martin Prince, Jimbo Jones, and a nerd named Cosine. The two groups try to outdo each other in doing good; for example, when the Cavalry Kids bulldoze the house of the homeless from the Pre-Teen Braves and post a pre- fabricated in place, the Pre-Teen Braves retaliate by setting it on fire with arrows. When the Cavalry Kids sell candy in the hope of becoming batboys at a Springfield Isotopes game, the Pre-Teen Braves try to thwart them by lacing their candy with laxatives. Unfortunately for them, the senior citizens, in need of relief from constipation, buy the Cavalry Kids a win. At the Isotopes game, in another attempt to defeat the Cavalry Kids, Bart and Homer divert them away from the stadium with a fake "free VIP parking" sign, and the Pre- Teen Braves then disguise themselves as their enemies before singing their own version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". The crowd becomes angered by this, and when the real Cavalry Kids arrive, a fight breaks out between everyone. Marge, appalled by this, starts crying, and when this is shown on the Jumbotron, the fighting stops and the Sea Captain suggests that everyone should sing a sweet, soothing hymn like Canada's national anthem instead of a "hymn to war" like "The Star-Spangled Banner". Everyone present sings "O Canada" to Marge and joins hands to form a maple leaf on the baseball field. Bart and Milhouse then agree that war is not the answer — "except to all of America's problems." ===== Teenager Roscoe is trying to help his best friend, Samantha. Sam's band, the Zetta Bytes, are struggling. Despite her vocal talents and guitar skills, Sam is told that she needs to dance in order for their band to succeed. Roscoe uses his father's computerized holographic equipment to create a sentient, autonomous humanoid hologram called Loretta to dance for the band. At their first gig, a school dance, Loretta is a big hit with the audience. The entire band loves her, except for Sam, who is jealous of Loretta's "perfection," and suspects that Roscoe likes Loretta more than her. Despite her feelings, Sam agrees to take care of Loretta to keep Roscoe's father from finding and deleting her. The Zetta Bytes second performance goes well - until the very end when Loretta starts to lose her pattern, and the crowd realizes she is a hologram. After a moment of silence, the crowd erupts in applause. The novelty of a holographic rockstar catapults the Zetta Bytes to fame. Sam becomes jealous of the attention Loretta is receiving while Loretta struggles with her identity as a software computer program and hologram. She wants to experience life as a real human being. After a major argument with Roscoe, Loretta escapes into the internet, and emails herself to Sam's computer. Roscoe becomes frantic, and rushes to Sam's place for help. During which, Sam confronts him on his real feelings for Loretta. Sam reminds him that Loretta is not real. When Roscoe rebuffs her statement asking "What is real, anyway?" It's then that Sam states that she's real and she's always been there. Sam tries to make it more obvious that she has romantic feelings for Roscoe by kissing him. But when he doesn't respond to her affection, Sam's left hurt. She gives him Loretta and leaves. Later on, Roscoe realizes that Sam was right and soon realizes he may return his feelings for Sam. Roscoe and his father attend a meeting with Harshtone Records, the company that is recording The Zetta Bytes's first CD. Harshtone informs Roscoe that they have decided to team up with Skygraph, his father's company, and make more holographic rock stars. But when Roscoe realizes that they are planning to rob the holograms of their individuality, he argues that Loretta is not just a computer program, but a sentient, autonomous person with a mind and will of her own sensations, thoughts, personality, feelings, and emotions. Despite Roscoe's father siding with him, Loretta is taken from them. At the last moment Daryl Fibbs, an employee at Harshtone, has a change of heart and decides that every performer, including holograms like Loretta, should have a choice. He gives her the option to stay at Harshtone or escape into the internet. Loretta goes into the internet a second time, and Fibbs quits Harshtone. Unfortunately, the Zetta Bytes cannot find Loretta before their next concert. Sam tries to replace Loretta on stage, but falls, slipping into a coma. When Loretta comes back out of the web and sees that Sam is unconscious, she enters Sam's brain through an EEG machine in an effort to help her. She arrives in Sam's mind, finding Sam caught in her own depression. Loretta shows Sam that she hates that everyone thinks she is perfect, and that she envies Sam's ability to learn. They discover that there is only enough room for one of them in Sam's brain at a time. Sam wakes from her coma, with Loretta inside of her mind. In a real body for the first time, Loretta goes outside into the rain. A lightning strike hits Sam and when she wakes up, it appears that Loretta is gone forever. At the Zetta Bytes' final performance, Sam sings about Loretta's death. She and Roscoe are finally together. After Sam finishes singing, the band realizes there was an extra voice singing the harmony. Roscoe sees Loretta's ghostly figure in the spotlight, and he comments that The Zetta Bytes have a guardian angel. ===== The film centers on the relationship between Lady Mary Loam (Swanson), a British aristocrat, and her butler, Crichton (Meighan). Crichton fancies a romance with Mary, but she disdains him because of his lower social class. When the two and some others are shipwrecked on a deserted island, they are left to fend for themselves in a state of nature. The aristocrats' abilities to survive are far worse than those of Crichton, and a role reversal ensues, with the butler becoming a king among the stranded group. Crichton and Mary are about to wed on the island when the group is rescued. Upon returning to Britain, Crichton chooses not to marry Mary; instead, he asks a maid, Tweeny (who was attracted to Crichton throughout the film), to marry him, and the two move to the United States. ===== Harry Lomart, a convicted murderer, and Birdy Williams are convicts planning a breakout. Before the two men can abscond to another country, Lomart gets word that his wife Pat has been having an affair with another man and has become pregnant. The two men had made plans to lie low after their escape from jail, but Lomart decides to find and kill his wife and the man she has been seeing. A police inspector, Milton, is the man assigned to catch the two escaped convicts. ===== The boys are playing Star Trek in Cartman's mother's new minivan and, as usual, the anti-Semitic Cartman gives Kyle a hard time about his Jewish heritage. Cartman dares Kyle to watch The Passion of the Christ, the box-office success of which Cartman cites as proof that everybody hates the Jews. Kyle sees the film and is horrified by its violent depiction of how Jesus was tortured and crucified. Kyle feels intense guilt and has nightmares in which he and other Jews laugh while killing Jesus. He tells Cartman that he was "right all along" about the Jews; overjoyed, Cartman prays to a poster of The Passion's director Mel Gibson and vows to dedicate his life to promoting the film and "organiz[ing] the masses ... to do thy bidding". Meanwhile, Stan and Kenny watch The Passion and hate it. Declaring it a "snuff film", they demand their eighteen dollars back from the theater, but are told that they can only get their money back from Gibson. Attempting to contact Gibson, Stan and Kenny telephone the head of the Mel Gibson Fan Club—Cartman, who yells at them for disliking the film, but lets slip that Gibson lives in Malibu. Stan and Kenny make their way there. Meanwhile Cartman dresses in a brown Hitler-esque uniform and hosts a fan club meeting in his backyard. The attendees have gathered to celebrate The Passion, which they say helped them rediscover Christianity. Cartman suggests that each attendee take one more person to see the film before they begin what he refers to as "the cleansing"—the fan club members obliviously agree. When Stan and Kenny reach Gibson's house, the director rambles, straps himself to a rack wearing only underwear and says that no matter how much they torture him he will never refund their money. When the boys insist that they just want their money back, Gibson chases them around the house with a gun, à la Looney Tunes, appearing behind doors as various versions of Daffy Duck's disguises. Stan and Kenny take eighteen dollars from Gibson's wallet (actually twenty dollars, but Kenny offers up two dollars for change) and flee on a bus home. Gibson, wearing face paint from Braveheart, chases their bus in the tanker truck from Mad Max 2, screaming "Qapla'!" and "Gimme back my money!" Back in South Park, Kyle talks to Father Maxi about his issues regarding Jesus and the guilt he has been feeling since seeing Gibson's film. Father Maxi points out that the Passion was originally a play used to stir up anti-Semitism, but says that its subject matter can still help people. Kyle seizes on Father Maxi's statement that "Christianity is about atonement" and says he now understands what he should do. At another fan club rally outside the South Park theater, Cartman shouts hateful slogans in German and gives the attendees lines to shout back; mistaking the German for the Aramaic spoken in The Passion, they happily do so and join Cartman in goose-stepping through South Park shouting anti-Semitic slogans. Meanwhile, Kyle suggests at his synagogue that the Jewish community should apologize for Jesus' crucifixion, prompting uproar in the congregation. The rabbi tries to calm the situation, saying "we live in a rational community, and everybody knows this is just a movie", but just then, Cartman and his parade pass the synagogue. Horrified, the rabbi and congregation go to the theater and demand that they stop showing The Passion. Their argument with Cartman and his followers is interrupted by the arrival of the truck chase—Gibson crashes into the theater, destroying it. When he emerges unscathed, Cartman rushes to worship him, but Gibson ignores him and, rambling, first attempts one final time to force Stan and Kenny to give him his money back (which fails, as they refuse), and then smears his own excrement on a building, much to the astonishment of Kyle and the fan club members. Stan says that Christians should follow Jesus' teachings and not focus on how he died. The fans agree and disperse, much to Cartman's dismay. Kyle says he feels better about his Jewishness after hearing Stan's speech and seeing Gibson, who defecates on Cartman's face and runs off whooping. ===== The story revolves around an unfortunate young man named Eric. He and his fiancée, Shelly, are assaulted by a gang of street thugs after their car breaks down. Eric is shot in the head and is paralyzed, and can only watch as Shelly is savagely beaten, raped, and shot in the head. They are then left for dead on the side of the road. Eric later dies in the hospital operating room while Shelly is DOA. He is resurrected by a crow and seeks vengeance on the murderers, methodically stalking and killing them. When not on the hunt, Eric stays in the house he shared with Shelly, spending most of his time there lost in memories of her. Her absence is torture for him; he is in emotional pain, even engaging in self-mutilation by cutting himself. The crow acts as both a guide and goad for Eric, giving him information that helps him in his quest but also chastising him for dwelling on Shelly's death, seeing his pining as useless self-indulgence that distracts him from his purpose. ===== Hotel manager Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) arrives at Dallas Love Field to take a red-eye flight back to Miami, Florida. She meets a handsome young man named Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy), also traveling to Miami. While waiting to board, they share a drink at the airport bar and engage in small talk. Lisa is surprised to find that Jackson is seated beside her. After takeoff, Jackson's charming demeanor quickly turns sinister as he informs Lisa that he works for a domestic terrorist organization planning to assassinate Charles Keefe (Jack Scalia), the current United States Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. Lisa's managerial position at the Lux Atlantic Hotel in Miami, where Keefe and his family are staying, is crucial to their plot. As Acting Manager, Lisa must make a call from the in-flight phone to order the Keefe family be moved to a targeted room where a missile launched from a boat in the harbor will strike. Her non-compliance will result in Jackson's hitman accomplice killing Lisa's father, Joe (Brian Cox). While Jackson is distracted, Lisa writes a warning inside the self-help book she had previously given away to a friendly fellow- passenger (Angela Paton). Jackson head-butts Lisa unconscious and retrieves the book before the woman reads the message. She revives half an hour later and is forced to make the call to the hotel. When a storm disrupts the sky phone service mid-conversation with her co-worker, Cynthia (Jayma Mays), Lisa pretends to be ordering the room change until Jackson catches on. She then persuades Jackson to let her use the restroom while the phone service is still disrupted. Lisa writes a fake bomb threat in soap on the mirror; Jackson, checking on her, sees it and angrily wipes it off, then roughs her up in the restroom. A young girl waiting outside becomes suspicious and tells the flight attendant that Jackson is inside with Lisa, but it is dismissed as a sexual escapade. When the sky phones are operational again, Lisa calls Cynthia and has her move the Keefe family to the targeted suite. She then pleads with Jackson to call off the accomplice waiting outside her father's house, but he refuses until the assassination is confirmed. As the plane lands at Miami International Airport, Lisa reveals that the knife scar Jackson noticed on her upper chest was due to a violent rape at knife point two years earlier and which she swore would never happen again. She then stabs Jackson in the throat with a ballpoint pen, grabs his phone, and flees the plane and terminal. To further slow Jackson down, the young girl who had previously observed him and Lisa trips him while making it look like an accident. Once outside, Lisa steals an unattended SUV. She calls Cynthia, telling her to evacuate the hotel and warn the Keefes. Cynthia, the Keefes, and U.S. Secret Service agents escape seconds before a Javelin missile hits the room. The cell phone's battery dies as Lisa is calling her father. Arriving at his house and seeing the assassin at the front door, she hits and kills him with the car when he shoots at her with a suppressed pistol. Lisa's father is unharmed and has called 9-1-1. Lisa calls Cynthia, unaware Jackson arrived and incapacitated her father. Jackson pursues Lisa throughout the house. As they struggle, he throws her down the staircase. Lisa, stunned, retrieves the dead hitman's gun and shoots Jackson. Wounded, he disarms Lisa and is about to kill her when a revived Joe shoots Jackson with the gun. Lisa returns to the hotel to provide assistance where Keefe praises both women for their actions. ===== The murder of a prostitute, who was also a German agent, in German-occupied Warsaw in 1942 causes Major Grau of the Abwehr to start an investigation. His evidence soon points to the killer being one of three German generals: General von Seidlitz-Gabler; General Kahlenberge, his chief of staff; or General Tanz. Grau's investigation is cut short by his sudden promotion and transfer to Paris at the instigation of these officers. The case in Warsaw remains closed until all three officers meet in Paris in July 1944. Paris is then a hotbed of intrigue, with senior Wehrmacht officers plotting to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Kahlenberge is deeply involved in the plot, while von Seidlitz-Gabler is aware of its existence but is sitting on the fence, awaiting the outcome. Tanz is unaware of the plot and remains totally loyal to Hitler. On the night of 19 July 1944, Tanz orders his driver, Kurt Hartmann, to procure a prostitute; Tanz butchers her so as to implicate Hartmann, but offers Hartmann the chance to desert, which he accepts. When Grau, who is now a Lieutenant Colonel, learns of the murder, committed in the same manner as the first, he resumes his investigation and concludes that Tanz is the killer. However, his timing is unfortunate, because the very next day is the 20 July assassination attempt. While Grau is accusing Tanz face to face, word arrives that Hitler has survived, so Tanz kills Grau and labels him as one of the plot conspirators to cover his tracks. Jumping to 1965, the murder of a prostitute in Hamburg draws the attention of Interpol Inspector Morand, who owes a debt of gratitude to Grau for not revealing his connection to the French Resistance during the war. Almost certain there is a connection to Grau's 1942 case, Morand reopens the cold case, soon finding a link to the 1944 murder as well. Morand begins to tie up the loose ends: he finds no criminal activity from Kahlenberge or Seidlitz-Gabler, but learns of one man who knew which man is the real killer. Morand confronts Tanz, recently released after serving 20 years as a war criminal, at a reunion dinner for Tanz's former panzer division. When Morand produces Hartmann as his witness, Tanz goes into a vacant room and shoots himself. ===== Lobby card for Christopher Strong In London, Monica (Helen Chandler) and her boyfriend Harry attend a scavenger hunt party given by Monica's aunt, Carrie. When nearly everyone wins, Carrie announces a new challenge: women must find a man who has been married over 5 years who is still faithful and men must find a woman over 20 who has never had a love affair. Though Harry has been married over 5 years and Monica is 21 neither fits the other requirement. Monica departs to find her father, Sir Christopher Strong (Colin Clive), a member of parliament, who she knows has always been faithful to her mother. Harry goes to follow her and has a motorbike crash where he is helped by Lady Cynthia Darrington (Katharine Hepburn), a pilot, who he discovers is over 20 and has never had a love affair. At the party Cynthia and Christopher are introduced and Cynthia and Monica become friends. Despite Christopher's wife, Lady Elaine (Billie Burke), being suspicious of the friendship between Christopher and Cynthia, Christopher puts her off by insisting that Cynthia is a good influence on Monica. After Monica comes home drunk with Harry one night, Elaine tells him if he is an honourable man he won't see her daughter again. Harry assents and breaks things off with Monica. Upset, Monica begs Christopher to take her to Paris to see Cynthia perform in an aerial show. From there, they invite Cynthia on to their vacation home in Cannes. At Cannes Christopher realizes that he is in love with Cynthia. At a party, when his wife has gone home alone, he lets Monica go home with a strange man, Carlos, so that he and Cynthia can be alone. They confess they are in love with one another, but Cynthia decides to break off the affair before anything can begin. She and Christopher vow not see one another. Months later, Harry has divorced his wife to marry Monica, but refuses to marry her after discovering that she has been with Carlos. Monica decides to kill herself, but before she can, she goes to tell Cynthia, who tells her that Harry will forgive her. At Monica's behest she also calls Christopher to tell him not to read the suicide note Monica has sent him. He does read it, and in a fit of gratitude goes to see Cynthia. To break things off Cynthia decides to join a competition to see who can pilot a plane around the world the fastest, ending in New York. Christopher, who has been sent to New York City for work, meets her there and the two begin an affair. Christopher has her promise not to fly anymore as he thinks it is too dangerous. Months later Christopher and Cynthia meet in a small out of the way location, where Cynthia admits that she misses flying. They are seen confessing their love to one another by Monica and Harry, now married, who used to frequent the location during the course of their affair and stopped by for sentimental reasons. Monica and Harry tell Elaine and Christopher that they are expecting a child, and both are delighted. At the same time Cynthia learns that she will be unable to return to flying because she is pregnant. Discussing the hypothetical with Christopher, Cynthia learns that if he knew she was pregnant he would leave his wife and marry her out of duty. Cynthia decides not to tell Christopher about the pregnancy. She instead decides to break the world record for height achieved in air. Once the record has been broken, Cynthia takes off her oxygen mask causing her to lose consciousness and the plane to nosedive. ===== Richard Harland an author, and his son, Danny, are visiting Richard's attorney and friend, Glen for the summer. Richard is a widower whose wife was killed in a car accident that crippled Danny. When they arrive, a beautiful woman, Ellen Berent, catches Richard's eye and it is revealed that she is also staying at Glen's with her mother, Margaret, and sister, Ruth. Glen tries to dissuade Richard from pursuing Ellen by mentioning her engagement to Russell Quinton, but a smitten Richard tells him to mind his own business. Ellen is also taken with Richard and ends her engagement with Russell to be with Richard. Ellen convinces Richard to marry her, and they do so quickly. Ellen soon shows her dark side by becoming manipulative and jealous. At their lake house, she causes a rift between Richard and the long time caretaker by insinuating that he hit on her. She fires Danny's long time caregiver. When Margaret and Ruth visit, Richard talks to Ruth about using her artwork for the cover of his upcoming book causing Ellen to have a fit. Ellen has been teaching Danny how to do distance swimming to the buoys while she sits in a row boat. One day, Danny complains of a cramp and Ellen ignores his pleas for help. Richard, inside working, hears Danny's screams for help and rushes out onto the water in a speed boat. Ellen pretends to try and help look for him as they both repeatedly dive in the water, but it is too late, and Danny drowns. Richard becomes more withdrawn from Ellen and begins sleeping in a guest bedroom at their house. Ellen panics as she loses her grip on Richard, and she goes in the guest room and wakes him up and they have sex. Ellen announces she is pregnant and they seem happy for a little while. Ellen tells Ruth she hates being pregnant and that Richard only cares about the baby, not her. Ellen sees her doctor and tells her she wants an abortion and she has not discussed it with Richard. The doctor, who also a friend of Richard's says she cannot perform the abortion and be expected to keep it a secret from Richard, telling Ellen she'll have to go somewhere else. Ellen sneaks out of the house and goes to the lake house, where she stages her "accidental" fall, causing her to lose the baby. Richard, who has begun spending more time with Ruth, admits to her that he thinks Ellen losing the baby was for the best, and that he plans on leaving her because he does not love her anymore, and was only staying with her because of the baby. Ellen makes the connection that Richard is involved with Ruth when she sees the cover of his new book, with Ruth's art. Richard tells her they need some time apart and that he is going to New York for a few days. Beside herself, Ellen begins plotting revenge. Ellen tells Ruth about the sleepless nights and nightmares she has been having and asks Ruth for her prescription barbiturate sleeping pills. Ruth goes to get them for her, and Ellen looks through her purse and finds a plane ticket to New York. Ellen opens all of the capsules and dumps the powder into a sweetener packet and then puts the capsules back together, filling them with talcum powder. At Ellen's birthday party, she asks Richard to talk to her privately in another room, and she alludes to knowing what is going on between him and Ruth. As they argue, he confronts her about Danny's death. She admits to letting him drown because Richard paid more attention to Danny, than to her. Richard hits her causing her to fall, and he storms out of the house. Ruth and Margaret come in to console her, and Ruth stirs the sweetener, that is really the sleeping pill powder placed there by Ellen, into iced tea that Ellen drinks. Later that same day, Ruth is packing for her trip, she hears Ellen calling out to her and asks her to call the hospital, telling her she took sleeping pills. Ruth believes she is faking it and goes and counts the sleeping pills she gave Ruth, seeing that only one is missing. Ellen ends up dying, and although initially classified as a suicide, Ruth is arrested and put on trial for murder. The district attorney is Ellen's ex-fiancé, Russell and he presents evidence that Ruth was jealous of Ellen and that Ellen sent him a letter mentioning Ruth trying to kill her. Margaret finds the swapped out sweetener packet and powder residue in the pocket of the jacket Ellen wore at the party. Testing concludes that Ellen tried to stage her own murder, and the charges against Ruth are dropped. Richard and Ruth are seen at the lake house together. ===== Victor Rosa (Leguizamo) is a drug dealer in New York City who sells a specific brand of heroin called "Empire". His territory is located in the South Bronx, where his other rivals all maintain an uneasy truce maintained because they all purchase their drugs from the same supplier, drug lord Joanna "La Colombiana" Menendez (Isabella Rossellini). Victor is invited to a chic white collar party by his girlfriend Carmen (Delilah Cotto). The party is being thrown by her friend Trish (Denise Richards) and her boyfriend Jack (Sarsgaard), an investment banker. He is then sent to assassinate local kingpin Tito Severe (Fat Joe). A shootout occurs, which results in Tito and his young son being killed. With a baby on the way, Vic decides to go straight, and begins to invest money with Jack, receiving significant returns. His friendship with Jack affords Vic a whole new lifestyle, and creates a rift between him and Carmen. Jack offers Vic an investment opportunity for over 300% return, but there's a catch: the minimum buy-in is $4.5 million, $1.5 million more than Vic has. He approaches La Colombiana with an offer, in which she agrees to lend Vic the money he needs, if he gives her a 500% return and stops a feud between his best friend Jimmy (Vincent Laresca) and a rival dealer. The feud escalates and Jimmy kills the dealer. La Colombiana orders Vic to kill Jimmy, but instead tells his friend to leave town instead. Vic receives his money and gives it to Jack, who disappears the next day. Victor tracks him down and tries to get his money back, but kills Jack and Trish when they resist. He escapes with Carmen and her family to Puerto Rico and opens a bar on the south side of the island with what little money he has left. At the end of the movie, Vic is heading to the hospital to see the birth of his child when Rafael, La Colombiana's younger brother, shoots him in the head. The movie ends with Vic lying dead. ===== In the near future, Nuclearites bombarded the world. Destructive earthquakes, massive tsunami and dramatic climate changes wreak havoc around the globe, isolating continents and driving the human race into chaos. Those who survive the destruction dream of tranquillity, but an eruption among the human race and the appearance of horrible mutants drives the world into further disorder. Racism and oppression cause rebellious uprisings and war that divide the landscape between two powers: Sapiens and Alternative. At the heart of the war emerges a powerful energy source called the Lunarites. The Lunarites were created by Huxley, a scientist and possible saviour. Both factions seek glory and victory, fighting mercilessly for the Lunarites and their very existence. The story was thought to be based on the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, hence the name, however Webzen has stated there are no tie-ins to the book's story saying it was just an inspiration.Producer Kijong Kang talks about the online first-person shooter with amazing visuals and an unusual name (Yahoo Games) The game's visual style is reminiscent of the StarCraft series of games, which are extremely popular in South Korea (where the developer is based). ===== Set mainly in 1913, the film is about Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf), the first amateur to win the U.S. Open. Amateur golf in that era was a sport only for the wealthy, and Ouimet came from an immigrant family that was part of the working class. Ouimet watches an exhibition by legendary British golf pro Harry Vardon (Stephen Dillane) as a 7-year-old boy, and becomes very interested in golf. He begins as a caddie at The Country Club, a posh enclave located across the street from his home in suburban Brookline, Massachusetts, while making friends with the other caddies. He works on his own golf game at every chance, and gradually accumulates his own set of clubs. Francis practices putting at night in his room. He wins the Massachusetts Schoolboy Championship. One day, a Club member, Mr. Hastings (Justin Ashforth), asks Ouimet to play with him over The Country Club course, where caddies have almost no access of their own, and he shoots a fine round of 81 despite a 9 on one hole. His talent, composure, and good manners earn admirers and interest. With the help of Mr. Hastings and the Club Caddiemaster, Francis gets a chance to play in an upcoming tournament, the U.S. Amateur, the local qualifying for which is to be held at the very same Country Club course. However, his father Arthur (Elias Koteas) tells his son to quit golf and get a "real job". Ouimet needs $50 for the entry fee, and so agrees to get a real job and never play golf again if he could not qualify; his father lends him the money. On the 18th, Francis faces a three-foot putt that would secure him a spot in the championship, but he looks over and his father is watching. Ouimet is distracted, misses and falls one stroke short of qualifying for the championship proper. With much jeer from the rich folk, Ouimet, now 20, fulfills his promise to his dad and works at a sporting goods shop, while continuing to live at home. After some time with his golf forgotten, Ouimet is still at the bottom of the working class. But one day, the president of the United States Golf Association enters the store and personally invites him to play in the upcoming U.S. Open. After some maneuvering and consideration from his employer, Ouimet secures entry. His father informs Ouimet that he must find his own place to live after the tournament and Ouimet agrees to this arrangement. However, his mother has been supportive of his golf from the start. She admonishes Ouimet's father for not recognizing Ouimet's talent and that he now has a chance to demonstrate it in an important tournament. Ouimet competes in the 1913 U.S. Open that takes place at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, the familiar course located across the street from his home. The favorites are British champions Vardon and Ted Ray (Stephen Marcus), who are accompanied by the snobbish Lord Northcliffe (Peter Firth), and the reigning U.S. Open champion, John McDermott. Northcliffe looks to see that either Vardon or Ray wins the Open, to affirm British dominance over the Americans in golf, and also to prove that only gentlemen were able champions. Ouimet competes with his 10-year old friend, Eddie Lowery (Josh Flitter), who skips school to caddie for Ouimet. After the first two rounds, Vardon and Ray have a seemingly comfortable lead, with McDermott unable to keep up. After some initial struggles, Ouimet rallies back and ends up tying with Vardon and Ray at the end of the fourth round, meaning that the three of them would compete in an 18-hole playoff to determine the champion. The night before, Northcliffe mocks Ouimet's social status to Vardon, who came from humble beginnings himself, and Vardon finally tells Northcliffe that he is going to try to win only for his own pride, not Britain's and that if Ouimet wins, it will be because of his own skill, not his background. The playoff round commences, with all three competitors keeping it close until the final holes, where Ray fades out, and Ouimet ahead of Vardon by a stroke going into the final hole. Vardon finishes with a par, giving Ouimet the chance to clinch the win with a par himself. Seeing him become nervous before the final putt, Eddie calms him down, and Ouimet is able to make the putt and win the U.S. Open. As the crowd carries him and Eddie on their shoulders, they start to hand him money. Ouimet refuses it all, only accepting one bill from his now proud father. In the clubhouse, Vardon privately congratulates Ouimet and suggests that they should play a friendly round together in the future. Ouimet and Eddie then walk home, carrying the U.S. Open trophy. ===== The comic tells the story of young Preston Kills, who could sense how people were going to die. Preston also knew that he was going to die at age 21, hence the title. ===== Set in 1920s England, the book takes the form of a travel memoir by a young Scotsman who has been invalided away from the Western Front, "Donald Cameron", whose father's will forces him to reside in England. There he writes for a series of London newspapers, before being commissioned by a Welshman to write a book about the English from the view of a foreigner. Taking to the country and provincial cities, Donald spends his time doing research for a book on the English by consorting with journalists and minor poets, attending a country house weekend, serving as private secretary to a Member of Parliament, attending the League of Nations, and playing village cricket. The village cricket match is the most celebrated episode in the novel, and a reason cited for its enduring appeal. An important character is Mr Hodge, a caricature of Sir John Squire (poet and editor of the London Mercury), while the cricket team described in the book’s most famous chapter is a representation of Sir John’s Cricket Club – the Invalids – which survives today.Jeremy Paul. Sing Willow. Book Guild Ltd, Lewes. (2002) The true history of the Invalids Cricket Club The book ends in the ancient city of Winchester, where Macdonell went to school. ===== The play is a thriller set in a traditional boys' boarding school where a senior form master has just been killed in a tragic accident. The main character is John Ebony, a teacher in his first job, brought in as a temporary measure, though one he hopes will be confirmed as permanent. He finds his class to be strangely regimented and gradually the dialogue by class members becomes more ominous and disturbing. They show him personal possessions claimed to be mementos from their collective killing of the previous teacher, and between them, tell Ebony that nobody will believe him, they all have alibis and can demonstrate their innocence. Ebony is trapped between apprehension that his class – or some members of it hidden by the others – may have killed his predecessor, his everyday belief that they must be testing him provocatively, and the unhelpful advice of his peers in the school staff. He is also left perplexed by the role (if any) of the absent student Zigo, and struggles to perceive who is behind the boys' regimented behaviour. Between his rebellious wife Nadia, the eccentric art master Cary Farthingale and the increasingly bold intimidation by the members of his class, Ebony struggles to exercise power, but is thwarted by reality and a disbelieving Headmaster. When he refuses to teach, the boys organise their own education in his class for those who wish it, and instantly behave as a model class when interrupted by the headmaster. In the final scenes, one of his students commits suicide, leaving a note confessing to his role in the events surrounding the previous teachers demise, apparently due to bullying and pressure, but it is left ambiguous what actually took place before Ebony's arrival. The resonant quotation from the play falls to the wise old Farthingale, discussing the question of whether Ebony himself, or his predecessor, inadvertantly shaped the class as they were, through their own actions and authority. "Authority is a necessary evil, and every bit as evil as it is necessary." ===== Set in 1930, the film opens in New York City, where femme fatale Mrs. Erlynne finds that she is no longer welcomed by either the high-ranking men she has seduced or the society wives she has betrayed. Selling her jewelry, she buys passage on a liner bound for Amalfi, Italy, where she apparently sets her sights on newlywed Robert Windermere. When his car frequently is seen parked outside her villa, local gossips become convinced the two are having an affair. Robert's demure wife Meg remains oblivious to the stories about the two circulating throughout the town, but when she discovers her husband's cheque register with numerous stubs indicating payments to Erlynne, she suspects the worst. What she doesn't know is that Erlynne actually is her mother, who has been extorting payments from Robert in return for keeping her secret. She is consoled with the advice, "Plain women resort to crying; pretty women go shopping." In retaliation for what she believes is her husband's transgression, Meg wears a revealing gown to her twenty-first birthday celebration, attended by Erlynne - wearing the same dress - in the company of Lord Augustus, a wealthy, twice-divorced man who has proposed marriage to Erlynne. Complications ensue when Lord Darlington professes his love for Meg and implores her to leave her supposedly wayward husband, an invitation she accepts. Erlynne, having found Meg's farewell note to Robert, intercepts her on Darlington's yacht, where the two are trapped when Augustus, Darlington, Robert, and friends arrive for a night of drinking. Robert is startled to see the fan he gave Meg for her birthday on board; while Meg makes a hasty escape, Erlynne reveals herself and claims she had taken it from the party in error; and Augustus, thinking his fiancée was planning a romantic rendezvous with Darlington, ends their engagement. Robert pays Erlynne to leave Amalfi immediately and begs her not to reveal her identity to Meg. Reluctantly, she complies with his wishes, although she returns his cheque before she departs. On board the plane waiting to take her to a new life, she discovers Augustus, who presents her with the fan Meg gave him when she confessed to him all that had really happened. Erlynne accepts his renewed proposal of marriage and the two depart for places unknown. ===== Career criminal Ray (Woody Allen) and his cronies want to lease a closed pizzeria so they can dig a tunnel from the basement of the restaurant to a nearby bank. Ray's wife Frenchy (Tracey Ullman) covers what they are doing by selling cookies in the restaurant. The robbery scheme soon proves to be a miserable failure, but, after they franchise the business, selling cookies makes them millionaires. One day Frenchy throws a big party and overhears people making fun of their poor decorating taste and lack of culture. She asks an art dealer named David (Hugh Grant) to train her and Ray so they can fit in with the American upper class. Ray hates every minute of it, but Frenchy likes their new culture. What Frenchy does not know is that David is really just using her to finance his art projects. Ray finally gets fed up and leaves Frenchy. David and Frenchy go to Europe for more cultural enlightenment and while there, she gets a call and finds out she has been defrauded by her accountants. She's lost everything including her cookie company, home, and possessions. David turns on her right away and immediately dumps her. Meanwhile, Ray has gone back to being a crook and tries to steal a valuable necklace at a party. He has had a duplicate made and through a series of circumstances gets the duplicate and real one mixed up. At the party, he finds out that Frenchy is broke, so he leaves and goes to see her. He consoles her by saying he stole the valuable necklace and shows it to her. Her new- found cultural enlightenment enables her to tell the necklace is a fake; Ray has gotten the wrong one. But she produces a very expensive cigarette case that she once had given to David as a gift but stole back after he dumped her. It once belonged to the Duke of Windsor. They reconcile, decide to sell it, and retire to Florida. =====