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Mark Hunter (Slater), a high school student in a sleepy suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, starts an FM pirate radio station that broadcasts from the basement of his parents' house. Mark is a loner, an outsider, whose only outlet for his teenage angst and aggression is his unauthorized radio station. His pirate station's theme song is "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen and there are glimpses of cassettes by such alternative musicians as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Camper Van Beethoven, Primal Scream, Soundgarden, Ice-T, Bad Brains, Concrete Blonde, Henry Rollins, and The Pixies. By day, Mark is seen as a loner, hardly talking to anyone around him; by night, he expresses his outsider views about what is wrong with American society. When he speaks his mind about what is going on at his school and in the community, more and more of his fellow students tune in to hear his show. Nobody knows the true identity of "Hard Harry" or "Happy Harry Hard-on," as Mark refers to himself, until Nora Diniro (Mathis), a fellow student, tracks him down and confronts him the day after a student named Malcolm commits suicide after Harry attempts to reason with him. The radio show becomes increasingly popular and influential after Harry confronts the suicide head-on, exhorting his listeners to do something about their problems instead of surrendering to them through suicide—at the crescendo of his yelled speech, an overachieving student named Paige Woodward (who has been a constant listener) jams her various medals and accolades into a microwave and turns it on. She then sits, watching the awards cook until the microwave explodes, injuring her. While this is happening, other students act out in cathartic release. Eventually, the radio show causes so much trouble in the community that the FCC is called in to investigate. During the fracas, it is revealed that the school's principal (Annie Ross) has been expelling "problem students," namely, students with below-average standardized test scores, in an effort to boost the district's test scores while still keeping their names on the rolls (a criminal offense) in order to retain government funding. Realizing he has started something huge, Mark decides it is up to him to end it. He dismantles his radio station and attaches it to his mother's old jeep, creating a mobile transmitter so his position can't be triangulated. Pursued by the police and the FCC, Nora drives the jeep around while Mark broadcasts. The harmonizer he uses to disguise his voice breaks, and with no time left to fix it, Mark decides to broadcast his final message as himself. They finally drive up to the crowd of protesting students, and Mark tells them that the world belongs to them and that they should make their own future. The police step in and arrest Mark and Nora. As they are taken away, Mark reminds the students to "talk hard." As the film ends, the voices of other students (and even one of the teachers) speak as intros for their own independent stations, which can be heard broadcasting across the country.

At Madeline Hall, an old mansion-house near Southampton belonging to the wealthy de Versely family, lives an elderly spinster Miss Delmar, the aunt of the earl de Versely and Captain Delmar. Miss Delmar invites Arabella Mason, the daughter of a deceased, well-liked steward to stay with her as a lower-class guest in the house. Captain Delmar is known to visit his aunt at Madeline Hall frequently, accompanied by his valet Ben Keene, who is also a private marine. Captain Delmar eventually suggests that Ben should propose to Arabella, and the two marry in secret, to the frustration of Miss Delmar and Arabella's mother. The captain is able to smooth over the situation with his aunt, even after it is discovered that Arabella was six months pregnant at the time of the marriage. She later gives birth to a boy, who takes the Captain's Christian name and Ben's surname--the titular Percival Keene. The family moves to Chatham, after Ben is ordered back with his detachment. Arabella opens up a successful shop and circulating library below her house, enlisting the help of her mother and sister, Amelia. Percival becomes well known in town from his mischievous pranks on officers and other strangers, often encouraged by his aunt Amelia. However, Percival's mother and grandmother are less fond of his disregard for manners, and insist on sending him to school after an episode in which he bites his grandmother. Percival reports to the school house of Mr. O'Gallagher, a poor Irish scholar, who rules his class with a system of severe corporal punishment. Mr. O'Gallagher routinely bullies Percival by stealing his lunch, leading Percival to seek revenge by poisoning his sandwiches with calomel. On Guy Fawkes Day the schoolteacher confiscates all the schoolboys' fireworks, for which Percival retaliates by setting off the collected fireworks while the teacher sits above them, leading to the total destruction of the schoolhouse and near death of the schoolmaster. When Percival is a young teenager, Captain Delmar reappears and offers him a position aboard his new navy ship, the H.M. Calliope. While preparing to enter service, Percival overhears gossip of his illegitimate birth, introducing the idea that Captain Delmar may be his father. He confronts his mother about his parentage, which she at first harshly denies but later tearfully explains the truth of her affair. Early in his service in the navy, Percival is captured during a pirate raid along with others. The pirate crew is entirely black, and the captain explains that they are primarily escaped slaves from the Americas. Percival is taken in as a cabin boy, and later dyes his skin tan in the appearance of a mulatto to please the captain who doesn't approve of white skin. The pirates often seek to take over slave trading vessels, killing every white person on board. During the taking of one such vessel, Percival is able is convince the captain to spare the lives of a wealthy Dutch merchant and his young daughter, Minnie. Eventually the H.M. Calliope takes the pirate ship, and Percival--unrecognizable with his dyed skin--is taken as a prisoner, later to convince his fellow shipman of his true identity. After his reappearance aboard the ship, Percival gains esteem among the crew and is welcomed back by the emotional Captain Delmar. His reputation continues to grow over the course of his service in conflicts with Dutch and French vessels around the island of Curacao. He also stands in for an ill Captain Delmar in a duel with a French officer, effectively saving the captain's life. At this point, the captain receives news that his older brother has died, making him the new Lord de Versely, and before returning to England he grants Perceval command of his own schooner. After another intense but successful battle with a French war ship, Percival is promoted to captain. During his service in the Navy, Percival still partakes in the merry pranks of his youth, and at one point teams up with a mulatto hotel owner in Curaรงao to convince his fellow officers they've been poisoned. He also keeps correspondence with Minnie, developing a romance with the beautiful heiress. Near the end of the story, Percival guides his crew through a terrible storm in which many of the crew are killed and the ship is heavily damaged. After being saved by another English vessel, he receives a letter informing him of Lord de Versely's sudden death from heart complications and learns that he has been left all of his personal property. Percival is still disappointed that he can not take his father's name. He later journey's with his friend Bob Cross to Hamburg to reunite with Minnie, but is captured by French troops on the road and sentenced to execution for spying. During a skirmish between the French and the Cossacks, Percival and Cross are able to escape and continue on the road. At the end of the novel, Percival proposes to Minnie, and stands to inherit a great fortune through her father. He also receives a letter from the de Versely attorney letting him know he has been granted the arms and name of Delmar.

A scholar and explorer, Dr. Samuel Ferguson, accompanied by his manservant Joe and his friend professional hunter Richard "Dick" Kennedy, sets out to travel across the African continent — still not fully explored — with the help of a balloon filled with hydrogen. He has invented a mechanism that, by eliminating the need to release gas or throw ballast overboard to control his altitude, allows very long trips to be taken. This voyage is meant to link together the voyages of Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke in East Africa with those of Heinrich Barth in the regions of the Sahara and Chad. The trip begins in Zanzibar on the east coast, and passes across Lake Victoria, Lake Chad, Agadez, Timbuktu, Djenné and Ségou to St Louis in modern-day Senegal on the west coast. The book describes the unknown interior of Africa near modern-day Central African Republic as a desert, when it is actually savanna. A good deal of the initial exploration is to focus on the finding of the source of the Nile, an event that occurs in chapter 18 (out of 43). The second leg is to link up the other explorers. There are numerous scenes of adventure, composed of either a conflict with a native or a conflict with the environment. Some examples include: Rescuing of a missionary from a tribe that was preparing to sacrifice him. Running out of water while stranded, windless, over the Sahara. An attack on the balloon by condors, leading to a dramatic action as Joe leaps out of the balloon. The actions taken to rescue Joe later. Narrowly escaping the remnants of a militant army as the balloon dwindles to nothingness with the loss of hydrogen. An anachronistic killing of a Bluebuck antelope, a species which was already extinct.* In all these adventures, the protagonists overcome by continued perseverance more than anything else. The novel is filled with coincidental moments where trouble is avoided because wind catches up at just the right time, or the characters look in just the right direction. There are frequent references to a higher power watching out for them. The balloon itself ultimately fails before the end, but makes it far enough across to get the protagonists to friendly lands, and eventually back to England, therefore succeeding in the expedition. The story abruptly ends after the African trip, with only a brief synopsis of what follows.

The story begins when a female lovely named Olivia, having fled captivity from the city of Akif, is chased down and cornered in a marsh, on the edge of the Vilayet Sea. Her pursuer and former master is a sadistic rogue named Shah Amurath. But before he can lay hands on her, a figure rises from the reeds. The newcomer has seen all his friends betrayed and treacherously cut down to a man before escaping into the marshes. There he has hidden out for so long he is nearly mad. The newcomer quickly dispatches Shah Amurath, then he and Olivia hop in a boat and decide to lie low for a little while. Only then does the newcomer identify himself: Conan the Cimmerian. Conan and Olivia find their way to a dark and apparently deserted island, where they spend the night sleeping in ancient ruins decorated with remarkably lifelike statues. Olivia has a dream in which she sees a band of men turned into those statues and wakes convinced they will come to life in the moonlight. Conan is less than convinced of Olivia's fears; he is more concerned by whatever it is lurking in the jungle, lobbing giant boulders at the two fugitives. A pirate ship makes port on the island. Leaving Olivia hidden in the brush, Conan challenges their captain, an old rival. He slays the pirate captain, but is knocked unconscious by a stone from a sling. The pirates bind him and take him with them to the ruins where they discuss his fate, until they pass out drunk. Olivia meanwhile, narrowly escapes from a massive and dark figure that pursues her up to the ruins. Olivia sneaks past the drunken and sleeping pirates and frees Conan. Conan then slays the dark figure that pursued Olivia, a giant man-ape, which had also been hurling the boulders at them. As Conan recovers from his battle with the man-ape, they hear the beginning of a horrific slaughter back at the ruins. The two quickly head back to the deserted pirate ship. As Conan prepares the ship to sail, a band of beaten and bedraggled pirates comes and asks to come aboard and leave the "devil island." Conan challenges them and they accept him as their captain. At the end Olivia begs Conan to allow her to stay with him, and he, laughing, accepts, saying he will make her "Queen of the Blue Sea."

Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) is a Los Angeles-based British hitman, working for a crime syndicate headed by Carlito (Carlos Sanz). Chelios is contracted by Carlito to kill mafia boss Don Kim (Keone Young) as members of the Triads have been encroaching on Carlito's business. Chelios goes to Don Kim and apparently murders him. However, Ricky Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo), an ambitious small-time criminal uses the opportunity to conspire with Carlito against Chelios; Verona will kill Chelios so the Triads do not retaliate, and then take Chelios's place as Carlito's new hired gun. The morning after Don Kim's death, while Chelios sleeps in his apartment, Verona, his brother Alex (Jay Xcala), and several henchmen break in and inject Chelios with a Chinese synthetic drug which inhibits the flow of adrenaline, slowing the heart and eventually killing the victim. Chelios wakes to find a recording left by Verona showing what he has done. In anger, Chelios smashes his TV and heads out. Chelios phones Mafia surgeon Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam), who informs Chelios that in order to survive he must keep his adrenaline pumping through constant excitement and danger, and he is unsure if the antidote exists. Chelios keeps his adrenaline up through reckless and dangerous acts like picking fights with other gangsters, taking illegal drugs and synthetic epinephrine, fighting with police, stealing a police officer's motorcycle, having public sex with his girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart), and driving his car through a shopping mall. Chelios visits Carlito at his penthouse and asks him to help find an antidote, as well as to find and kill Verona and his crew. Carlito says there is no antidote and only confirms that Carlito and Verona are working together. Carlito tells Chelios how he will use his death as a scapegoat against the Chinese. An angered Chelios leaves Carlito's penthouse to find Verona. Through Chelios' street contact, a transvestite named Kaylo (Efren Ramirez), he finds Alex at a restaurant and unsuccessfully interrogates him about his brother's whereabouts before killing him. Chelios phones Verona through Alex's phone and tells him of his brother's death, prompting Verona to send thugs after Eve as a revenge. Chelios rushes to pick up Eve before Verona's thugs get to her. Chelios reveals his true profession to her and that he was planning to retire to spend more time with her. Kaylo, who has been kidnapped by Carlito's men, is forced to call Chelios and tell him that Verona is at a Triad warehouse. Chelios goes there, finding Kaylo's corpse and the henchmen. They reveal that Carlito ordered them to kill Chelios. Eve, who has followed Chelios, unexpectedly arrives, but then escapes with Chelios after a shootout with Carlito's henchmen. Chelios and Eve go to Doc Miles's place, where Miles explains that he cannot cure Chelios. Knowing that he will die soon, Chelios decides to take his revenge on Verona and arranges a meeting with him at a downtown hotel. Chelios goes to the rooftop of the hotel and meets with Verona, Carlito, and his henchmen. Carlito takes out a syringe, filled with the same poison used by Verona. As he is about to kill Chelios by injecting the second dose into him, Don Kim, revealed to be alive as Chelios spared him, arrives with his Triads to assist Chelios and a shootout follows. During the battle, several of Don Kim's and all of Carlito's men are killed. Carlito tries to escape with his private helicopter, but Chelios manages to catch up to him and holds him at gunpoint. Before Chelios can kill Carlito, Verona sneaks behind and injects Chelios with the syringe, after which Chelios collapses. Carlito himself is betrayed by Verona, who shoots him to death and then tries to escape with his helicopter. Chelios manages to stand up, boards the helicopter, and engages in a fight with Verona. After some struggle, Chelios manages to pull Verona out of the helicopter and while mid-air, Chelios proceeds to snap Verona's neck, killing him. While falling, Chelios calls Eve on his cell phone to apologize for not coming back. Chelios hits a car, bounces off it and lands right in front of the camera. In the last shot, it is implied that his adrenaline is indeed still flowing fast; his nostrils flare, he blinks, and two heartbeats are heard.

"Crash" Davis (Costner), a veteran of 12 years in minor league baseball, is sent down to the single-A Durham Bulls for a specific purpose: to educate hotshot rookie pitcher Ebby Calvin LaLoosh (Robbins, playing a character loosely based on Steve Dalkowski) about becoming a major-league talent, and to control Ebby's haphazard pitching. Crash immediately begins calling Ebby by the degrading nickname of "Meat", and they get off to a rocky start. Thrown into the mix is Annie (Sarandon), a "baseball groupie" and lifelong spiritual seeker who has latched onto the "Church of Baseball" and has, every year, chosen one player on the Bulls to be her lover and student. Annie flirts with both Crash and Ebby and invites them to her house, but Crash walks out, saying he's too much a veteran to "try out" for anything. Before he leaves, Crash further sparks Annie's interest with a memorable speech listing the things he "believes in", ending with "I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days... Good night". Despite some animosity between them, Annie and Crash work, in their own ways, to shape Ebby into a big-league pitcher. Annie plays mild bondage games, reads poetry to him, and gets him to think in different ways (and gives him the nickname "Nuke"). Crash forces Nuke to learn "not to think" by letting the catcher make the pitching calls (memorably at two points telling the batters what pitch is coming after Nuke rejects his calls), and lectures him about the pressure of facing major league hitters who can hit his "heat" (fastballs). Crash also talks about the pleasure of life in "The Show" (Major League Baseball), which he briefly lived for "the 21 greatest days of my life" and to which he has tried for years to return. Meanwhile, as Nuke matures, the relationship between Annie and Crash grows, until it becomes obvious that the two of them are a more appropriate match, except for the fact that Annie and Nuke are currently a couple. After a rough start, Nuke becomes a dominant pitcher by mid-season. By the end of the movie, Nuke is called up to the majors. This incites jealous anger in Crash, who is frustrated by Nuke's failure to recognize all the talent he was blessed with. Nuke leaves for the big leagues, Annie ends their relationship, and Crash overcomes his jealousy to leave Nuke with some final words of advice. The Bulls, now having no use for his mentor, release Crash. Crash then presents himself at Annie's house and the two consummate their attraction with a weekend-long lovemaking session. Crash then leaves Annie's house to seek a further minor-league position. Crash joins another team, the Asheville Tourists, and breaks the minor-league record for career home runs. We see Nuke one last time, being interviewed by the press as a major leaguer, reciting the clichĂŠd answers that Crash had taught him earlier. Crash then retires as a player and returns to Durham, where Annie tells him she's ready to give up her annual affairs with "boys". Crash tells her that he is thinking about becoming a manager for a minor-league team in Visalia. The film ends with Annie and Crash dancing in Annie's candle-lit living room.

The play begins with three pages disputing over the black cloak usually worn by the actor who delivers the prologue. They draw lots for the cloak, and one of the losers, Anaides, starts telling the audience what happens in the play to come; the others try to suppress him, interrupting him and putting their hands over his mouth. Soon they are fighting over the cloak and criticizing the author and the spectators as well. In the play proper, the goddess Diana, also called Cynthia, has ordained a "solemn revels" in the valley of Gargaphie in Greece. The gods Cupid and Mercury appear, and they too start to argue. Mercury has awakened Echo, who weeps for Narcissus, and states that a drink from Narcissus's spring causes the drinkers to "Grow dotingly enamored of themselves." The courtiers and ladies assembled for the Cynthia's revels all drink from the spring. Asotus, a foolish spendthrift who longs to become a courtier and a master of fashion and manners, also drinks from the spring; emboldened by vanity and self-love, he challenges all comers to a competition of "court compliment." The competition is held, in four phases, and the courtiers are beaten. Two symbolic masques are performed within the play for the assembled revelers. At their conclusion, Cynthia (representing Queen Elizabeth) has the dancers unmask and shows that vices have masqueraded as virtues. She sentences them to make reparation and to purify themselves by bathing in the spring at Mount Helicon. The figure of Actaeon in the play may represent Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, while Cynthia's lady in waiting Arete may be Lucy, Countess of Bedford, one of Elizabeth's ladies in waiting as well as Jonson's patroness. The play is notably rich in music, as is typical for the theatre of the boys' companies, which originated as church choirs.

Maskull, a man longing for adventures, accepts an invitation from Krag, an acquaintance of his friend Nightspore, to travel to Tormance after a seance. The three set off in a crystal ship from an abandoned observatory in Scotland but Maskull awakens to find himself alone on Tormance. In every land he passes through he usually meets only one or two persons; these meetings often (though not always) end in the death of those he meets, either at his own hand or by that of another. He learns of his own impending death, meets Krag again, and dies shortly after learning that he is in fact Nightspore himself. The book concludes with a final revelation from Krag (who claims to be known on Earth as "Pain") to Nightspore about the origin of the Universe. The author turns out to support a variation of the doctrine of the Demiurge, somewhat similar to that propounded by some Gnostics. All of the characters and lands are types used to convey the author's critique of several philosophical systems. On Tormance, most such viewpoints or ways of life are accompanied by corresponding new bodily sense organs or modifications of the same, thus each distinct Weltanschauung landscape has its corresponding sensorium.

On the night of an undercard fight in Atlantic City, Micky's scheduled opponent is ill, and a substitute is found who is 20 pounds heavier than Micky, a huge difference in professional boxing, constituting two or three weight classes. Despite Micky's reservations, his mother and brother agree so that they can all get the purse and Micky is defeated. Micky retreats from the world and forms a relationship with Charlene Fleming, a former college athlete who dropped out and became a bartender. After several weeks, Alice arranges another fight for Micky, concerned it will turn out the same. His mother and seven sisters blame Charlene for his lack of motivation. Micky mentions he received an offer to be paid to train in Las Vegas, but Dicky says he will match the offer so he can keep training and working with his family. Dicky then tries to get money by posing his girlfriend as a prostitute and then, once she picks up a client, impersonating a police officer to steal the client's money. This is foiled by the actual police and Dicky is arrested after a chase and a fight with them. Micky tries to stop the police from beating his brother and a police officer brutally breaks his hand before arresting him. At their arraignment, Micky is released, but Dicky is sent to jail. Micky washes his hands of Dicky. On the night of the HBO documentary's airing, Dicky's family, and Dicky himself in prison, are horrified to see it is called Crack in America how crack addiction ruined Dicky's career and life. Dicky begins training and trying to get his life together in prison. Micky is lured back into boxing by his father, who believes Alice and his stepson Dicky are bad influences. The other members of his training team and a new manager, Sal Lanano, persuade Micky to return to boxing with the explicit understanding that his mother and brother will no longer be involved. They place Micky in minor fights to help him regain his confidence. He is then offered another major fight against an undefeated up-and-coming boxer. During a prison visit, Dicky advises Micky on how best to work his opponent, but Micky feels his brother is being selfish and trying to restart his own failed career. During the actual match, Micky is nearly overwhelmed, but then implements his brother's advice and triumphs; he earns the title shot for which his opponent was being groomed. Upon his release from prison, Dicky and his mother go to see Micky train. Assuming things are as they were, Dicky prepares to spar with his brother, but Micky informs him that he's no longer allowed per Micky's agreement with his current team. In the ensuing argument, in which Micky chastises both factions of his family, Charlene and his trainer leave in disgust. Micky and Dicky spar until Micky knocks Dicky down. Dicky storms off, presumably to get high again, and Alice chides Micky, only to be sobered when he tells her that she has always favored Dicky. Dicky returns to his crack house, where he says goodbye to his friends and heads to Charlene's apartment. He tells her that Micky needs both of them and they need to work together. After bringing everyone back together, the group goes to London for the title fight. Micky scores another upset victory and the welterweight title. The film jumps a few years ahead, with Dicky crediting his brother as the creator of his own success.

On Romulus members of the Romulan Imperial Senate debate whether or not to accept the terms of peace and alliance with the Reman rebel leader Shinzon. The Remans are a slave race of the Romulan Empire, used as miners and cannon fodder. A faction of the military is in support of Shinzon, but the Praetor and senate are set against it. After rejecting the motion, the Praetor and remaining senators are disintegrated by a device left in the room by a military-aligned senator. Meanwhile, the crew of the USS Enterprise-E prepares to bid farewell to first officer Commander William Riker and Counselor Deanna Troi, who are being married on Betazed. En route, they discover a positronic energy reading on a planet in the Kolaran system near the Romulan Neutral Zone. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Lieutenant Commander Worf, and Lieutenant Commander Data land on Kolarus III and discover the remnants of an android resembling Data. When the android is reassembled it introduces itself as B-4. The crew deduce it to be a less-advanced, earlier version of Data. Picard is contacted by Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway and orders the ship on a diplomatic mission to nearby Romulus. Janeway explains that the Romulan Empire has been taken over in a military coup by Shinzon, who says he wants peace with the Federation and to bring freedom to Remus. On arrival, they learn Shinzon is a clone of Picard, secretly created by Romulans to plant a high ranking spy into the Federation, but the project was abandoned and Shinzon left on Remus as a child to die as a slave. After many years, Shinzon became a leader of the Remans, and constructed his heavily armed flagship, the Scimitar. Initially, diplomatic efforts go well, but the Enterprise crew discover the Scimitar is producing low levels of thalaron radiation, which had been used to kill the Imperial Senate and is deadly to nearly all life forms. There are also unexpected attempts to communicate with the Enterprise computers, and Shinzon himself violates Troi's mind through the telepathy of his Reman viceroy. Dr. Crusher discovers that Shinzon is aging rapidly due to being a clone and the only possible means to stop it is a transfusion of Picard's own blood. Shinzon kidnaps Picard from the Enterprise, as well as B-4, having planted the android on the nearby planet to lure Picard to Romulus. However, Data reveals he has swapped places with B-4, rescues Picard, and returns to the Enterprise. They have now seen enough of the Scimitar to know that Shinzon plans to use the warship to invade the Federation using its thalaron radiation generator as a weapon, with the eradication of all life on Earth being his first priority. The Enterprise races back to Federation space but is ambushed by the Scimitar in the Bassen Rift, which prevents any subspace communications. Two Romulan Warbirds come to the Enterprise's aid, as they do not want to be complicit in Shinzon's genocidal plans, but Shinzon destroys one and disables the other. Recognizing the need to stop the Scimitar at all costs, Picard orders the Enterprise to ram the other ship. The collision leaves both ships heavily damaged and destroys the Scimitar's primary weapons. To assure their mutual destruction, Shinzon activates the thalaron weapon. Picard boards the Scimitar to face Shinzon alone, and eventually kills him by impaling him on a metal strut. Data jumps the distance between the two ships with a personal transporter to beam Picard back to the Enterprise, and then fires his phaser on the thalaron generator, which destroys the Scimitar and Data while saving the Enterprise. The crew mourns Data and the surviving Romulan commander offers them her gratitude for saving the Empire. The Enterprise returns to Earth for repairs. Picard bids farewell to newly promoted Captain Riker, who is off to command the USS Titan, to begin a possible peace-negotiation mission with the Romulans. Picard meets with B-4, discovering that Data had copied the engrams of his neural net into B-4's positronic matrix before he died. Though B-4 does not yet act as Data, Picard is assured that he will become like his friend in time.

The story follows its title heroine, from childhood to confirmation. After her mother's death, Lisbeth (given the nickname Longskirt, or SidsĂŚrk in the original Norwegian, because of her much too-long skirt, a Christmas present given her by her brother) as she moves from her original home at New Ridge farm (called "Peerout Castle" for its fine view of the valley), to Hoel farm, one of the central farms of the area. Her brother, Jacob, also goes to Nordrum farm to become a herdsman there. At Hoel, Lisbeth is cared for by Kjersti Hoel, the farm's owner, who has made a promise to Lisbeth's mother before she died. Lisbeth works with livestock both at the farm, and at the seter (sĂŚter in the book's transliteration), a mountain pasture used during the summertime. At the seter, Lisbeth meets two other herdsmen from neighboring farms, and spends the summer with them, getting to know them as she grows up. The content of the book concerns the difficult conditions of the work of the country children who had to eke out a poor existence far away from their parents. In spite of this account of their hard lot an optimistic kind of portrayal is predominant.

The film opens during the recording of Jim's An American Prayer and quickly moves to a childhood memory of his family driving along a desert highway in 1949, where a young Jim sees an elderly Native American dying by the roadside. In 1965, Jim arrives in California and is assimilated into the Venice Beach culture. During his film school days studying at UCLA, he meets his future girlfriend Pamela Courson, and has his first encounters with Ray Manzarek, as well as the rest of the people who would go on to form the Doors, Robby Krieger and John Densmore. Jim convinces his bandmates to travel to Death Valley and experience the effects of psychedelic drugs. Returning to Los Angeles, they play several shows at the famous nightclub Whisky a Go Go and develop a rabid fan base. Jim's onstage antics and occasionally improvised lyrics raise the ire of club owners; however, the band's popularity continues to expand. As the Doors become hugely successful, Jim becomes increasingly infatuated with his own image as "The Lizard King" and degenerates into alcoholism and drugs. Jim meets Patricia Kennealy, a rock journalist involved in witchcraft, and participates with her in mystical ceremonies. He joins her in a handfasting ceremony. An elder spirit watches these events. The rest of the band grows weary of Jim's missed recording sessions and absences at concerts. Jim arrives late to a Miami, Florida concert, becoming increasingly confrontational towards the audience and allegedly exposing himself onstage. The incident is a low point for the band, resulting in criminal charges against Jim, cancellations of shows, breakdowns in Jim's personal relationships, and resentment from the other band members. In 1970 after a lengthy trial, Jim is found guilty of indecent exposure and ordered to serve time in prison, he is however allowed to remain free on bail pending the results of an appeal. Patricia tells Jim that she is pregnant with his child but Jim convinces her to have an abortion. Jim visits his fellow Doors members one final time, attending a party thrown by Ray where he wishes the band luck in their future endeavors and gives them all a copy of An American Prayer. As Jim plays in the front garden with the children, he sees that one of the children is his childhood self. Jim comments "This is the strangest life I've ever known." In 1971, Pam finds Jim dead in a bathtub in Paris, France, at the age of 27. Pam dies three years later of a drug overdose, also at the age of 27. The final scenes of the film before the credits roll are of Jim's gravesite in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris while "A Feast of Friends" plays in the background. Just before the credits, the screen whites out and text appears saying "Jim Morrison is said to have died of heart failure. He was 27. Pam joined him three years later." During the credits, the band is shown recording the song "L.A. Woman" in the studio.

In the document, the Universal House of Justice asserts that world peace is possible and is now within reach for the first time in human history. It states, however, that the current international system of governance is flawed and is unable to eradicate the threats of war, terrorism, anarchy and economic instability. Adding to the problem is the widespread belief that human beings are intrinsically hostile and aggressive, and that these flaws make long-term global peace and stability unsustainable. The Statement presents a contrary argument that the human race has been developing and maturing through its history, that human beings are fundamentally spiritual in nature and are the creation of God. As a result, they are capable of building civilization and creating a peaceful world if they decide to do so. The Universal House of Justice asserts that peace cannot occur without religion and quotes Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith. “Religion is the greatest of all means for the establishment of order in the world and the peaceful contentment of all that dwell therein.” It is the Universal House of Justice’s contention that source of religious strife does not lie with the different religions themselves, but rather with the negligence of humanity and the, “imposition of erroneous interpretations". These interpretations have separated faith from reason and science from religion. Having rejected religion as irrelevant, societies around the world have adopted a wide number of ideologies that have failed to serve and support the interests of humanity as a whole. Peace cannot be achieved simply by banning particular weapons, resolving specific conflicts or by signing new treaties. It requires a whole new level of commitment. The statement asserts that a new framework must be adopted based on several overarching principles and a genuine interest in creating a peaceful and just world. The underlying problems that must be addressed include: Racism and discrimination based on race, gender and religious belief The inordinate disparity between the rich and the poor Unbridled Nationalism Religious strife The inequality between men and women The lack of educational opportunity for many around the world A fundamental lack of communication between peoples The Universal House of Justice goes on to say that peace must be founded on the understanding that mankind is essentially one human family. It then calls for the leaders of the world to gather and deliberate on the problem, for the full support of the United Nations and the willing assent of all people for that process of deliberation.

In 2003, Maya (Jessica Chastain), a young U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officer, has spent her entire brief career, since being recruited for the agency, focused solely on gathering intelligence related to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (Ricky Sekhon), following the terrorist organization's September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. She is reassigned to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan to work with a fellow officer, Dan (Jason Clarke). During the first months of her assignment, Maya often accompanies Dan to a black site for his continuing interrogation of Ammar al-Baluchi (Reda Kateb), a detainee with suspected links to several of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks. Dan subjects the detainee to approved torture interrogation techniques, i.e., stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep deprivation, waterboarding, and humiliation. After failing to get al-Baluchi to give up information on an attack in Saudi Arabia, he and Maya eventually trick Ammar into divulging that an old acquaintance, who is using the alias Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, is working as a personal courier for bin Laden. Other detainees corroborate this, with some claiming Abu Ahmed delivers messages between bin Laden and a man known as Abu Faraj al-Libbi. In 2005, Abu Faraj is apprehended by the CIA and local police in Pakistan. Maya is allowed to interrogate him, but he continues to deny knowing a courier with such a name. Maya interprets this as an attempt by Faraj to conceal the importance of Abu Ahmed. Maya spends the next five years sifting through masses of data and information, using a variety of technology, hunches, and sharing insights. She concentrates on finding Abu Ahmed, theorizing that he is the best way to find bin Laden. In 2008, she is caught up in the Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing. Dan, departing on reassignment, warns Maya about a possible change in politics, suggesting that the new administration may prosecute those officers who had been involved in interrogations. Maya's fellow officer and friend Jessica (Jennifer Ehle) is killed in the 2009 Camp Chapman attack. That same day, a grieving Maya receives an interrogation video of a Jordanian detainee, who claims the man previously identified from a photograph as Abu Ahmed is a man he personally buried in 2001. Several CIA officers – Maya's seniors – conclude the target who could be Abu Ahmed is long dead, and that they have searched a false trail for nine years. Sometime later, a fellow analyst researching Moroccan intelligence archives comes to Maya and suggests that Abu Ahmed is Ibrahim Sayeed, a suspect who had come to CIA attention shortly after 9/11. Realizing her lead may still be alive, Maya contacts Dan, now a senior officer at the CIA headquarters. She theorizes that the CIA's supposed photograph of Abu Ahmed was actually of his brother, Habib, as he was said to bear a striking resemblance to Ibrahim and was known to have been killed in Afghanistan, and points out that Abu Ahmed's death in 2001 contradicts Ammar's account. Dan uses CIA funds to purchase a Lamborghini for a Kuwaiti prince in exchange for the telephone number of Sayeed's mother. The CIA traces calls to the mother and quickly identifies one suspicious caller who persistently uses tradecraft to avoid detection. Maya concludes that the caller is Abu Ahmed, and with the support of her supervisors, numerous CIA operatives are deployed to search for and identify the caller. They locate him in his vehicle and eventually track him to a large urban compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, near the Pakistan Military Academy. As Maya leaves her residence one morning, she is attacked by multiple gunmen, but the bullet-proof glass in her car saves her. Knowing that she has been blacklisted by al-Qaeda and there will be more attempts on her life if she stays, her superiors remove her from the field and send Maya home to Washington, D.C. The CIA puts the compound under heavy surveillance for several months, using a variety of methods. Although they are confident from circumstantial evidence that bin Laden is there, they cannot prove this photographically. Meanwhile, the President's National Security Advisor tasks the CIA with producing a plan to capture or kill bin Laden if it can be confirmed that he is in the compound. An agency team devises a plan to use two top-secret stealth helicopters (developed at Area 51) flown by the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment to secretly enter Pakistan and insert members of DEVGRU and the CIA's SAD/SOG to raid the compound. Before briefing President Barack Obama, the CIA Director holds a meeting of his top officials, who assess only a 60–80% chance that bin Laden, rather than another high-value target, is living in the compound. Maya, also in attendance, states the chances are 100%. The raid is approved and is executed on May 2, 2011. Although execution is complicated by one of the helicopters' crashing, the SEALs gain entry and kill a number of people within the compound, among them a man on the compound's top floor who is revealed to be bin Laden. They bring bin Laden's body back to a U.S. base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where Maya visually confirms the identity of the corpse. Maya is last seen boarding a military transport to return to the U.S. and sitting in its vast interior as its only passenger. The pilot asks her where she wants to go, but she does not reply. As the plane's hangar door closes, Maya begins to cry softly.

The Mysteries of Udolpho is a quintessential Gothic romance, replete with incidents of physical and psychological terror; remote, crumbling castles; seemingly supernatural events; a brooding, scheming villain; and a persecuted heroine. Modern editors point out that only about one-third of the novel is set in the eponymous Gothic castle, and that the tone and style vary markedly between sections of the work. Radcliffe also added extensive descriptions of exotic landscapes in the Pyrenees and Apennines, and of Venice, none of which she visited and for details of which she relied on contemporary travel books, leading to the introduction of several anachronisms. Set in 1584 in southern France and northern Italy, the novel focuses on the plight of Emily St. Aubert, a young French woman who is orphaned after the death of her father. Emily suffers imprisonment in the castle Udolpho at the hands of Signor Montoni, an Italian brigand who has married her aunt and guardian Madame Cheron. Emily's romance with the dashing Valancourt is frustrated by Montoni and others. Emily also investigates the mysterious relationship between her father and the Marchioness de Villeroi, and its connection to the castle at Udolpho.Emily St. Aubert is the only child of a landed rural family whose fortunes are now in decline. Emily and her father share an especially close bond, due to their shared appreciation for nature. After her mother's death from a serious illness, Emily and her father grow even closer. She accompanies him on a journey from their native Gascony, through the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean coast of Roussillon, over many mountainous landscapes. During the journey, they encounter Valancourt, a handsome man who also feels an almost mystical kinship with the natural world. Emily and Valancourt quickly fall in love. Emily's father succumbs to a long illness. Emily, now orphaned, is forced by his wishes to live with her aunt, Madame Cheron, who shares none of Emily's interests and shows little affection to her. Her aunt marries Montoni, a dubious nobleman from Italy. He wants his friend Count Morano to become Emily's husband, and tries to force her to marry him. After discovering that Morano is nearly ruined Montoni brings Emily and her aunt to his remote castle of Udolpho. Emily fears to have lost Valancourt forever. Morano searches for Emily and tries to carry her off secretly from Udolpho. Emily refuses to join him because her heart still belongs to Valancourt. Morano's attempt to escape is discovered by Montoni, who wounds the Count and chases him away. In the following months Montoni threatens his wife with violence to force her to sign over her properties in Toulouse, which upon her death would otherwise go to Emily. Without resigning her estate Madame Cheron dies of a severe illness caused by her husband's harshness. Many frightening but coincidental events happen within the castle, but Emily is able to flee from it with the help of her secret admirer Du Pont, who was a prisoner at Udolpho, and the servants Annette and Ludovico. Returning to the estate of her aunt, Emily learns that Valancourt went to Paris and lost his wealth. In the end she takes control of the property and is reunited with Valancourt.

Frankie Ryan works as a page boy at a radio station located in Hollywood. His friend Jeff works in the same place, but as a porter. Their real dream is to perform as radio comedians on the air, with their own show. Unfortunately they haven't convinced anyone about their great sense of humor yet. When they try to help the station receptionist, Anne Mason, by setting up a false audition for the position as singer, they are almost fired for their antics. The station has financial problems related to their current moody singer Rita Wilson, and try to find a way to get rid of her. Their prayers are heard when Rita is shot and killed during a blackout when she is rehearsing for a broadcast. Police detectives Marty Phillips and Delaney arrive at the scene, and even though they haven't found the murder weapon, they start suspecting a wannabe cowboy singer, Tex Barton, who tried to slip out the back door after the shooting. He was in the audience when Rita was rehearsing before the blackout. Station producer Farrell is afraid of being suspected as well, since he had an argument with Rita not long before the shooting. He asks Frankie, who overheard the discussion, to not tell the police about it. As a sign of gratitude, Farrell promises to give Anne a real audition for the position as singer, which is empty since Rita is gone. Frankie soon finds the weapon used to shoot Rita, hidden in a ventilator duct. It turns out the gun belongs to Tex, and has been used in a prior shooting by a woman named Gladys Wharton. When Frankie and Jeff audition for a comedy spot on air (with Frankie in blackface as a disguise), the police come looking for Tex. Later, Tex is found murdered in the office of the station owner. Frankie and Jeff decide to do a little investigation of their own, and search Tex's room to see if they can find anything. The only thing of interest is a picture of Anne, suggesting that her real name is Gladys. Anne is therefore suspected of the murder and arrested by the police. However, a while later she makes bail and is released. Frankie discovers from a radio station in Cheyenne that the shooter Gladys Wharton was a blonde woman who fell for one of her superiors and left her husband - Tex. Since Anne is a true brunette, Frankie concludes that Rita could be Gladys instead of Anne. When all the station executives are gathered in one room by the police, one of them, Van Martin, pulls out a gun and confesses to both crimes. When Jeff enters the room unannounced, he accidentally knocks the gun out of Van's hand and the police arrest him.

In December 1995, Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is a time-obsessed systems engineer, who travels worldwide resolving productivity problems at FedEx depots. He is in a long-term relationship with Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt), with whom he lives in Memphis, Tennessee. Although the couple wants to get married, Chuck's busy schedule interferes with their relationship. A Christmas with relatives is interrupted when Chuck is summoned to resolve a problem in Malaysia. While flying through a violent storm, his plane crashes into the Pacific Ocean. Chuck escapes the sinking plane and is saved by an inflatable life-raft but loses the raft's emergency locator transmitter. He clings to the life-raft, loses consciousness, and floats all night before being washed up on an island. After he awakens, he explores the island and soon discovers that it is uninhabited. Several FedEx packages from the crashed plane wash up on the shore, as well as the corpse of one of the pilots, which he buries. He initially tries to signal for rescue and makes an escape attempt with the remnants of his life-raft but cannot pass the powerful surf and the coral reefs surrounding the island. He searches for food, water, shelter, and opens the packages, finding a number of potentially useful items. He leaves one package, with a pair of angel wings stenciled on it, unopened. During a first attempt to make fire, Chuck receives a deep wound to his hand. In anger and pain, he throws several objects, including a Wilson volleyball from one of the packages. A short time later he draws a face in the bloody hand print on the ball, names it Wilson, and begins talking to it. One night, Chuck calculates that in order for the rescue workers to find the site of the plane crash, they'll have to search an area twice the size of Texas, making him doubtful he will ever be found. Four years later, Chuck is dramatically thinner, bearded, with longer hair, and wearing a loincloth. He has become adept at spearing fish and making fires. He also has regular conversations and arguments with Wilson, his volleyball friend which has become his only means of socialization. A large section from a portable toilet washes up on the island; Chuck uses it as a sail in the construction of a raft. After spending some time building and stocking the raft and deciding when the weather conditions will be optimal (using an analemma he has created in his cave to monitor the time of year), he launches, using the sail to overcome the powerful surf. After some time on the ocean, a storm nearly tears his raft apart. The following day, Wilson falls from the raft and is cast away into the ocean, leaving Chuck crying and overwhelmed by loneliness. Later, a passing cargo ship finds him, drifting. Upon returning to civilization, Chuck learns that he has long been given up for dead; his family and acquaintances have held a funeral, and Kelly has since married Chuck's one-time endodontist and has a daughter. After reuniting with Kelly, the pair profess their love for each other but, realizing they can't be together because of her commitment to her new family (and also remembering that Chuck wasn't there for her last time), they sadly part. Kelly gives Chuck the keys to the car they once shared. Sometime later, after buying a new volleyball, Chuck travels to Canadian, Texas to return the unopened FedEx package with the angel wings to its sender, a woman named Bettina Peterson. The house at the address is empty, so he leaves the package at the door with a note saying that the package saved his life. He departs and stops at a remote crossroads. A friendly woman (Lari White) passing by in a pickup truck stops to explain where each road leads. As she drives away, Chuck notices the angel wings on the back of her truck is identical to the one on the parcel. As Chuck is left standing at the crossroads he looks down each road, then smiles faintly as he looks in the direction of the woman's truck.

The theme of the tale is the childhood sin of disobedience. Tom Kitten is a young cat who lives with his mother, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit, and sisters, Moppet and Mittens, in a house overrun with rats. Her children being an unruly bunch, Mrs. Twitchit puts Moppet and Mittens in a cupboard in order to keep them under control, but Tom Kitten escapes up the chimney. As he makes his way to the top of the house, he comes across a crack in the wall and, squeezing through it, finds himself under the attic's floorboards. There he meets the rats, Mr. Samuel Whiskers and his wife Anna Maria. They catch him and proceed to cover him with butter and dough they have stolen in order to eat him as a pudding. They are seen by the two other Kittens who are hiding from their mother as they steal the dough, butter, and rolling-pin. However, when they proceed to settle the dough with a rolling-pin, the noise gets through the floorboards and attracts the attention of Tabitha Twitchit and her cousin Ribby who has been helping search for Tom. They quickly call for John Joiner, the carpenter, who saws open the floor and rescues Tom. He has the dough removed, is washed, and the remains of the dumpling are eaten by the family. Whiskers and his wife escape to the barn of Farmer Potatoes, spreading their chaos to another location, though leaving the cat family residence in peace. Potter mentions herself as seeing Samuel Whiskers and Anna Maria making their escape, using a wheelbarrow that looks like her own. Tom is so affected by the incident that while his sisters become fine rat-catchers he is afraid of anything larger than a mouse.

Wounded and dishonourably discharged from the Prussian Army, Major von Tellheim finds himself waiting at a Berlin hotel with his servant for the outcome of his trial, threatened by financial troubles and serious bribery allegations. His penniless condition is because repayment of a large sum advanced to the government during the recent war is being held up and his honor in making the loan questioned. During Tellheim's absence from the inn, the landlord has caused Tellheim's effects to be removed, ostensibly because his rooms were needed for a lady and her maid. In reality, the landlord doubts Tellheim's ability to pay, since he is already somewhat in arrears. In the removal of the Major's possessions, the landlord comes upon a sealed envelope marked as containing five hundred thalers. This discovery makes him anxious to placate Tellheim. What he does not know is that the money has been left with the Major by Paul Werner, his former sergeant. Werner knowing Tellheim's predicament is in hope that he will use the money as his own. Tellheim is too honorable to borrow when he has no assurance of repaying. Instead, he bids his servant, Just, take his last possession of value, an expensive ring, and pawn it to satisfy the landlord's bill and his own back wages. Just pledges the ring with the landlord but refuses to accept either wages or dismissal on the plea that he is in Tellheim's debt and will have to work it out. The garrulous landlord shows the ring to his newly arrived guests, revealing considerable concerning the owner's circumstances. The lady, Minna von Barnhelm, recognizes the ring as one of the betrothal rings which she and Tellheim had exchanged, and is overjoyed that her search for her missing lover is ended. When Tellheim appears, however, he refuses to accept her hand or to continue the engagement on account of his precarious circumstances. When no argument can move him, Minna with the help of her maid, Franziska, pretends that she, too, is penniless and in dire straits. Under these circumstances Tellheim immediately claims the privilege of marrying and protecting her. At this point a delayed letter from the King is delivered. It announces the restoration of Tellheim's fortune and the vindication of his honor. To punish him for making her suffer, Minna now pretends that she cannot marry Tellheim because of the inequality of their circumstances. In answer to his pleas, she uses his own recent arguments to confound him. Only when Tellheim is reduced to the verge of despair and the belated arrival of Minna's uncle and guardian threatens to give the whole thing away does Minna relent and reveal the truth. In a final scene of celebration, matters are settled to the satisfaction of everyone including Franziska and Paul Werner who have discovered a lively interest in each other.

The film is a postmodern spoof that tells the story of Zeus' modern day illegitimate children, Filmore (Tony Griffin) and his half-sister Marie-Noel (Alison Elliott), who are forced to move from their Channel Island ranch because their neighbors have grown suspicious of the fact they haven't aged for decades. Meanwhile, the U.S. government wants to turn their land into a national park. When the twelve Greek Gods return to Los Angeles for relaxation Zeus expects them to correctly identify the play fated and modeled around their current lives—Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest—and perform the work flawlessly, in its entirety, for the Gods' entertainment. By such means, as the play's plot unfolds, the children are guaranteed new, credible lives. "Act or die," he commands. But if they fail to perform the play to its conclusion, or if they rebel, they will be killed by jealous Hera. The mere existence of these illegitimate children are an outrage to her, representing Zeus' countless infidelities. 12—whose title is often mistakenly derived from the number of years it took to create the film (10 actually)—is described by Variety as "equal parts L.A. love story, The Importance of Being Earnest, spoof on Greek gods and personal diary of actual events from 1988 to 1998." The director used more than 500,000 feet (150,000 m) of film.

The novel begins as the narrator, Jenny, describes her cousin by marriage Kitty Baldry pining in the abandoned nursery where her dead first son would have been raised. Occupied with the domestic management of the Baldry estate just outside London, the two are almost completely removed from the horrors of World War I. The only exception is that Kitty's husband, Chris Baldry, is a British soldier fighting in France. While Kitty laments in the nursery, Margaret Grey arrives at the estate wishing to bear news to the two women. When Jenny and Kitty meet her, they are surprised to find a drab middle-aged woman. And even more to their shock, Margaret tells them that the War Office sent her, not Kitty and Jenny, notification of Chris's injury and return home. Kitty dismisses Margaret from the estate trying to deny that she could have been the recipient of such information. Soon after, another cousin of Jenny notifies the two women that he in fact has visited Chris and he is obsessing over Margaret, whom he had had a summer fling with fifteen years before. Soon after, Chris returns shell-shocked to the estate thinking he is still twenty years old, but finding himself in a strange world which had aged fifteen years beyond his memory. Trying to understand what is real for Chris, Jenny asks Chris to explain what he is feeling to be true. Chris tells her the story of a romantic summer on Monkey Island, where Chris at the age of twenty fell in love with Margaret, the daughter of the innkeeper on the island. The summer ends with a rash departure by Chris caused by a fit of jealousy. After Chris tells this story, Jenny travels to nearby Wealdstone to bring Margaret back to Chris and help him understand the difference between his remembered past and reality. She arrives at Margaret's dilapidated row-house to find her disheveled and taking care of her husband. After some conversation, Jenny convinces Margaret to return with her to the estate in order to help Chris. Upon Margaret's return, Chris recognizes her and becomes excited. Before returning to her home, Margaret explains that fifteen years have passed since their Monkey Island summer and that Chris is now married to Kitty. Chris acknowledges this passage of time intellectually but cannot retrieve his memories and still pines for Margaret. Margaret continues to visit, and Kitty and Jenny despair about Chris's loss of memory. Jenny and Kitty decide to consult Dr Gilbert Anderson, a psychoanalyst. Dr. Anderson arrives during one of Margaret's visits and questions the women, and with the help of Margaret decides on a course of treatment: Margaret must confront Chris with proof of his dead child. Margaret retrieves toys and some of the child's clothing, and confronts Chris with the truth. Finally, Chris regains his memory, Margaret departs and Kitty rejoices in the Chris's return to a state fit to be a soldier.

Desperate to discover a cure for the cyclical 48-year-fever, known as Trailmen’s fever, Dr. Randall Forth persuades a colleague, Dr. Jay Allison, to undergo hypnosis. He calls forth a secondary personality, Jason Allison, who is gregarious and an experienced mountain climber, while Dr. Jay Allison is a cold, clinical man with no outdoor skills. Jason is asked to lead an expedition into the Hellers to collect medical volunteers from among the Trailmen. Accompanying him are Rafe Scott, Regis Hastur, Kyla Raineach, a Renunciate guide, and several others. During the trip, Jay/Jason yo-yos between his two personalities – one warm and charming, the other distant and clinical. Jason, the warm personality, falls in love with Kyla. They are attacked on the trail by a party of hostile Trailwomen. As a result of the attack, the Jay personality reappears, and is considerably more formal than the Jason personality. When they reach the Trailmen nest where Jay/Jason lived as a child, he is recognized. The party is invited into the Trailmen’s tree habitat. The Old Ones of the Sky People (Trailmen) inquire why Jay/Jason has brought an armed party of humans to their nest. Jay/Jason explains his mission, to find a remedy for 48-year-fever. He introduces Regis Hastur to the Old Ones, and Regis also pleads for the Sky People’s assistance. One hundred Trailmen volunteer. The party, with volunteers, returns to the Terran Trade City. Some months later, a serum is developed for the treatment of 48-year-fever. Regis Hastur arrives to congratulate Jay/Jason Allison. The exposure to Regis reminds Jay/Jason of the expedition, and causes Jay/Jason to merge into a third, more stable personality.

Chance (Peter Sellers) is a middle-aged man who lives in the townhouse of an old, wealthy man in Washington, D.C. He is simple-minded and has lived there his whole life, tending the garden. Other than gardening, his knowledge is derived entirely from what he sees on television. When his benefactor dies, Chance naively says to the estate attorney that he has no claim against the estate, and is ordered to move out. Thus he discovers the outside world for the first time. Chance wanders aimlessly. He passes by a TV shop and sees himself captured by a camera in the shop window. Entranced, he steps backward off the sidewalk and is struck by a chauffeured car owned by Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas), an elderly business mogul. In the back seat of the car sits Rand's much younger wife, Eve (Shirley MacLaine). Eve brings Chance to their home to recover. Drinking alcohol for the first time during the car ride home, Chance coughs as he tells Eve his name. Eve mishears "Chance, the gardener" as "Chauncey Gardiner". Chauncey is wearing expensive tailored clothes from the 1920s and '30s, which his benefactor had allowed him to take from the attic, and his manners are old-fashioned and courtly. When Ben Rand meets him, he assumes from these signs that Chauncey is an upper-class, highly educated businessman. Chauncey's simple words, spoken often due to confusion or to a stating of the obvious, are repeatedly misunderstood as profound; in particular, his simplistic utterances about gardens and the weather are interpreted as allegorical statements about business and the state of the economy. Rand admires him, finding him direct and insightful. Rand is also a confidant and adviser to the President of the United States (Jack Warden), whom he introduces to "Chauncey". The President likewise interprets Chauncey's remarks about the "garden" as economic and political advice. Chance, as Chauncey Gardiner, quickly rises to national public prominence. After his appearance on a television talk show, he becomes a celebrity and soon rises to the top of Washington society. He remains very mysterious, as the Secret Service is unable to find any background information about him. Public opinion polls start to reflect just how much his "simple brand of wisdom" resonates with the jaded American public. Rand, who is dying of aplastic anemia, encourages Eve to become close to Chauncey. She is already attracted to him and makes a sexual advance. Chauncey has no interest in or knowledge of sex, but mimics a kissing scene from the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair, which happens to be on the TV at the moment. When the TV scene ends, Chauncey stops suddenly and Eve is confused. She asks what he likes, meaning sexually; he replies "I like to watch", meaning television. She is momentarily taken aback, but decides she is willing to masturbate for his voyeuristic pleasure. As she becomes involved in the act, she does not notice that he has turned back to the TV and is watching it, not her. Chauncey is present at Rand's death, after which he talks briefly with Rand's physician, Dr. Allenby. During their conversation, Allenby realizes the truth – that Chauncey is merely a simpleminded gardener who knows nothing of finance or politics – but does not appear bothered by it. At Rand's funeral, while the President delivers a speech, the pall-bearers hold a whispered discussion over potential replacements for the President in the next term of office. As Rand's coffin is about to be interred in the family mausoleum, they unanimously agree on "Chauncey Gardiner". Oblivious to all this, Chauncey wanders through Rand's wintry estate. He straightens out a pine sapling and then walks off across the surface of a small lake. He pauses, dips his umbrella into the deep water under his feet as if testing its depth, turns, and then continues to walk on the water as the President quotes Rand: "Life is a state of mind."

Mountaineer and adventurer Aron Ralston (James Franco) drives to Utah's Canyonlands National Park for a day of hiking. On foot, he befriends hikers Kristi (Kate Mara) and Megan (Amber Tamblyn), and shows them an underground pool. After swimming, Aron parts ways with the hikers, and continues his hike through a slot canyon in Blue John Canyon. While climbing down, he slips and falls, knocking loose a boulder which flattens his right hand and wrist against the wall. Unable to move the boulder, he tries calling for help but realizes that he is alone. He begins recording a video diary to maintain morale, and uses his pocket knife, with his left hand, to chip away parts of the boulder in order to free his trapped arm. He rations his food and water, in order to survive the ordeal. After many hours of chipping away at the boulder, he realizes he is not getting any closer to freeing himself. He sets up a pulley system using his climbing rope to try and lift the boulder, to futile attempt. Days after being trapped, Ralston considers using his pocket knife to cut himself free, but finds the dull blade unable to cut bone. With no water, he is forced to drink his own urine. His vlogs then becomes desperate and depressed. He hallucinates about escape, relationships, and past experiences, including a former lover (ClĂŠmence PoĂŠsy), family (Lizzy Caplan, Treat Williams, Kate Burton), and the hikers he met earlier. He starts seeing the boulder that has trapped him as his destiny. Ralston realizes that by his knowledge of applying torque, he can break the radius and ulna, letting him amputate his arm in order to escape. He fashions a crude tourniquet out of CamelBak tube insulation, uses a carabiner to tighten it, and cuts tissue soon to his success. He wraps the stump of his arm to prevent exsanguination and takes a picture of the boulder. He then rappels down a 65-foot rockface using his other arm, and drinks rainwater from a small pond in the hot midday sun. During his miles-long hike for help, he stops to admire the Great Gallery at the Horseshoe Canyon (Utah). He meets a family on a day hike, who alert the authorities to Ralston's presence, and a Utah Highway Patrol helicopter is dispatched. Ralston is taken to a hospital where he recovers, and is fitted with a prosthesis, and continues his hobbies of climbing canyons and mountains, along with starting a family of his own.

The book is broken up into four parts. The first section, "Mrs Baines" details the adolescence of both Sophia and Constance, and their life in their father's shop and house (a combined property). The father is ill and bedridden, and the main adult in their life is Mrs Baines, their mother. By the end of the first book, Sophia (whose name reflects her sophistication, as opposed to the constant Constance) has eloped with a travelling salesman. Constance meanwhile marries Mr Povey, who works in the shop. The second part, "Constance", details the life of Constance from that point forward up until the time she is reunited with her sister in old age. Her life, although outwardly prosaic, is nevertheless filled with personal incident, including the death of her husband, Mr Povey, and her concerns about the character and behaviour of her son. The third part, "Sophia", carries forward the story of what happened to Sophia after her elopement. Abandoned by her husband in Paris, Sophia eventually becomes the owner of a successful pensione. The final part, "What Life Is", details how the two sisters are eventually reunited. Sophia returns to England and the house of her childhood, where Constance still lives.

Arsène Lupin is opposed this time by Isidore Beautrelet, a young but gifted amateur detective, who is still in high school but who is poised to give Arsène Lupin a big headache. In the Arsène Lupin universe, the Hollow Needle is the second secret of Marie Antoinette and Alessandro Cagliostro, the hidden fortune of the kings of France, as revealed to Arsène Lupin by Josephine Balsamo in the novel The Countess of Cagliostro (1924). The Mystery of the Hollow Needle hides a secret that the Kings of France have been handing down since the time of Julius Caesar... and now Arsène Lupin has mastered it. The legendary needle contains the most fabulous treasure ever imagined, a collection of queens' dowries, pearls, rubies, sapphires and diamonds... the fortune of the kings of France. When Isidore Beautrelet discovers the Château de l'Aiguille in the department of Creuse, he thinks that he has found the solution to the riddle ("l'Aiguille Creuse" being French for "The Hollow Needle", and also the French title of the novel). However, he did not realize that the château was built by Louis XIV, the king of France, to put people off the track of a needle in Normandy, near the town of Le Havre, where Arsène Lupin, known also under the name of Louis Valméras, has hidden himself.

John Buckingham (Ben Chaplin), a lonely St Albans bank clerk, orders a mail-order bride Nadia (Nicole Kidman) from Russia on the Internet. John is uncomfortable and shy, but Nadia is sexually bold. Though Nadia cannot speak English and John cannot speak Russian, they soon bond. Later on, a man she introduces as her cousin Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitz) and his friend Alexei (Vincent Cassel) turn up to celebrate her birthday. Alexei soon shows that he has a temper. After a violent altercation, Alexei holds Nadia hostage and demands a ransom from John. John has grown to care for Nadia and is forced to steal from the bank where he has worked for ten years. After the ransom is paid, he realises that he has been the victim of an elaborate con. Nadia, Yuri, and Alexei are criminals, and Alexei is actually Nadia's boyfriend. John learns that the trio have carried out the same scam on men from Switzerland and Germany, among others. They take him prisoner, strip him down to his underpants, and tie him to a toilet in a motel. He eventually manages to free himself and quickly learns that Nadia has been left behind after Alexei discovered she was pregnant. John gets dressed and subsequently gets into a scrap with Nadia, who later reveals that she can indeed speak English and that her name is not Nadia. John takes Nadia to turn her into the police - hoping to clear his name as a wanted bank robber. Ultimately, however, he sympathises with her and decides against it. He leaves her at the airport, where she is kidnapped by Alexei – who now wants Nadia to have the baby. John rescues her, tying Alexei to a chair. They make common cause against the two Russian men. Nadia informs John that her real name is Sophia. John, disguised as Alexei, leaves for Russia with Sophia.

Marty Piletti (Ernest Borgnine) is an Italian American butcher who lives in The Bronx with his mother (Esther Minciotti). Unmarried at 34, the good-natured but socially awkward Marty faces constant badgering from family and friends to settle down, pointing out that all his brothers and sisters are already married with children. Not averse to marriage but disheartened by his lack of prospects, Marty has reluctantly resigned himself to bachelorhood. After being harassed by his mother into going to the Stardust Ballroom one Saturday night, Marty connects with Clara (Betsy Blair), a plain schoolteacher who is quietly weeping on the roof after being callously abandoned at the ballroom by her blind date. They spend the evening together dancing, walking the busy streets, and talking in a diner. Marty eagerly spills out his life story and ambitions, and they encourage each other. He brings Clara to his house, and they awkwardly express their mutual attraction, shortly before his mother returns. Marty takes her home by bus, promising to call her at 2:30 the next afternoon, after Mass. Overjoyed, he punches the bus stop sign and weaves between the cars, looking for a cab. Meanwhile, his cranky, busybody widowed Aunt Catherine (Augusta Ciolli) moves in to live with Marty and his mother. She warns his mother that Marty will soon marry and cast her aside. Fearing that Marty's romance could spell her abandonment, his mother belittles Clara. Marty's friends, with an undercurrent of envy, deride Clara for her plainness and try to convince him to forget her and to remain with them, unmarried, in their fading youth. Harangued into submission by the pull of his friends, Marty doesn't call Clara. That night, back in the same lonely rut, Marty realizes that he is giving up a woman whom he not only likes, but who makes him happy. Over the objections of his friends, he dashes to a phone booth to call Clara, who is disconsolately watching television with her parents. When his friend asks what he's doing, Marty bursts out saying: You don't like her, my mother don't like her, she's a dog and I'm a fat, ugly man! Well, all I know is I had a good time last night! I'm gonna have a good time tonight! If we have enough good times together, I'm gonna get down on my knees and I'm gonna beg that girl to marry me! If we make a party on New Year's, I got a date for that party. You don't like her? That's too bad! Marty closes the phone booth's door when Clara answers the phone. In the last line of the film, he tentatively says "Hello... Hello, Clara?".

Mrs. Frisby is the widowed head of a family of field mice. Mrs. Frisby's son, Timothy, is ill with pneumonia just as the farmer Mr. Fitzgibbon begins preparation for spring plowing in the garden where the Frisby family lives. Normally she would move her family, but Timothy would not survive the cold trip to their summer home. Mrs. Frisby obtains medicine from her friend Mr. Ages, an older white mouse. On the return journey, she saves the life of Jeremy, a young crow, from Dragon, the farmer's cat - the same cat who had killed her husband, Jonathan. Jeremy suggests she seek help in moving Timothy from an owl who dwells in the forest. Jeremy flies Mrs. Frisby to the owl's tree, but the owl says he can't help until he finds out that she is the widow of Jonathan Frisby. He suggests that Mrs. Frisby seek help from the rats who live in a rosebush near her. Mrs. Frisby discovers the rats have a literate and mechanized society. They have technology such as elevators, have tapped the electricity grid to provide lighting and heating, and have acquired other human skills, such as storing food for the winter. Their leader, Nicodemus, tells Mrs. Frisby of the rats' capture by scientists working for a laboratory located at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the subsequent experiments that the humans performed on the rats, which increased the rats' intelligence to the point of being able to read, write, and operate complicated machines, as well as enhancing their longevity and strength. This increased intelligence and strength allowed them to escape from the NIMH laboratories and migrate to their present location. Jonathan Frisby and Mr. Ages were the only two survivors of a group of eight mice who had been part of the experiments at NIMH, and made the rats' escape possible. Out of respect for Jonathan, the rats agree to move Mrs. Frisby's house to a location safe from the plow. Nicodemus also tells Mrs. Frisby about "The Plan", which is to abandon their lifestyle of dependence on humans, which some rats regard as theft, for a new, independent farming colony. One rat, Jenner, disagreed vehemently with The Plan and left the colony with a group of followers at some point prior to Mrs. Frisby's arrival. To move the Frisby home, the rats have to drug Dragon as it is too dangerous to work in the open without any place to hide. However, Mr. Ages has a broken leg and cannot dash to Dragon's bowl to put in the drug. Since the other rats are too big to fit into the hole in the wall to enter the house, Mrs. Frisby volunteers to go. Unfortunately, she is caught by the family's son, Billy, who puts her in a cage. While captured, Mrs. Frisby overhears the Fitzgibbons discussing an incident at a nearby hardware store in which a group of rats were electrocuted after seemingly attempting to steal a small motor. This has attracted the attention of a group of men (who never identify themselves) who have offered to exterminate the rat colony on Fitzgibbon's land free of charge for him. At night, Justin (one of the rats) comes to save Mrs. Frisby and manages to get her out of the cage. Mrs. Frisby warns Justin of what she learned while captured; they assume that the rats at the hardware store were all from Jenner's group and that the group of men were from NIMH and are looking for them specifically. The successful house move allows the mouse family to remain while Timothy recovers before moving to their summer home. Although the rats have not yet had time to move everything they needed for The Plan, they manage to destroy their underground rooms, and create the illusion that they are just regular rats by placing rubbish in the remaining rooms. As the others move, ten rats stay behind so the exterminators would not think the rat hole has been abandoned. When the exterminators fill the rat hole with poisonous gas, eight of the ten rats manage to escape, while two rats die in the hole. It is not revealed exactly who these two are. Once Timothy recovers, Mrs. Frisby and her family move to their summer home, and Martin makes plans to visit the rats when they return to their winter home again.

In this essay, Kant proposed a peace program to be implemented by governments. The "Preliminary Articles" described these steps that should be taken immediately, or with all deliberate speed: "No secret treaty of peace shall be held valid in which there is tacitly reserved matter for a future war" "No independent states, large or small, shall come under the dominion of another state by inheritance, exchange, purchase, or donation" "Standing armies shall in time be totally abolished" "National debts shall not be contracted with a view to the external friction of states" "No state shall by force interfere with the constitution or government of another state" "No state shall, during war, permit such acts of hostility which would make mutual confidence in the subsequent peace impossible: such are the employment of assassins (percussores), poisoners (venefici), breach of capitulation, and incitement to treason (perduellio) in the opposing state" Three Definitive Articles would provide not merely a cessation of hostilities, but a foundation on which to build a peace. "The civil constitution of all states to be republican" "The law of nations shall be founded on a federation of free states" "The law of world citizenship shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality" Kant's essay in some ways resembles modern democratic peace theory. He speaks of republican, Republikanisch, (not democratic), states, which he defines to have representative governments, in which the legislature is separated from the executive. He does not discuss universal suffrage, which is vital to modern democracy and quite important to some modern theorists; later commentators dispute whether it is implied by his language. The essay does not treat republican governments as sufficient by themselves to produce peace: freedom of emigration (hospitality) and a league of nations are necessary to consciously enact his six-point program. Kant claims that republics will be at peace not only with each other, but are more pacific than other forms of government in general.

The story begins in 1647 when King Charles I has been defeated in the civil war and has fled from London towards the New Forest. Parliamentary soldiers have been sent to search the forest and decide to burn Arnwood, the house of Colonel Beverley, a Cavalier officer killed at the Battle of Naseby. The four orphan children of the house, Edward, Humphrey, Alice and Edith, are believed to have died in the flames. However, they are saved by Jacob Armitage, a local verderer, who hides them in his isolated cottage and disguises them as his grandchildren. Under Armitage's guidance, the children adapt from an aristocratic lifestyle to that of simple foresters. After Armitage's death, Edward takes charge and the children develop and expand the farmstead, aided by the entrepreneurial spirit of the younger brother Humphrey. They are assisted by a gypsy boy, Pablo, who they rescue from a pitfall trap. A sub-plot involves a hostile Puritan gamekeeper named Corbould who seeks to harm Edward and his family. Edward also encounters the sympathetic Puritan, Heatherstone, placed in charge of the Royal land in the New Forest, and rescues his daughter, Patience, in a house-fire. Edward leaves the cottage and works as a secretary for Heatherstone, but Edward maintains the pretence that he is the grandson of Jacob Armitage. Edward eventually joins the army of the future King Charles II, but after the Royalist defeat at the Battle of Worcester, he returns to the New Forest where he learns that Heatherstone has been awarded the old Arnwood estate. Disillusioned by this, and by Patience's apparent rejection of his declarations of love, Edward flees to France. His sisters are sent away to be brought up as aristocratic ladies and his brother continues to live in the New Forest. Edward learns that Patience does, in fact, love him, and that Heatherstone had acquired the Arnwood estate for Edward, but he works as a mercenary soldier in exile until the Restoration when they are reunited.

In the winter of 1987, Minneapolis car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (Macy) is desperate for money; repayment is due on a large GMAC loan that he fraudulently collateralized with nonexistent dealership vehicles. Dealership mechanic Shep Proudfoot (Steve Reevis), an ex-convict, refers him to an old partner in crime, Gaear Grimsrud (Stormare). Jerry travels to Fargo, North Dakota, where he hires Gaear and Carl Showalter (Buscemi) to kidnap his wife, Jean (Kristin Rudr端d), and extort a ransom from his wealthy father-in-law and boss, Wade Gustafson (Presnell). He gives the men a new car from his dealership's lot, and promises to split the $80,000 ransom with them. Back in Minneapolis, Jerry pitches Gustafson a lucrative real estate deal; when Gustafson agrees to front the money, Jerry attempts to call off the kidnapping, but it is already in motion. Then, he learns that Gustafson plans to make the deal himself, leaving Jerry a paltry finder's fee. Carl and Gaear kidnap Jean in Minneapolis as planned. While transporting her to their remote cabin hideout, a state trooper pulls them over outside Brainerd, Minnesota for driving without the required temporary tags over the dealership plates. After Carl tries and fails to bribe the trooper, Gaear kills him. When two passing eyewitnesses spot Carl disposing of the body, Gaear kills them as well. The following morning, Brainerd police chief Marge Gunderson (McDormand), who is seven months pregnant, initiates a homicide investigation. Records from the murdered trooper's last traffic stop, along with a phone call to Proudfoot, placed at a local truck stop by two suspicious men, lead her to Jerry's dealership, where she questions Jerry and Proudfoot. While in Minneapolis, Marge reconnects with Mike Yanagita (Steve Park), an old classmate who takes her to dinner, tells her that his wife, another classmate, has died, and attempts to seduce her. Jerry informs Gustafson and his accountant, Stan Grossman (Larry Brandenburg), that the kidnappers have demanded $1 million, and will deal only through him. Meanwhile, Carl, in light of the unanticipated complication of three murders, demands that Jerry hand over the entire ransom (which he still believes is $80,000); and GMAC gives Jerry 24 hours to repay their loan or face legal consequences. When the time comes for the money drop, Gustafson decides to deal with the kidnappers himself. At the pre-arranged drop point in a parking garage, he refuses to hand over the cash-filled briefcase to Carl until his daughter is returned. Carl kills Gustafson, takes the briefcase, and flees, but not before taking a bullet in the jaw from Gustafson. When he opens the briefcase, Carl is astounded to discover far more than the anticipated $80,000. He removes that amount to split with Gaear, then stashes the rest, intending to return for it later and keep it for himself. At the hideout, he discovers that Gaear has killed Jean. After a heated argument over who gets the new car that Jerry gave them, Gaear kills Carl as well. During a phone conversation with a mutual friend, Marge learns that Yanagita's dead wife was never his wife, nor is she dead, and that Yanagita is the perpetrator behind a long series of anonymous harassments. Reflecting on Yanagita's treachery and convincing lies, Marge returns to the car dealership and re-questions Jerry, who refuses to cooperate. When she asks to speak to Gustafson, Jerry panics and flees the dealership. After returning to Brainerd, Marge drives to Moose Lake, where she recognizes the dealership car from the dead trooper's description. She finds Gaear feeding the last of Carl's body into a wood chipper. He tries to escape, but Marge shoots him in the leg and arrests him. Meanwhile, North Dakota police track Jerry to a motel outside Bismarck, where he is arrested while attempting to escape through a bathroom window. That night, Marge and her husband, Norm (John Carroll Lynch), discuss Norm's mallard painting, which has been selected as the design for a US postage stamp. Marge is very proud of his achievement, and the two happily anticipate the birth of their child.

In the Australian Outback, a young boy named Cody rescues and befriends a rare giant eagle named Marahute, who shows him her nest and eggs. Later on, the boy unknowingly falls into an animal trap set by Percival C. McLeach, a local poacher wanted by the Australian Rangers. When McLeach finds one of the eagle's feathers on the boy's backpack, he is instantly overcome with excitement, for he knows that catching an eagle that size would make him rich because he had caught one before, which was Marahute's mate. McLeach throws Cody's backpack to a pack of crocodiles in order to trick the Rangers into thinking that Cody was dead, and kidnaps him in his attempt to force him to reveal the whereabouts of Marahute. A mouse, the bait in the trap, runs off to alert the Rescue Aid Society. A telegram is sent to the Rescue Aid Society headquarters in New York City, where Bernard and Miss Bianca, the RAS' elite field agents, are assigned to the mission, despite Bernard's attempts to propose marriage to Bianca. They go to find Orville the albatross who aided them previously, but instead find his brother Wilbur. Bernard and Bianca convince Wilbur to fly them to Australia to save Cody. In Australia, they meet Jake, a hopping mouse who is the RAS' local regional operative. Jake becomes infatuated with Bianca and starts flirting with her, despite Bernard's chagrin. He serves as their "tour guide" and protector in search of the missing boy. At the same time, Wilbur is immobilized when his spinal column is bent out of its natural shape, convincing Jake to send him to a nearby hospital run by mice. Wilbur, terrified of the surgical equipment the doctor intends to use (including a chainsaw), refuses to undergo surgery and is forced to flee. His back is unintentionally straightened by the efforts of the mouse medical staff preventing him from escaping through a window. Cured, Wilbur departs in search of his friends. At McLeach's ranch, Cody has been thrown into the dungeon with several of McLeach's imprisoned animals for refusing to give up Marahute's whereabouts. Cody tries to free himself and the animals using various objects tied together with a hook on the end, but he is thwarted every time by Joanna, McLeach's pet goanna. Realizing that Marahute's eggs are Cody's weak spot, McLeach tricks Cody into thinking that Marahute has died, causing Cody to lead him straight to Marahute's nest. Bernard, Bianca, and Jake, knowing that Cody is about to fall for a trap, jump onto McLeach's Halftrack to follow him. At Marahute's nest, the three mice try to warn Cody that he has been followed; for just as they do, McLeach arrives and captures Marahute, along with Cody, Jake, and Bianca. Following McLeach's orders, Joanna tries to eat Marahute's eggs, but realizes they are actually egg-shaped rocks. Frightened that McLeach might be angry with her, Joanna drops the stones over the cliff instead. When she leaves, Bernard crawls out of the nest with the hidden eggs, grateful that Joanna fell for the trick. Just then, Wilbur arrives at the nest, whereupon Bernard convinces him to sit on the eagle's eggs, so that Bernard can go after McLeach. Enraged by Cody's interference, McLeach takes his captives to Crocodile Falls, where he ties Cody up and hangs him over a group of crocodiles in attempts to feed him to them. But Bernard, riding a wild razorback pig he had tamed using a horse whispering technique that Jake used on a snake earlier, follows and disables McLeach's vehicle. McLeach then tries to shoot the rope holding Cody above the water. To save Cody, Bernard tricks Joanna into crashing into McLeach, causing them to both fall into the water. This causes the crocodiles to turn their attention from Cody toward McLeach and Joanna, while behind them the badly damaged rope holding Cody breaks apart. McLeach fights and fends off the crocodiles, but although Joanna manages to reach the shoreline, McLeach is swept over the waterfall to his death. Bernard dives into the water to save Cody, but every time he fails. His actions, however, buy Jake and Bianca enough time to free Marahute so they can save both Cody and Bernard. Bernard, desperate to prevent any further incidents, proposes to Bianca, who eagerly and happily accepts while Jake salutes him with a newfound respect. All of them depart for Cody's home. Back at the nest, Marahute's eggs finally hatch, much to Wilbur's dismay.

The play's double plotline concerns the romance between Letitia Hardy and Doricourt, as well as the relationship between Sir George Touchwood and his wife, Lady Frances Touchwood. The story comes to a dĂŠnouement at the masquerade ball of the last act. As described by the press office of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, "Set in 1780s London, The Belle's Stratagem is the tale of Letitia Hardy, promised to the charming Doricourt whom she hasn't seen since childhood. Her plan to enchant him with her wit and charm is turned upside-down when she discovers she's fallen madly in love with him, and he seems quite unmoved by her. Desiring to marry a man who adores her equally, she plans a bold deception--to have love as she likes it. Interwoven with Letitia's scheme to trick Doricourt into passion is the story of the newly married Touchwoods. Sir George is wildly jealous of his lovely country-bred wife and his fear of her being corrupted by fashionable life encourages plots by his acquaintance to turn Lady Frances into a fine lady in order to spite Sir George." The role of the ingenue heroine, Letitia Hardy, proved to be a successful vehicle in Paris for Harriet Smithson, who infatuated Hector Berlioz. It was also "a favorite role" for Ellen Terry, who was both photographed and engraved in her character's costume. Characters include... Kitty Willis, Tony, Saville, Courtall, Doricourt, Flutter, Villers, Mrs. Racket, Letitia Hardy, Old Hardy, Sir George Touchwood, Miss Ogle, Lady Frances Touchwood

The biblical portion of the play, a retelling of the Visitation of the Shepherds, comes only after a longer, invented story that mirrors it, in which the shepherds, before visiting the holy baby outside in a manger, must first rescue one of their sheep that has been hidden in a cradle indoors by a comically evil sheep-stealing couple. Once they have discovered and punished the thieves, the storyline switches to the familiar one of the three shepherds being told of the birth of Christ by an angel, and going to Bethlehem to offer the true Child gifts. At the start of the play, Coll, the first shepherd ("primus pastor") arrives in a field, invoking God in anachronistic terms (referring, as the shepherds will do throughout the play, to the life and death of Christ even though at this point of the play Christ has not yet been born) complaining about the (typically English) cold weather and about his poverty and the arrogance of local gentry. He begins by saying, "Lord, what these weders are cold! And I am ill happyed" which translates as "God, the weather is cold and I am ill prepared/clothed." Gib, the second shepherd, arrives without seeing Coll and complains first about the weather and then about the plight of married men, himself included, with bawdy speculation about the lives of men with more than one wife and advice to "young men of wooing" to "Be well war of weding" (wary of marriage). He paints a portrait of his wife as a loud, heavy-drinking, alternately abusive and sentimentally pious, whale-sized woman. "By him that died for us all, I would I had run til I had lost her!" at which point he is startled by Coll. They confer about where Daw, a third, young, lazy and mischievous, shepherd, has gotten to, at which point Daw arrives complaining about employers, hunger, and about recent floods which he compares to Noah's flood. Mak, a local good-for-nothing and well-known thief, arrives and pretends to be a yeoman from a lord. Although they recognize him from the start, he insults and threatens them by saying that he will have them flogged. When they threaten him, he pretends not to have known who they were. Mak tries to gain sympathy from the shepherds by explaining how his wife is a lazy drunk who gives birth to too many children. Invoking Christ and Pontius Pilate, Mak agrees to camp with the shepherds, and feigns to lie down among them. However, once they have fallen asleep he casts a spell to make sure they will not wake up and then sneaks off to steal one of their sheep. He heads back to his cottage and trades insults with Gill, his wife, who firmly believes that Mak will be hanged for the theft and comes up with a plan for hiding the sheep - she will put it in an empty cradle and pretend that it is her newborn child, and that she is loudly, painfully in labor with its twin, so that the shepherds will quickly give up any search. Mak sneaks back among the shepherds and pretends to awaken along with them. They head off to take account of their sheep while Mak heads home to prepare. With despair at their catastrophic ill fortune, the shepherds realize a sheep is missing and go to search Mak's house. They are initially fooled by Mak and Gill's ruse despite Gill going so far as to say that if she's lying she'll eat the child in her cradle (as she indeed plans to). The shepherds leave defeated, but realize that they have failed to bring any gifts to the "baby", and go back. When they remove the swaddling clothes they recognize their sheep, but decide not to kill Mak but instead roll him in canvas and throw him up and down, punishing him until they are exhausted. When they have left Mak's cottage, the biblical story proper begins - the Angel appears and tells them to go to "Bedlam" (Bethlehem) to see the Christ child. They wonder at the event, chastising each other for their collective delay, and then go to the manger where Mary (Mother of Jesus) welcomes them and receives their praise for her mildness. They each address the Child in turn, beginning by praising His authority and His creation of all things in tones of reverence and awe, but each comically shifting mid-speech to cooing, gushing baby talk, since they are addressing an adorable baby, who Coll, Gib, and Daw respectively give "a bob of cherries," a bird, and a ball ("Have and play thee withal, and go to the tennis!") The shepherds rejoice at their salvation, all thoughts of hardship and complaint vanished, and leave singing in unison.

The film is set in the Qing Dynasty during the 43rd year (1779) of the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-fat) is an accomplished Wudang swordsman. Long ago, his master was murdered by Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-pei), a woman who sought to learn Wudang skills. Mu Bai is also a good friend of Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), a female warrior. Mu Bai and Shu Lien have developed feelings for each other, but they have never acknowledged or acted on them due to Yu's deceased fiance Meng Sizhao, who was also Mu Bai's best friend. Mu Bai, intending to give up his warrior life, asks Shu Lien to transport his sword, also referred to as the Green Destiny, to the city of Beijing, as a gift for their friend Sir Te (Sihung Lung). At Sir Te's estate, Shu Lien meets Jen (Zhang Ziyi), the daughter of Governor Yu (Li Fazeng), a visiting Manchu aristocrat. Jen, destined for an arranged marriage and yearning for adventure, seems envious of Shu Lien's warrior lifestyle. One evening, a masked thief sneaks into Sir Te's estate and steals the sword. Mu Bai and Shu Lien trace the theft to Governor Yu's compound and learn that Jade Fox has been posing as Jen's governess for many years. Mu Bai makes the acquaintance of Inspector Tsai (Wang Deming), a police investigator from the provinces, and his daughter May (Li Li), who have come to Peking in pursuit of Fox. Fox challenges the pair and Sir Te's servant Master Bo (Gao Xi'an) to a showdown that night. Following a protracted battle, the group is on the verge of defeat when Mu Bai arrives and outmaneuvers Fox. Before Mu Bai can kill Fox, the masked thief reappears and partners with Fox to fight. Fox resumes the fight and kills Tsai before fleeing with the thief (who is revealed to be Fox's protĂŠgĂŠ, Jen). After seeing Jen fight Mu Bai, Fox realizes Jen had been secretly studying the Wudang manual and has surpassed her in combative skills. At night, a desert bandit named Lo (Chang Chen) breaks into Jen's bedroom and asks her to leave with him. A flashback reveals that in the past, when Governor Yu and his family were traveling in the western deserts, Lo and his bandits had raided Jen's caravan and Lo had stolen her comb. She chased after him, following him to his desert cave seemingly in a quest to get her comb back. However, the pair soon fell passionately in love. Lo eventually convinced Jen to return to her family, though not before telling her a legend of a man who jumped off a cliff to make his wishes come true. Because the man's heart was pure, he did not die. Lo came to Peking to persuade Jen not to go through with her arranged marriage. However, Jen refuses to leave with him. Later, Lo interrupts Jen's wedding procession, begging her to come away with him. Nearby, Shu Lien and Mu Bai convince Lo to wait for Jen at Mount Wudang, where he will be safe from Jen's family, who are furious with him. Jen runs away from her husband on the wedding night before the marriage could be consummated. Disguised in male clothing, she is accosted at an inn by a large group of warriors; armed with the Green Destiny and her own superior combat skills, she emerges victorious. Jen visits Shu Lien, who tells her that Lo is waiting for her at Mount Wudang. After an angry dispute, the two women engage in a duel. Shu Lien is the superior fighter, but Jen wields the Green Destiny: the sword destroys each weapon that Shu Lien wields, until Shu Lien finally manages to defeat Jen with a broken sword. When Shu Lien shows mercy and lowers the sword, Jen injures Shu Lien's arm. Mu Bai arrives and pursues Jen into a bamboo forest. Following a duel where Mu Bai regains possession of the Green Destiny, he decides to throw the sword over a waterfall. In pursuit, Jen dives into an adjoining river to retrieve the sword and is then rescued by Fox. Fox puts Jen into a drugged sleep and places her in a cavern; Mu Bai and Shu Lien discover her there. Fox suddenly reappears and attacks the others with poisoned darts. Mu Bai blocks the needles with his sword and avenges his master's death by mortally wounding Fox, only to realize that one of the darts hit him in the neck. Fox dies, confessing that her goal had been to kill Jen because she was furious that Jen had hid the secrets of Wudang's far superior fighting techniques from her. As Jen exits to gather up an antidote for the poisoned dart, Mu Bai prepares to die. With his last breaths, he finally confesses his romantic affections for Shu Lien. He dies in her arms as Jen returns, too late to save him. The Green Destiny is returned to Sir Te. Jen later goes to Mount Wudang and spends one last night with Lo. The next morning, Lo finds Jen standing on a balcony overlooking the edge of the mountain. In an echo of the legend that they spoke about in the desert, she asks him to make a wish. He complies and wishes for them to be together again; back in the desert. Jen then suddenly leaps over the side of the mountain.

On Saturday, March 24, 1984, five students report at 7:00 a.m. for all-day detention at Shermer High School in Shermer, Illinois. While not complete strangers, each of them comes from a different clique, and they seem to have nothing in common: the beautiful and pampered Claire Standish, the state champion wrestler Andrew Clarke, the bookish Brian Johnson, the reclusive outcast Allison Reynolds, and the rebellious delinquent John Bender. They gather in the high school library, where assistant principal Richard Vernon instructs them not to speak, move from their seats, or sleep until they are released at 4:00 p.m. He assigns them a 1,000-word essay, in which each must describe "who you think you are." He then leaves, returning only occasionally to check on them. John, who has a particularly antagonistic relationship with Vernon, ignores the rules and frequently riles up the other students, teasing Brian and Andrew and harassing Claire. Allison is initially quiet, except for an occasional random outburst. Over the course of the day, Vernon gives John several weekends' worth of additional detention and even locks him in a storage closet, but he escapes and returns to the library. The students pass the hours by talking, arguing, and, at one point, smoking cannabis that John retrieves from his locker. Gradually, they open up to each other and reveal their deepest personal secrets: Allison is a compulsive liar; Andrew cannot easily think for himself; John comes from an abusive household; Brian was planning to kill himself with a flare gun due to a bad grade; and Claire is a virgin who feels constant pressure from her friends. They also discover that they all have strained relationships with their parents: Allison's parents ignore her due to their own problems; Andrew's father constantly criticizes his efforts at wrestling and pushes him as hard as possible; John's father verbally and physically abuses him; Brian's overbearing parents put immense pressure on him to earn high grades; and Claire's parents use her to get back at each other during frequent arguments. The students realize that, even with their differences, they face similar pressures and complications in their lives. Despite their differences in social status, the group begins to form friendships (and even romantic relationships) as the day progresses. Claire gives Allison a makeover, to reveal just how pretty she really is, which sparks romantic interest in Andrew. Claire decides to break her "pristine" virgin appearance by kissing John in the closet and giving him a hickey. Although they suspect that the relationships will end with the end of their detention, their mutual experiences will change the way they look at their peers afterwards. As the detention nears its end, the group requests that Brian complete the essay for everyone and John returns to the storage closet to fool Vernon into thinking he has not left. Brian writes the essay and leaves it in the library for Vernon to read after they leave. As the students part ways outside the school, Allison and Andrew kiss, as do Claire and John. Allison rips Andrew's state champion patch from his letterman jacket to keep, and Claire gives John one of her diamond earrings, which he attaches to his earlobe. Vernon reads the essay (read by Brian in voice-over), in which Brian states that Vernon has already judged who they are, using simple definitions and stereotypes. One by one, the five students' voices add, "But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal." Brian signs the letter as "The Breakfast Club." John raises his fist in triumph as he walks across the school football field toward home.

The novel concerns people with incurable injuries and defects (biocompensators) who volunteer for the first interstellar flight.Turned down by the medical authorities, they are refused after they steal a ship to plead their case directly to the people of Earth. Returning to their asteroid hospital, they rig a working gravity drive and escape from the solar system. They head towards the Centauri system, solving problems such as overcoming a limited supply of needed pharmaceuticals and improving the drive. Earth sends out a ship, the Star Victory with a better version of the new drive in a bid to beat them there, on the theory that any aliens they encounter might make the mistake of thinking of them as normal humans. The Victory does beat them by a few days, arriving a year after they left, but they settle on a Mars-like planet near Alpha Centauri, before the Victory makes contact with butterfly-like aliens on a methane gas giant in the Proxima Centauri system. The aliens are somewhat similar in technology, but lacking a reliable gravity drive. They want a reasonable sampling of humans to study, but the crew of the Victory are all specialists and they are not welcome. The victory leaves the system to the Accidentals, promising to return, someday.

While admiring a rose blooming in the winter, Queen Eleanor of the Kingdom of Tabor pricks her finger on one of its thorns. Three drops of blood fall onto the snow-covered ground, and she wishes for a daughter as white as the snow, with lips as red as the blood, hair as black as a raven's wings and a heart as strong and defiant as the rose. Queen Eleanor gives birth to her daughter Snow White, but soon after falls ill and dies. After her death, Snow White's father, King Magnus, and his army battle an invading Dark Army of demonic glass soldiers. Upon rescuing their prisoner Ravenna, he becomes enchanted with her beauty and marries her. Ravenna, who is in fact a powerful sorceress and the Dark Army's master, kills Magnus on their wedding night. On the night, Magnus, enchanted, throws Ravenna into the bed and proceeds to make love. Ravenna confesses there was a king much like Magnus that spoiled her. During foreplay, she declares she cannot be a weak queen and kills Magnus. Snow White's childhood friend William and his father Duke Hammond escape the castle but are unable to rescue her, and she is captured by Ravenna's brother Finn, and locked away in the north tower of the castle for many years. Tabor is ruined under Queen Ravenna's rule as she periodically drains the youth from the kingdom's young women in order to maintain a spell cast over her as a child by her mother which allows her to keep her youthful beauty. When Snow White comes of age, Queen Ravenna learns from her Magic Mirror, in the form of a golden, reflective liquid shaped like a man, that her stepdaughter Snow White is destined to destroy her unless Queen Ravenna consumes the young girl's heart, which will make her truly immortal. Queen Ravenna orders Finn to bring her Snow White's heart, but she escapes into the Dark Forest, where Ravenna has no power. Queen Ravenna makes a bargain with Eric the Huntsman, a widower and drunkard, to capture Snow White, promising to bring his wife back to life in exchange. The Huntsman tracks down Snow White, but when Finn reveals that Queen Ravenna does not actually have the power to do what she promised, the Huntsman fights him and his men while Snow White runs away. When the Huntsman catches up with her, she promises him gold if he will escort her to Duke Hammond's castle. Meanwhile, Finn gathers another band of men to find her, and Duke Hammond and his son William learn that she is alive. William leaves the castle on his own to find her, joining Finn's band as a bowman. The Huntsman and Snow White leave the Dark Forest, where she saves his life by charming a huge troll that attacks them. They make their way to a fishing village populated by women who have disfigured themselves to save their own lives, becoming useless to Queen Ravenna. While there, the Huntsman learns Snow White's true identity, and initially leaves her in the care of the women. He soon returns when he sees the village being burned down by Finn's men. Snow White and the Huntsman evade them and eventually meet a band of eight dwarves named Beith, Muir, Quert, Coll, Duir, Gort, Nion, and Gus. The blind Muir perceives that Snow White is the daughter of the former king, and the only person who can defeat Ravenna and end her reign. As they travel through a fairy sanctuary, the group is attacked by Finn and his men. The Huntsman battles Finn and kills him, and William reveals himself and helps defeat Finn's men. However, Gus is killed when he sacrifices himself to take an arrow meant for Snow White. William joins the group which continues the journey to Hammond's castle. Halfway to Duke Hammond's castle, Queen Ravenna disguises herself as William and tempts Snow White into eating a poisoned apple, but is forced to flee when the Huntsman and William discover her. William kisses Snow White, whom he believes to be dead. She is taken to Hammond's castle. As she lies in repose, the Huntsman professes his regret for not saving Snow White, who reminds him of his late wife, Sara, and he kisses her, breaking the spell. She awakens and walks into the courtyard, and rallies the Duke's army to mount a siege against Queen Ravenna. The dwarves infiltrate the castle through the sewers and open the gates, allowing the Duke's army inside. Snow White confronts Queen Ravenna, but is overpowered. Queen Ravenna is about to kill Snow White and consume her heart. Eventually, Snow White uses a move the Huntsman taught her and seemingly kills Queen Ravenna, and Duke Hammond's army is victorious. With Queen Ravenna defeated and dead, the kingdom once again enjoys peace and harmony as Snow White is crowned Queen and she and the Huntsman exchange looks before it cuts to chants of "Hail to the queen!"

Wealthy countryman Mr. Hardcastle arranges for his daughter Kate to meet Charles Marlow, the son of a rich Londoner, hoping the pair will marry. Unfortunately, Marlow is nervous around upper-class women, yet the complete opposite around working-class women. On his first acquaintance with Kate, the latter realises she will have to pretend to be 'common', or Marlow will not woo her. Thus Kate 'stoops to conquer', by posing as a maid, hoping to put Marlow at his ease so he falls for her. Marlow sets out for the Hardcastle's manor with a friend, George Hastings, an admirer of Miss Constance Neville, another young lady who lives with the Hardcastles. During the journey the two men become lost and stop at an alehouse, The Three Jolly Pigeons, for directions. Tony Lumpkin, Kate's step-brother and cousin of Constance, comes across the two strangers at the alehouse and, realising their identity, plays a practical joke by telling them that they are a long way from their destination and will have to stay overnight at an inn. The "inn" he directs them to is in fact the home of the Hardcastles. When they arrive, the Hardcastles, who have been expecting them, go out of their way to make them welcome. However, Marlow and Hastings, believing themselves in an inn, behave extremely disdainfully towards their hosts. Hardcastle bears their unwitting insults with forbearance, because of his friendship with Marlow's father. Kate learns of her suitor's shyness from Constance and a servant tells her about Tony's trick. She decides to masquerade as a serving-maid (changing her accent and garb) to get to know him. Marlow falls in love with her and plans to elope with her but, because she appears of a lower class, acts in a somewhat bawdy manner around her. All misunderstandings are resolved by the end, thanks to an appearance by Sir Charles Marlow. The main sub-plot concerns the secret romance between Constance and Hastings. Constance needs her jewels, an inheritance, guarded by Tony's mother, Mrs. Hardcastle, who wants Constance to marry her son, to keep the jewels in the family. Tony despises the thought of marrying Constance — he prefers a barmaid at the alehouse — and so agrees to steal the jewels from his mother's safekeeping for Constance, so she can elope to France with Hastings. The play concludes with Kate's plan succeeding: she and Marlow become engaged. Tony discovers his mother has lied about his being "of age" and thus entitled to his inheritance. He refuses to marry Constance, who is then eligible to receive her jewels and become engaged to Hastings, which she does.

In 1969 Pasadena, California, a couple seeks the aid of the medium Shaun San Dena (Flor de Maria Chahua) saying their son (Shiloh Selassie) has been hearing evil spirits' voices after stealing a silver necklace from gypsies. San Dena aids the family by carrying out a seance, but they are attacked by an unseen force that pulls the boy into Hell. The medium says she will encounter the force again one day. In present-day Los Angeles, bank loan officer Christine Brown hopes to be promoted to assistant manager over her co-worker Stu Rubin. Her boss, Jim Jacks, advises her to demonstrate that she can make tough decisions to get a promotion. Christine is visited by an elderly gypsy woman, Sylvia Ganush, who asks for an extension on her mortgage payment. Though empathetic with the old woman's crisis, Christine denies Ganush an extension to prove herself to her boss. Ganush begs Christine not to repossess her house and kneels in front of her. Christine gets scared of the woman's bizarre pleading as she is helping her to stand up and calls security, who take Ganush away while Ganush blames Christine for "shaming" her and vows to take revenge. Jim compliments Christine on how she handled the situation. When Christine goes to the bank parking garage to drive home, Ganush attacks Christine in her car, rips a button off Christine's coat and uses it to place a curse on Christine. Later, Christine and her boyfriend Clay Dalton meet the fortune teller, Rham Jas who tells Christine that she is being haunted by an evil spirit. At home, Christine is attacked by the spirit and has nightmares about Ganush. At work the next day, Christine snaps at Stu and has a projectile nose bleed that soaks her boss in blood. She runs away and Stu secretly takes a file off Christine's desk. Christine goes to talk to Ganush but learns that she died the previous night after visiting her house. Christine returns to Rham Jas, who explains that as long as Christine is the owner of an accursed object, she will be haunted by a powerful demon called the Lamia (loosely based on the Greek child-eating demon) that will torment her for three days before taking her to Hell for eternity. He suggests a sacrifice to appease the demon. Desperate to stop the attacks, Christine reluctantly sacrifices her pet kitten. At a dinner party with Clay and his parents, she is again tormented by the Lamia, but this time through the use of illusions, which frightens the Daltons. Christine returns to Rham Jas who says that Shaun San Dena will risk her life to stop the demon for a fee of $10,000. San Dena prepares a seance to trap the Lamia's spirit in a goat and kill it, and then allows the Lamia to inhabit her body. Rham Jas tries to persuade it not to steal Christine's soul, but it vows never to stop until Christine dies. Christine then places San Dena's hand on the goat, causing the spirit to enter its body. San Dena's assistant, Milos, attempts to kill the goat, but is bitten by the goat and becomes possessed, attacking the members of the seance. San Dena banishes the Lamia from the seance, but dies in the process. Christine thinks the medium has overcome the Lamia, but Rham Jas explains that she only managed to drive the spirit away until the next day. Then he seals the cursed button in an envelope and tells Christine that she can get rid of the curse by giving the button to someone as a gift, thereby passing the curse on to that person. Christine decides to give the envelope to Stu in revenge for his stealing her work, but changes her mind after seeing how pathetic, tearful and panicky Stu is when he meets her. With guidance from Rham Jas, Christine learns that she can give it to Ganush even though she is dead. Christine digs up Ganush's grave and jams the envelope in her mouth just in time before dawn. Christine returns home and prepares to meet Clay at Los Angeles Union Station for a weekend trip to Santa Barbara. She gets a message from her boss telling her that she landed her dream position after Stu confessed to stealing her work and was fired. At the station, Christine also buys a coat that she has been wanting as a sign of a new beginning. Clay, planning to propose, reveals to Christine that he found the envelope containing the cursed button in his car. Christine then realizes she mixed up her envelope with another that she gave to Clay when she accidentally dropped it. Horrified, Christine backs away and falls onto the tracks. As a train barrels towards her, fiery hands suddenly emerge from the tracks and drag Christine into the neverending flames of Hell, as a horrified Clay watches from the platform above with the cursed button still in his hands.

The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies, of the Famous Captain Singleton (1720) covers both land and sea in one volume, in two neatly composed halves. The first half of the novel includes a remarkable overland trek across Africa after the characters are stranded in Madagascar, and the second half is almost entirely at sea, involving piratical heists in the East Indies. Eventually, Captain Bob and his close friend William Walters return to England with their spoils via Venice, disguised as Armenians.'At the beginning of the novel, Singleton, as a young boy, is kidnapped and sold to a gypsy by a beggar-woman. He is 'raised as a ward of a parish, and sent to sea at age twelve. Soon he is captured by Turkish pirates, rescued by sailors from Portugal, and after a two-year stay in that country, sails for the East Indies. By his own account young singleton is a rogue who steals from the ship's captain and harbors the desire to kill his master. Nearly hanged for his part in an attempted mutiny, Singleton is set ashore with four companions on the coast of Madagascar. A score of other sailors from the ship join them and the ensuing narrative relates their efforts to survive on the island.' The sailors find and rebuild an abandoned boat and eventually decide to pursue a journey through Africa. 'In their encounters with African natives, the Europeans provide resourceful but brutal.' 'During the hazardous trip Singleton becomes the leader of the group by virtue of his fearlessness and ingenuity. He is a cold pragmatist whose lack of compassion is exceeded only by his talent for survival. When they find a wounded native, Singleton makes a decision based purely on expediency.' Singleton makes the decision, after considering to let the native die, that they might find the man useful to them. 'During the arduous march through lands teeming with leopards, elephants, crocodiles, and snakes, the travelers avoid catastrophe because of their modern weaponry and their European belief in reason rather than in magic. [...] The marchers meet an English merchant who has been living with the natives and who persuades Singleton and his companions to stop awhile in order to dig for gold. Having loaded themselves down with gold and elephant tusks, the adventurers finally reach a Dutch settlement, where they divide the spoils and immediately go their separate ways.' 'Once Singleton has spent his fortune in England, he sets out again, this time for the West Indies where, by his boastful admission, he quickly takes to piracy. [...] Singleton's abilities bring him high command, although his piratical activities encourage the growth of a callousness so pervasive that at times it leads to cruelty. He denies that his men have committed certain atrocities, but calmly admits that "more was done than it is fit to speak of here" (p. 188). In this portion of the novel events pile up rapidly, and there are chases and sea battles in which Singleton proves himself an able, courageous, and imaginative leader. [...] From the Indies the scene shifts to the East African coast and Madagascar where the pirates continue to plunder and sail restlessly in search of new conquests. Defoe draws a portrait of men whose love of gold is less urgent than their need for adventure. This lust for novelty takes Singleton and his men into the Pacific as far as the Philippines, before they trace their way back to the Indian Ocean and Ceylon.' 'Friend William, a Quaker surgeon, becomes the center of the narrative as he outwits a Ceylonese King and rescues a Dutch slave. William displays further resourcefulness by succeeding in trade negotiations with English merchants in India. He serves Singleton loyally and bravely as a kind of man Friday: he is, moreover, a Christian humanist and healer who ultimately persuades his captain that a life of piracy leads nowhere. When Singleton contemplates suicide in the throes of repentance, William convinces him that the idea of taking one's life is the "Devil's Notion" (p. 332) and therefore must be ignored.' When they return to England, they make the decision to stay together for the rest of their lives. Singleton marries William's sister, a widow, 'and the story ends rapidly on a note of domestic peace.'

The novel begins with Silas Lapham being interviewed for a newspaper profile, during which he explains his financial success in the mineral paint business. The Lapham family is somewhat self-conscious in their sudden rise on the social ladder and often fumble in their attempts at following etiquette norms. They decide to build a new home in the fashionable Back Bay neighborhood, and Lapham spares no expense ensuring it is at the height of fashion. Tom Corey, a young man from a well-respected high-class family, shows an interest in the Lapham girls; Mr. and Mrs. Lapham assume he is attracted to Irene, the beautiful younger daughter. Corey joins the Lapham's paint business in an attempt to find his place in the world, rather than rely on the savings of his father, Bromfield Corey. When Tom Corey begins calling on the Laphams regularly, everyone assumes his interest in Irene has grown, and Irene takes a fancy to him. Corey, however, astounds both families by revealing his love for Penelope, the elder, more plain-looking, but more intelligent daughter who possesses an unusual sense of humor, a sophisticated literary passion, and a sensible but inquiring mind. Though Penelope has feelings for Tom Corey, she is held back by the romantic conventions of the era, not wanting to act on her love for fear of betraying her sister. Silas Lapham's former business partner Milton K. Rogers reappears in his life, asking for money for a series of schemes. Mrs. Lapham urges her husband to support the man, whom he had pushed out of the paint company in what was deemed an inappropriate manner. Lapham's dealings with Rogers, however, result in a substantial financial loss. His major asset, the new home on Beacon Street, burns down before its completion. The Laphams are humbly forced to move to their ancestral home in the countryside, where the mineral paint was first developed.

The book is set in the 17th century in the Badgworthy Water region of Exmoor in Devon and Somerset, England. John (in West Country dialect, pronounced "Jan") Ridd is the son of a respectable farmer who was murdered in cold blood by one of the notorious Doone clan, a once noble family, now outlaws, in the isolated Doone Valley. Battling his desire for revenge, John also grows into a respectable farmer and takes good care of his mother and two sisters. He falls hopelessly in love with Lorna, a girl he meets by accident, who turns out to be not only (apparently) the granddaughter of Sir Ensor Doone (lord of the Doones), but destined to marry (against her will) the impetuous, menacing, and now jealous heir of the Doone Valley, Carver Doone. Carver will let nothing get in the way of his marriage to Lorna, which he plans to force upon her once Sir Ensor dies and he comes into his inheritance. Sir Ensor dies, and Carver becomes lord of the Doones. John Ridd helps Lorna escape to his family's farm, Plover's Barrows. Since Lorna is a member of the hated Doone clan, feelings are mixed toward her in the Ridd household, but she is nonetheless defended against the enraged Carver's retaliatory attack on the farm. A member of the Ridd household notices Lorna's necklace, a jewel that she was told by Sir Ensor belonged to her mother. During a visit from the Counsellor, Carver's father and the wisest of the Doone family, the necklace is stolen from Plover's Barrows. Shortly after its disappearance, a family friend discovers Lorna's origins, learning that the necklace belonged to a Lady Dugal, who was robbed and murdered by a band of outlaws. Only her daughter survived the attack. It becomes apparent that Lorna, being evidently the long-lost girl in question, is in fact heiress to one of the largest fortunes in the country, and not a Doone after all (although the Doones are remotely related, being descended from a collateral branch of the Dugal family). She is required by law, but against her will, to return to London to become a ward in Chancery. Despite John and Lorna's love for one another, their marriage is out of the question. King Charles II dies, and the Duke of Monmouth (the late king's illegitimate son) challenges Charles's brother James for the throne. The Doones, abandoning their plan to marry Lorna to Carver and claim her wealth, side with Monmouth in the hope of reclaiming their ancestral lands. However, Monmouth is defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor, and his associates are sought for treason. John Ridd is captured during the revolution. Innocent of all charges, he is taken to London by an old friend to clear his name. There, he is reunited with Lorna (now Lorna Dugal), whose love for him has not diminished. When he thwarts an attack on Lorna's great-uncle and legal guardian Earl Brandir, John is granted a pardon, a title, and a coat of arms by the king and returns a free man to Exmoor. In the meantime, the surrounding communities have grown tired of the Doones and their depredations. Knowing the Doones better than any other man, John leads the attack on their land. All the Doone men are killed, except the Counsellor (from whom John retrieves the stolen necklace) and his son Carver, who escapes, vowing revenge. When Earl Brandir dies and Judge Jeffreys, as Lord Chancellor, becomes Lorna's guardian, she is granted her freedom to return to Exmoor and marry John. During their wedding, Carver bursts into the church at Oare. He shoots Lorna and flees. Distraught and filled with blinding rage, John pursues and confronts him. A struggle ensues in which Carver is left sinking in a mire. Exhausted and bloodied from the fight, John can only pant as he watches Carver slip away. He returns to discover that Lorna is not dead, and after a period of anxious uncertainty, she survives to live happily ever after.

At a Manhattan teaching hospital, the life of Dr. Bock (George C. Scott), the Chief of Medicine, is in disarray: his wife has left him, his children don't talk to him, and his once-beloved teaching hospital is falling apart. The hospital is dealing with the sudden deaths of two doctors and a nurse. These are attributed to coincidental or unavoidable failures to provide accurate treatment. At the same time, administrators must deal with a protest against the hospital's annexation of an adjacent and decrepit apartment building. The annexation is to be used for a drug rehabilitation center; the building's current occupants demand that the hospital find them replacement housing before the building is demolished despite the building being condemned sometime before. As Dr. Bock complains of impotence and has thoughts of suicide, he falls for Barbara Drummond (Diana Rigg), a patient's daughter who came with her father from Mexico for his treatment. This temporarily gives Dr. Bock something to live for after Barbara confronts him. The deaths are discovered to have been initiated by Barbara's father (Barnard Hughes), as retribution for the "inhumanity" of modern medical treatment. Drummond's victims would have been saved if they'd received prompt, appropriate treatment—but they didn't. Dr. Bock and Barbara use a final, accidental death of a doctor at the hospital to cover Drummond's tracks. Barbara then takes her father back to JFK airport to escape back to Mexico, leaving Dr. Bock at his insistence to try and organize the chaotic Hospital.

Daniel Foray (GĂŠrard Depardieu) is the leader of an unusual group of burglars in Paris. When Daniel is instructed by his boss to go to Chicago to pull off an easy home robbery it seems simple enough. However, when the group arrives in Chicago, the mission quickly turns into a fiasco. First, the group has a run in with a local gang of street thugs. Then, the group's "keep a low profile" stay with Sophie Nicols (Joanne Kelly) is disrupted by a noisy neighbour. To make matters worse, while preparing for the burglary the group steals a car which belongs to a Latino street gang... After breaking into the house, tying up the owner and cracking the safe, the group realise that they have burgled the wrong house! The house in fact belongs to Frankie Zammeti (Harvey Keitel) an under boss of the Chicago Mafia who vows revenge. The group desperately tries to flee the city and return to Paris, all the while being hotly pursued by the Mafia, the Latino gang, the Chicago police, and the FBI who had Zammeti's house under surveillance. An excellent, action comedy with many plot twists and a mix of lighthearted and darker moments.

In 1996, psychopathic career criminal Simon Phoenix kidnaps a number of hostages and takes refuge with his gang in an abandoned building. LAPD Sgt. John Spartan uses a thermal scan of the building and finds no trace of the hostages, and leads an unauthorized assault to capture Phoenix. When he is captured, Phoenix sets off a series of explosives that bring down the building, and when the police search the wreckage, they find the corpses of the hostages. Spartan is charged with manslaughter, and he is incarcerated along with Phoenix in the city's new "California Cryo-Penitentiary", where they will be cryogenically frozen. During their time "in deep freeze", they are to be rehabilitated through subconscious conditioning. During their incarceration, the "Great Earthquake" leads the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara to merge into a single metropolis under the name San Angeles. The city becomes a utopia run under the pseudo-pacifist guidance and control of the evangelistic Dr. Raymond Cocteau, where human behavior is tightly controlled. In 2032, Phoenix is woken for a parole hearing, but he finds he somehow knows the access codes to the security systems, and is able to escape the prison and begins wreaking havoc on the city. The police, having not dealt with violent crime for many years, are unable to handle Phoenix and opt to wake Spartan and enlist his help. Spartan is assigned to Lieutenant Lenina Huxley to help with acclimation to the future, which he finds depressing. Others on the police force find his behavior brutish and uncivilized, though Huxley, who is fascinated by the lifestyles of the late 20th century, helps Spartan to overcome this, and the two grow close, despite the limitations on displays of public affection. They attempt to stop Phoenix from stealing 20th century weapons from a museum display, but Phoenix manages to escape. Phoenix encounters Dr. Cocteau during his escape, and though he tries to shoot him, finds himself unable to do so. Dr. Cocteau calmly asks Phoenix to assassinate Edgar Friendly, the leader of the resistance group called the Scraps that fight against Cocteau's rule, and allows Phoenix to bring other criminals out of cryo-sleep to help at his request. Meanwhile, Spartan and Huxley review the cryo-prison records and find that instead of the normal rehabilitation program, Phoenix had been given the information necessary for his escape by Cocteau directly. They also discover information directing Phoenix towards Friendly, and go off to warn him. At the Scraps' underground base, Friendly is initially distrustful but Spartan is able to convince him of the threat and takes sympathy in their cause given what he has seen above ground. When Phoenix and his gang attack, Spartan and the Scraps ward off the attack, leading to a car chase between Spartan and Phoenix. During the chase, Phoenix taunts Spartan by revealing that he had killed the hostages before Spartan had arrived in 1996. Phoenix escapes while Spartan comes to terms that he had been wrongly charged with the crime. Meanwhile, Friendly and the Scraps work with the police to try to help stop Phoenix and his gang of cryo-cons. Phoenix returns to Dr. Cocteau with his gang, and as the rehabilitation programming prevents him from killing Cocteau, orders one of his gang to do so. Spartan and Huxley arrive soon after, finding that Phoenix has already left to release more prisoners. Spartan enters the prison alone to fight Phoenix, engages in a violent fight that ravages the facility, and eventually uses the cryogenic chemical to freeze Phoenix before shattering him. Spartan escapes the prison before it explodes and regroups with the police and the Scraps. The police fear the loss of Cocteau will send their society into a downward spiral, but Spartan suggests that they and the Scraps work together to recreate a society that returns some of the personal freedoms that were lost. He then kisses Huxley and the two go off together.

The novel presents a discussion of the philosophy of love and sex, written in the form of a series of letters between two men, "Herbert Wace," a young scientist, and "Dane Kempton," an elderly poet. Writer Jack London wrote "Wace's" letters, and Anna Strunsky wrote "Kempton's." In the late 19th century, the authors were part of a San Francisco radical literary group known as "The Crowd." Kempton makes the case for feeling and emotion, while Wace proceeds "scientifically" and analyzes love in Darwinian terms: “I purpose to order my affairs in a rational manner....Wherefore I marry Hester Stebbins. I am not impelled by the archaic sex madness of the beast, nor by the obsolescent romance madness of later-day man. I contract a tie which reason tells me is based upon health and sanity and compatibility. My intellect shall delight in that tie.” Initially the public was piqued by the anonymity of the writers and the book was moderately successful. London biographer Russ Kingman praised the book; he quoted the Buffalo Commercial as admiring the "sheer charm of its prose" and saying the book "holds firmly its place in the front rank of the best of the season's publications." The New York Times was less charitable. It opened its review with the terse line, "The sex problem again." It complained that "Nothing that the scientist says is new, nothing that the poet says is new. The thing has been thrashed out some millions of times... Nor does the unnamed author infuse into either Wace or Kempton anything to give human personality or appeal.... As a story [it] falls flat; as a discussion of a topic as old as interesting, as overworked." Joseph Noel says that George Sterling described London's portion of the book, as "a spiritual misprint, a typographical error half a volume long" and says "His vocabulary, in the letters of Herbert Wace, sounds as if taken that day from an encyclopedia by a conscientious sophomore." Biographers have been intrigued by The Kempton-Wace Letters for the light it seems to shed on Jack London's life and ideas. Strunsky was named as the co-respondent in Jack London's divorce from his first wife, Bessie, but biographers generally agree that his relation with the younger Strunsky was platonic. They were active in socialism and the literary group, "The Crowd", in San Francisco. In the novel, London expresses his theories about the "Mother-Woman" and the "Mate-Woman," roles which seem to correspond to the roles played by his first wife and his second. After London's death in 1916, Strunsky published a memoir in The Masses in 1917 about their relationship.

The film opens with a scene of newspapers and news broadcasts describing an orphanage which was burned down, resulting in several deaths. It then turns to seven friends as they start out on a road trip to Las Vegas, with Phil (JoJo Wright) recording the trip for his girlfriend Julia. The group hits a road block en route to their destination, prompting them to take a detour that results in several flat tires. The group decides that the women will remain behind to watch the truck while the men go to look for help. The men eventually come across a rest-stop motel that sells tires, introducing themselves to the gas attendant Brad and the shop owner Steve (Braxton Davis) and Norah (Dallas Lovato). Steve offers to not only fix the truck and pick up the girls, but to provide free alcoholic drinks, in addition to letting the group stay at the neighboring motel for the night. One of the group members, Todd (Dustin Harnish), is originally hesitant about the proposition, but eventually agrees to it. After a wild night of drinking and partying, the group falls asleep in the motel. The group eventually wakes up the next morning/afternoon. At first everything appears normal, but it soon becomes clear that Steve and his cohorts are nowhere to be found on the premises. None of the friends remembers much about what happened the previous night. And four of the friends (Jordan, Brandy, Ryan, Andy) wake up realizing they're tied up or otherwise physically incapacitated. Jordan is tied up to a chair in the bathroom next to the bathtub, with a bucket on his arm and an electric wire tied to his hand. Brandy is tied up in the bathtub. Ryan is tied to a chair in his room, and Anna is tied up on the bed, at her hands and her feet. At first the friends believe this to be some sort of bad joke, but when Todd and Claire witness Phil being intentionally decapitated by Brad, it becomes clear that Steve, Brad, Norah and Chloe are actually cruel, sadistic sociopaths, (who call themselves "the helpers") intent on torturing and murdering the group. Claire (Kristen Quintrall) and Todd are locked in their motel room and are forced to watch while their friends get murdered one by one. The helpers go into Anna and Ryan's room and reveal that each end of Anna's body is chained to a car, and they will drive the cars and rip her body in half. They do so, while Ryan is tied up and unable to stop them. They then go into Jordan and Brandy's room and explain that the wire attached to Jordan's arm will be lowered into the water in the bathtub by placing rocks in the bucket hanging from his arm, electrocuting Brandy. Brandy is presumed to be killed (actually just knocked out) from being electrocuted four times, while Jordan's arm with the wire was forcibly placed in the water. The men remove Brandy from the tub and leave Jordan with Norah. Norah taunts Jordan, who then pushes Norah into the tub and electrocutes her with the wire, killing her. He then checks to see if Brandy is still alive and after reviving her, they both escape. Todd and Claire also manage to successfully escape from their room. However, Todd and Claire are caught while attempting to flee and are brought back to the complex. The helpers bring out Ryan (still tied to the chair) and shoot him dead in front of the others, and then chain Claire to the cars as they did to Anna, threatening to rip her body in half, unless she admits that her father was the abusive owner of an orphanage. She admits that her father was indeed the owner of an orphanage. It's eventually revealed that the three murderers used to live in an orphanage run by Claire's father where they were terribly abused and beaten, with the murderers intentionally setting the group up to come by the motel. They found the motel/gas station, killed the employees, and took it over. Then they placed road detour signs on the road, and placed sharp objects to puncture the cars tires. It is also revealed that before they left the orphanage, they burned it down, as the news described in the opening scene of the movie. Hence, the murderers main motive for their barbarism is revenge against Claire's father. They knew that the group was going on a road trip because Phil's girlfriend, Julia, was one of them. Jordan, Brandy, Todd, and Claire manage to escape. The film ends with a scene "six months later" where "the helpers" are working at another gas station, asking their customers if they need any help.

In 1883, Alfred Russel Wallace wrote a tribute to Darwin (entitled 'The Debt of Science to Darwin’) who had died the year before. One such tribute appeared in 'The Century', an illustrated monthly magazine. As part of this article he included a summary of Darwin's work relating to this book (p. 428): "The cowslip (Primula veris) has two kinds of flowers in nearly equal proportions: in the one the stamens are long and the style short, and in the other the reverse, so that in one the stamens are visible at the mouth of the tube of the flower, in the other the stigma occupies the same place, while the stamens are halfway down the tube. The fact had been known to botanists for 70 years, but had been classed as a case of mere variability, and therefore considered to be of no importance. In 1860 Darwin set to find out what it meant, since, according to his views, a definite variation like this must have a purpose. After a considerable amount of observation and experiment, he found that bees and moths visited the flowers, and that their proboscis become covered with pollen while sucking up the nectar, and further, the pollen of a long stamened plant would most surely be deposited on the stigma of the long styled plants, and vice versa. Now followed a long series of experiments, in which cowslips were fertilised with either pollen from the same kind or from a different kind of flower, and the invariable result was that the crosses between the two different types of flowers produced more good capsules, and more seed in each capsule; and as these crosses would be most frequently effected by insects, it was clear that this curious arrangement directly served to increase the fertility of this common plant. The same thing was found to occur in the primrose, as well as in flax (Linum perenne), lungworts (Pulmonaria), and a host of other plants, including the American partridge-berry (Mitchella repens). These are called dimorphic heterostyled plants. Still more extraordinary is the case of the common loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), which has both stamens and styles of three distinct lengths, each flower having two sets of stamens and one style, all of different lengths, and arranged in three different ways: A short style, with six medium and six long stamens; A medium style, with six short and six long stamens; A long style, with six medium and six short stamens. These flowers can be fertilised in eighteen distinct ways, necessitating a vast number of experiments, the result being, as in the case of the cowslip, that flowers fertilised by the pollen from stamens of the same length as the styles, gave on the average a larger number of capsules and a very much larger number of seeds than in any other case. The exact correspondence in the length of the style of each form with that of one set of stamens in the other form insures that the pollen attached to any part of the body of an insect shall be applied to a style of the same length on another plant, and there is thus a triple chance of the maximum of fertility....There is thus the clearest proof that these complex arrangements have the important end of securing both a more abundant and more vigorous offspring.” Observations and experiments still continue today to further the understanding of this phenomenon instigated by Darwin in this original and seminal work.

Following his pursuit by Kirill (in The Bourne Supremacy), Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) evades Moscow police while wounded, and deals with more flashbacks of when he first joined Operation Treadstone. Six weeks later, CIA Deputy Director Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) divulges the audiotaped confession of Ward Abbott, the late former head of Treadstone, to Director Ezra Kramer (Scott Glenn). Meanwhile, in Turin, journalist Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) of The Guardian meets an informant to learn about Bourne and Operation Blackbriar, the program succeeding Treadstone. The CIA tracks Ross as he returns to London, after his mention of "Blackbriar" during a cell-phone call to his editor is detected by the ECHELON system. Bourne reappears in Paris to inform Martin Kreutz (Daniel Brühl), the step-brother of his girlfriend Marie Helena Kreutz (Franka Potente), of her assassination in India, also in the previous film. Bourne reads Ross's articles and arranges a meeting with him at London Waterloo station. Bourne realizes that the CIA is following Ross and helps him evade capture for a while, but when Ross panics and ignores Bourne's instructions, Blackbriar assassin Paz (Édgar Ramírez) shoots him dead, in the middle of a busy station, on orders of Deputy Director Noah Vosen (David Strathairn). Vosen's team, reluctantly assisted by Landy, analyzes Ross's notes and identifies his source as Neal Daniels (Colin Stinton), a CIA Station chief involved with Treadstone and Blackbriar. Bourne makes his way to Daniels's office in Madrid but finds it empty. He incapacitates gunmen sent by Vosen and Landy. Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), a former Treadstone operative who shares a history with Bourne, tells him that Daniels has fled to Tangier and aids his escape from an arriving CIA unit. Parsons learns that Blackbriar "asset" Desh Bouksani (Joey Ansah) has been tasked with killing Daniels. Vosen sees that Parsons accessed information about Daniels and sends Bouksani after Parsons and Bourne as well, a decision with which Landy fiercely disagrees. Bourne follows Bouksani to Daniels but fails to prevent Daniels's death by a planted bomb. However, Bourne manages to kill Bouksani before he can kill Parsons. After sending Parsons into hiding, Bourne examines the contents of Daniels's briefcase and finds the address of the deep-cover CIA bureau in New York City, where Vosen directs Blackbriar. Bourne travels to New York. Landy receives a phone call from Bourne, which is intercepted by Vosen. When Landy tells him that his real name is David Webb and gives him the birth date "4-15-71", Bourne tells Landy to "get some rest" because she "look[s] tired", tipping off his presence in New York (a scene replicated from the end of the previous film). Vosen intercepts a text to Landy from Bourne apparently of a location to meet up and leaves his office with a whole team. Bourne however waits for them all to leave, enters Vosen's office and takes classified Blackbriar documents. Realizing that he has been hoodwinked, Vosen sends Paz after Bourne, but the resulting car chase ends with Bourne forcing Paz's car to crash into a concrete barrier. Bourne holds the injured Paz at gunpoint, but spares his life. Bourne arrives at a hospital at 415 East 71st Street, having figured out Landy's coded message. Outside, Bourne meets Landy and gives her the Blackbriar files before going inside. Vosen also figures out Landy's code and warns Dr. Albert Hirsch (Albert Finney), who ran Treadstone's behavior modification program, that Bourne is coming. He follows Landy inside the building but is too late to stop her from faxing the Blackbriar documents out. Meanwhile, Bourne confronts Hirsch on an upper floor and remembers that he volunteered for Treadstone. As Bourne flees to the roof, he is confronted by Paz, who asks, "Why didn't you take the shot?" Bourne repeats the dying words of The Professor in The Bourne Identity: "Look at us. Look at what they make you give." Paz lowers his gun, but Vosen appears and shoots at Bourne as he jumps into the East River. Some time later, Parsons watches a news broadcast about the exposure of Operation Blackbriar, the arrests of Hirsch and Vosen, a criminal investigation against Kramer, and the whereabouts of David Webb, a.k.a. Jason Bourne. Upon hearing that his body has not been found after a three-day search of the river, Parsons smiles. Bourne is shown swimming away in the East River.

Approximately 30 years after the destruction of the second Death Star, the last remaining Jedi, Luke Skywalker, has disappeared. The First Order has risen from the fallen Galactic Empire and seeks to eliminate the New Republic. The Resistance, backed by the Republic and led by Luke's twin sister, General Leia Organa, opposes them while searching for Luke to enlist his aid. Resistance pilot Poe Dameron meets village elder Lor San Tekka on the planet Jakku to obtain a map to Luke's location. Stormtroopers commanded by Kylo Ren destroy the village and capture Poe, while Ren kills Tekka. Poe's droid, BB-8 escapes with the map, and encounters a scavenger named Rey near a junkyard settlement. Ren tortures Poe using the Force, and learns of BB-8. Stormtrooper FN-2187, unable to bring himself to kill for the First Order, frees Poe, and they escape in a stolen TIE fighter; Poe dubs FN-2187 "Finn". They crash on Jakku, and Finn survives, but is unable to determine if Poe did as well. He encounters Rey and BB-8, but the First Order tracks them and launches an airstrike. Finn, Rey, and BB-8 flee the planet in the Millennium Falcon, which they steal from a junkyard. After breaking down, the Falcon is caught in a tractor beam and captured by a larger ship piloted by Han Solo and Chewbacca, looking to reclaim their former vessel. Two rival gangs, seeking to settle debts with Han, board and attack, but Han and his allies flee in the Falcon. The gangs inform the First Order of the events. At the First Order's Starkiller Base – a planet converted into a superweapon that harnesses energy from stars – Supreme Leader Snoke orders General Hux to use the weapon for the first time. Snoke questions Ren's ability to deal with emotions relating to his father, Han Solo; Ren says Solo means nothing to him. The Falcon crew views BB-8's map and determines it is incomplete. Han explains that Luke attempted to rebuild the Jedi Order, but exiled himself when an apprentice turned to the dark side and slaughtered the rising Order. The crew travels to the planet Takodana and meets with cantina owner Maz Kanata, who offers assistance in getting BB-8 to the Resistance. Rey is drawn to a vault on the lower level and finds the lightsaber that once belonged to Luke and his father, Anakin Skywalker. She experiences disturbing visions and flees into the woods. Maz gives Finn the lightsaber for safekeeping. Starkiller Base fires and destroys the Republic capital and a portion of its fleet. The First Order attacks Takodana in search of BB-8. Han, Chewbacca, and Finn are saved by Resistance X-wing fighters led by Poe, who survived the earlier crash. Leia arrives at Takodana with C-3PO and reunites with Han and Chewbacca. Meanwhile, Ren captures Rey and takes her to Starkiller Base. However, when he interrogates her about the map, she is able to resist his mind-reading attempts. Discovering she can use the Force, she escapes using a Jedi mind trick on a nearby guard. At the Resistance base on D'Qar, BB-8 finds R2-D2, who has been inactive since Luke's disappearance. As Starkiller Base prepares to fire on D'Qar, the Resistance devises a plan to destroy the superweapon by attacking a critical facility. Leia urges Han to return their son alive. Using the Falcon, Han, Chewbacca, and Finn infiltrate the facility, find Rey, and plant explosives. Han confronts Ren, calling him by his birth name, Ben, and implores him to abandon the dark side. Ren refuses and kills his father, enraging Chewbacca, who fires and hits Ren. He sets off the explosives, allowing the Resistance to attack and destroy Starkiller Base. The injured Ren pursues Finn and Rey to the surface. A lightsaber battle between Ren and Finn ensues, leaving Finn badly wounded. Rey takes the lightsaber and uses the Force to defeat Ren, before they are separated by a fissure as the planet begins to disintegrate and implode. Snoke orders Hux to evacuate and bring Ren to him. Rey and Chewbacca escape with Finn in the Falcon. On D'Qar, the Resistance celebrates while Leia, Chewbacca, and Rey mourn Han's death. R2-D2 awakens and reveals the rest of the map, which Rey follows to the aquatic planet Ahch-To. She finds Luke and presents him with the lightsaber.

After the Huns, led by the ruthless Shan Yu, invade Han China, the Chinese emperor begins to command a general mobilization. Each family is given a conscription notice, requiring one man from each family to join the Chinese army. When Fa Mulan hears that her elderly father Fa Zhou, the only man in their family, is once more to go to war, she becomes anxious and apprehensive. She decides to deal with this herself by disguising herself as a man so that she can go to war instead of her father. When her family learns of Mulan's departure, they all become anxious. Grandmother Fa, Mulan's grandmother, prays to the family ancestors for Mulan's safety. The ancestors then order their "Great Stone Dragon" to protect Mulan. The ancestors are unaware that the statue of Great Stone Dragon failed to come to life, and that Mushu, a small dragon, is the one sent to protect Mulan. Mulan is misguided by Mushu in how to behave like a man, which starts a ruckus at the training camp. However, under command of Li Shang, she and her new co-workers at the camp, Yao, Ling and Chien-Po, become skilled warriors. Mushu, desiring to see Mulan succeed, creates a fake order from Shang's father, General Li, ordering Shang to follow them into the mountains. The troops set out to meet General Li, but arrive at a burnt-out encampment and discover that General Li and his troops have all been killed by the Huns. As they solemnly leave the mountains, they are ambushed by the Huns, but Mulan cleverly uses a cannon to create an avalanche which buries most of the Huns. An enraged Shan Yu slashes her in the chest, and her deception is revealed when the wound is bandaged. Instead of executing Mulan as the law requires, Shang relents and decides to spare her life for saving him, but expels her from the army, stranding her on the mountain as the rest of the army departs for the Imperial City to report the news of the Huns' demise. However it is revealed that several Hun warriors including Shan Yu survive the avalanche, and Mulan catches sight of them as they make their way to the City, intent on capturing the Emperor. At the Imperial City, Mulan is unable to convince Shang about Shan Yu's intentions. The Huns appear to capture the Emperor, then they lock up the palace. With Mulan's help, Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po pose as concubines and are able to enter the palace and, with the help of Shang, they defeat Shan Yu's men. As Shang prevents Shan Yu from assassinating the Emperor, Mulan lures the boss Hun onto the roof where she engages him in solo combat. Meanwhile, acting on Mulan's instructions, Mushu fires a bundle of fireworks rockets at Shan Yu on her signal. The fireworks strike Shan Yu and explode, killing him. Mulan is praised by the Emperor and the people of China, who all bow to her as an unprecedented honor. While she accepts the Emperor's crest and Shan Yu's sword as gifts, she politely declines his offer to be his advisor and asks to return to her family. She returns home and presents these gifts to her father, but he is more overjoyed to have Mulan back safely. Having become enamored with Mulan, Shang soon arrives under the guise of returning her helmet, but accepts the family's invitation for dinner. Mushu is granted a position as a Fa family guardian by the ancestors amid a returning celebration.

In a Louisiana assisted-living home in 1999, Paul Edgecomb begins to cry while watching the film Top Hat. His companion Elaine becomes concerned and Paul explains to her that the film reminded him of the events of 1935, which took place when he was a prison officer, in charge of death row and the state's electric chair. In 1935, Paul supervises fellow officers Brutus "Brutal" Howell, Dean Stanton, Harry Terwilliger and Percy Wetmore at Cold Mountain Penitentiary on what they refer to as the "Green Mile", Death Row. Paul, suffering from a severe bladder infection, receives a physically imposing, but mentally challenged, black man, John Coffey, into his custody; John had been convicted of raping and murdering two little white girls. One of the other inmates is a Native-American named Arlen Bitterbuck, who is charged with murder and is the first to be executed. Percy demonstrates a severe sadistic and bullying streak, but is beyond reproach; he is the nephew of Louisiana's First Lady, but only Paul is bold enough to defy this. He is particularly abusive with inmate Eduard "Del" Delacroix; he breaks Del's fingers with his baton, steps on a pet mouse named Mr. Jingles, which Del had adopted, repeatedly calls him by a gay slur, and ultimately sabotages his execution by failing to soak the sponge used to conduct electricity to Del's head; Del's body explodes in flames and he dies screaming in pain. John begins to demonstrate supernatural powers; he cures Paul's bladder infection, resurrects Mr. Jingles, and heals Melinda Moores, wife of the prison's chief warden, of a brain tumor. This last affliction he releases into Percy, who under its influence shoots another prisoner, mass murderer William Wharton, dead. Wharton had from the moment of his arrival been a troublemaker; he attacked the guards as he was being escorted into the block, made mischief on two occasions later which caused Paul to order him restrained in the block's padded cell, groped Percy briefly, racially insulted John, and revealed psychically to John that he is in fact responsible for the crime for which John was unjustly condemned. John then reveals the story psychically to Paul, but in so doing releases his supernatural energy into Paul. Percy, meanwhile, is committed to the insane asylum which, ironically, Wharton had come from, and where he, Percy, was hopeful of getting a job. John tells Paul, distraught over the notion of executing an innocent man, that he does in fact wish to die, as he views the world as a cruel place. Mentioning that he had never before seen a movie, John watches Top Hat with the other guards as a last request. That night, John is executed, although he refuses the customary hood, as he is afraid of the dark. Paul concludes his story by telling Elaine that John's was the last execution that either he or Brutus supervised; following Coffey's execution they both took jobs in the juvenile system. Elaine realizes that, since he had a grown son in 1935, Paul must be much older than he looks. Paul reveals that he is, in fact, 108 years of age, and not only is he still alive, so is Mr. Jingles, Del's mouse. Paul then muses that if John's power could make a mouse live for as long as Mr. Jingles has, how much longer does he himself have left?

The story is narrated by George Cranleigh, a younger son of Lord Harold Cranleigh, a destitute landowner in Surrey, who has been ruined, according to Blackmore, by the "farce of Free-trade." In the opening chapter George, riding home from market, surprises a maiden of surpassing beauty upon her knees in a ruined chapel. She proves to be Dariel, the daughter of Sur Imar, a prince of the Lesghians, a wild tribe of the Caucasus. A blood feud has arisen between Imar and his sister, and so he has, with his daughter, his foster-brother Stepan, and a body of retainers, come to England and settled peaceably in a deserted house in Surrey. Imar resolves to returns to his native land to educate his tribesmen in the lessons of civilisation. George, who has fallen in love with Dariel, follows her to the East. But Imar's twin-sister Marva, Queen of the Ossets, who is appropriately called by the natives "the Bride of the Devil," plans to kill Prince Imar and wed his daughter Dariel to her son. After weeks of travelling and days full of desperate adventure, George, with the help of miners and Lesghians, rescues Dariel and her father and kills the wicked Princess and her fiendish son.

A British woman, Elise Clifton-Ward (Angelina Jolie), is being followed by French Police who are working with Scotland Yard under the direction of Inspector John Acheson (Paul Bettany). Acheson has spent years hunting Alexander Pearce, a lover of Elise, who owes ÂŁ744 million in back taxes, and is believed to have received plastic surgery to alter his appearance. At a Parisian cafe, Elise receives written instructions from Pearce: Board the train to Venice; pick out a man; let the police believe that he is Pearce. Elise burns the note, evades the police and boards the train. On the train, Elise selects Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp), who is apparently an American mathematics teacher from a community college in Wisconsin. She spends much time with him, seeming to start a romance. Meanwhile, the police have managed to salvage the ashes of her burned note and assembled them to extract information regarding her rendezvous, as well as her ruse. Aware of her location, but not of the ruse, an informer from the police station communicates to Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff), the mobster from whom Pearce stole $2.3 billion, that Pearce is traveling with Elise on the train to Venice. Shaw immediately proceeds to Venice. Elise invites Frank to stay with her at her suite in the Hotel Danieli in Venice. Pearce leaves further instructions for Elise to attend a ball. Elise abandons Frank, who is then chased by Shaw's men. While trying to escape from them, Frank is detained by the Italian police, ostensibly for his own safety, only to have a corrupt inspector turn him over to Shaw's men in exchange for the bounty that has been placed on Pearce's head. Elise rescues Frank just before he is handed over, leading Shaw's men on an extended boat chase and finally escaping. She leaves Frank at the airport with his passport and money, urging him to go home for his own safety. Elise is revealed to be an undercover Scotland Yard agent who was under suspension for her suspected sympathies with Pearce. She agrees to participate in a sting operation. At the ball, as Elise tries to spot Pearce in the crowd, an envelope is placed on the table in front of her, but the man (Rufus Sewell) disappears into the crowd. She tries to follow him through the crowd, but is stopped by Frank. Frank claims to be in love with Elise and invites her to dance with him. After the police surprise Frank, Elise reads the note. She leaves suddenly in her boat to be tailed by Shaw. Both parties are followed by the police. Frank is held handcuffed. When Elise arrives at the destination, Shaw takes her prisoner, threatening to harm her unless she reveals the location of the stolen money. The police monitor the situation inside the rendezvous room through audio and video links. Despite Elise's peril, Acheson repeatedly turns down police requests to intervene with their snipers. While the police are occupied in monitoring the situation, Frank escapes from the police boat and confronts Shaw, claiming to be Pearce and offering to open the safe if Elise is allowed to leave safely. Shaw is skeptical and makes a counter offer that Frank should open the safe if he does not want to see Elise tortured by his men. Chief Inspector Jones (Timothy Dalton) arrives at the police stake-out, overrides Acheson, and orders the snipers to fire, killing Shaw and his men. To Elise's obvious pleasure, Jones lifts her suspension and terminates her employment. Acheson, receiving a message that Pearce has been found near their position, rushes to find the police have detained an Englishman. The man, Lawrence Mason, says he is a tourist following written instructions received via his mobile phone, for which he has been receiving payments. Elise tells Frank that she loves him, but she also loves Pearce. Frank then suggests a "solution" to this dilemma; to Elise's surprise, he opens the safe by entering the correct code, thus revealing that he is really Alexander Pearce. When the police open the safe they find only one cheque: It is for ÂŁ744 million. Acheson prepares to chase after Pearce, but Jones overrides him, reasoning that with the taxes now paid in full, Pearce's only crime is that he stole money from a now-dead gangster. Jones orders the case to be closed, much to Acheson's frustration. Frank (Alexander) and Elise sail away together.

After saving New York City from the demi-god Gozer, the Ghostbusters—Peter Venkman, Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore—were sued by several city and state agencies for the property damage. Rather than face financial ruin, they accepted a restraining order barring them from operating as paranormal investigators and eliminators—forcing them out of business. In the eyes of the city, they are now considered frauds. Five years later, Ray owns an occult bookstore and works as an unpopular children's entertainer with Winston; Egon has returned to Columbia University to conduct experiments into human emotion; and Peter hosts a pseudo-psychic television show. Peter's former girlfriend Dana Barrett has had a son, Oscar, with a violinist whom she married then divorced when he received an offer to join the London Symphony Orchestra. In order to take care of her baby, Dana quit performing and now works as a restorer at the fictional Manhattan Museum of Art, working to prepare a malevolent-looking portrait of a legendary sixteenth-century tyrant named Vigo the Carpathian of Moldavia for an upcoming exhibition. After an incident in which Oscar's baby carriage is controlled by an unseen force and drawn to a busy intersection, Dana turns to the Ghostbusters for help. Meanwhile, Dana's colleague Dr. Janosz Poha has become increasingly obsessed with the glowering image of Vigo in the painting and falls under its spell. Vigo, whose spirit inhabits the painting, orders Janosz to locate a child that he can possess, allowing him to return to life on the New Year. Janosz, infatuated with Dana, offers to bring baby Oscar to Vigo in exchange for Dana, a deal which Vigo accepts. The Ghostbusters' investigation leads them to illegally excavate First Avenue at the point where the baby carriage stopped. Lowered underneath, Ray discovers a vast river of pink slime filling an abandoned pneumatic transit line. Attacked by the slime after obtaining a sample, Ray causes a city-wide blackout by accidentally kicking a cast iron pipe that breaks, falls, and shorts out an electric cable. After this, the Ghostbusters are arrested by the NYPD. Ineffectually defended by Louis Tully, they are found guilty of violating the restraining order by Judge Wexler, aka "The Hammer." Before they are taken to Riker's Island, Wexler angrily berates them. In response, the slime recovered by Ray and taken as evidence explodes, releasing the ghosts of two murderers that the judge had condemned to death that proceed to devastate the courtroom. The Ghostbusters capture the ghosts in return for the cancellation of the restraining order. Later, the slime invades Dana's apartment via the bathtub and attacks her and Oscar. She seeks refuge with Peter, and the two begin to renew their relationship. Investigating the 'psychomagnatheric' slime and Vigo's history, the Ghostbusters discover that it reacts to emotions; it can be charged positively or negatively. They suspect that it has been generated by the negative attitudes of New Yorkers. While Peter and Dana have dinner together, Egon, Ray, and Winston explore the underground river of slime. While measuring its depth, Winston gets pulled into the slime flow, and Ray and Egon jump in after him. After they escape back to the surface Ray and Winston begin an angry argument, but Egon realizes that they are being influenced by the slime, so they strip off their clothes. They also learn the river is flowing underground directly to the museum where Dana works. The Ghostbusters go to the mayor with their suspicions, but are dismissed; the mayor's assistant, Jack Hardemeyer, has them committed to a psychiatric hospital to protect the mayor's campaign for governor. Meanwhile, a spirit resembling Janosz as a nanny kidnaps Oscar from Peter's apartment, and Dana pursues them to the museum alone. After she enters, the museum is covered with a cocoon of impenetrable slime. New Year's Eve sees a sudden increase of supernatural activity as the slime rises from the subway line and onto the city streets, causing widespread paranormal activity with ghosts attacking citizens. In response, the mayor fires Hardemeyer and has the Ghostbusters released. After heading to the museum, they are unable to breach the slime barrier with their proton packs. Determining that they need a powerful symbol to rally the citizens and weaken the slime, the Ghostbusters use positively charged mood slime and a remix of "Higher and Higher" to animate the Statue of Liberty and pilot it through the streets before the cheering crowds. As they arrive at the museum, the slime begins to recede and they use the Statue's flaming torch to break through a skylight to attack Vigo and Janosz. Janosz is neutralized with positively charged mood slime, but Vigo immobilizes the Ghostbusters and attempts to transfer into Oscar's body. The positive feelings accompanying a chorus of "Auld Lang Syne" by the citizens outside weakens Vigo, returning him to the painting and freeing the Ghostbusters. Vigo momentarily possesses Ray, and the other Ghostbusters attack him with a combination of proton streams and positively charged mood slime. This destroys Vigo and changes the painting to a likeness of the four Ghostbusters standing protectively around Oscar. Outside, the Ghostbusters receive a standing ovation from the crowd and, at a later ceremony to restore the Statue, the Key to the City from the mayor.

In 1976, in South Africa during apartheid, Ben Du Toit (Donald Sutherland) is a South African school teacher at a school for whites only. One day the son of his gardener, Gordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona), gets beaten by the white police and gets caught by the police during a peacefully demonstration for a better education policy for blacks in South Africa. Gordon asks Ben for help. After Ben refuses to help because of his trust in the police, Gordon gets caught by the police as well and is tortured. Against the will of his family, Ben tries to find out more about the disappearance of his gardener by himself. Seeing the weakness and helplessness of the blacks, he decides to bring this incident up before a court with Ian McKenzie (Marlon Brando) as lawyer but loses. Afterwards, he continues to act by himself and supports a small group of blacks to interview others to find out what happened to Gordon. The white police notices their intentions and detains some responsible persons. They continue and (to increase their safety) hide the information at Ben's house. Ben lets his son in on his plans. His son and his daughter both get to know the hiding spots, and after the police searched through Ben's house earlier, there is an explosion next to the hiding spot because the daughter betrayed it to the police though the son saved the documents. Gordon's wife, Emily (Thoko Ntshinga) and children are captured as well. Ben's wife and daughter leave. The daughter offers her father to get the documents to a safer place. They meet at a restaurant and Ben gives her the fake documents, which she delivers to the police man. Instead of giving her the documents, Ben gave her a book about art. At the end, Ben is run over by the police man. The policeman is shot by a black assistant of Ben in revenge.

Two Bad Mice reflects Potter's deepening happiness in her professional and personal relationship with Norman Warne and her delight in trouncing the rigors and strictures of middle class domesticity. For all the destruction the mice wreak, it is miniaturized and thus more amusing than serious. Potter enjoyed developing a tale that gave her the vicarious thrill of the sort of improper behaviour she would never have entertained in real life. The tale begins with "once upon a time" and a description of a "very beautiful doll's-house" belonging to a doll called Lucinda and her cook-doll Jane. Jane never cooks because the doll's-house food is made of plaster and was "bought ready-made, in a box full of shavings". Though the food will not come off the plates, it is "extremely beautiful". One morning the dolls leave the nursery for a drive in their perambulator. No one is in the nursery when Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca, two mice living under the skirting board, peep out and cross the hearthrug to the doll's-house. They open the door, enter, and "squeak for joy" when they discover the dining table set for dinner. It is "all so convenient!" Tom Thumb discovers the food is plaster and loses his temper. The two smash every dish on the table – "bang, bang, smash, smash!" – and even try to burn one in the "red-hot crinkly paper fire" in the kitchen fireplace. Tom Thumb scurries up the sootless chimney while Hunca Munca empties the kitchen canisters of their red and blue beads. Tom Thumb takes the dolls' dresses from the chest of drawers and tosses them out the window while Hunca Munca pulls the feathers from the dolls' bolster. In the midst of her mischief, Hunca Munca remembers she needs a bolster and the two take the dolls' bolster to their mouse-hole. They carry off several small odds and ends from the doll's-house including a cradle, however a bird cage and bookcase will not fit through the mouse-hole. The nursery door suddenly opens and the dolls return in their perambulator. Lucinda and Jane are speechless when they behold the vandalism in their house. The little girl who owns the doll's-house gets a policeman doll and positions it at the front door, but her nurse is more practical and sets a mouse-trap. The narrator believes the mice are not "so very naughty after all": Tom Thumb pays for his crimes with a crooked sixpence placed in the doll's stocking on Christmas Eve and Hunca Munca atones for her hand in the destruction by sweeping the doll's-house every morning with her dust-pan and broom.

When Mr. McGregor and his wife leave home in their gig, Benjamin Bunny and his cousin Peter Rabbit venture into Mr. McGregor's garden to retrieve the clothes Peter lost there in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. They find the blue jacket and brown shoes on a scarecrow, but Peter is apprehensive about lingering in the garden because of his previous experience. Benjamin delays their departure by gathering onions, which he wraps in Peter's handkerchief, hoping to give them to his aunt, Peter's mother. He then takes a casual stroll around the garden, followed by an increasingly nervous Peter. Rounding a corner, they see a cat and hide under a basket, but the cat then sits on top of the basket for hours, trapping the pair. Benjamin's father enters the garden looking for his son. He drives the cat from the basket and locks her in the greenhouse, then rescues Benjamin and Peter. But he also punishes them for going to Mr. McGregor's garden by whipping them with a switch he had brought. Once home, Peter gives the onions to his mother, who forgives his adventure because he has recovered his jacket and shoes. Following his return, Mr. McGregor is puzzled by the scarecrow's missing clothes and the cat locked in the greenhouse.

Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck) and Banky Edwards (Jason Lee) are comic book artists and lifelong friends. Holden is the friendly, more mild-mannered half of the duo; Banky, meanwhile, is the loud and fiery half. Everything is going well for them until they meet fellow comic book artist Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams) at a comic book convention in New York City where they are promoting their comic Bluntman and Chronic. Holden is attracted to Alyssa, but soon learns that she is attracted to women. The two begin hanging out, and a deep friendship develops. Eventually, Holden is no longer able to contain his feelings, and confesses his love to Alyssa. She is initially angry with him, but that night, the two begin a romantic relationship. This new development worsens the tension between Holden and Banky, who hates and mistrusts Alyssa and is disturbed by her and Holden's relationship. Banky investigates and uncovers dirt on Alyssa's past, and he reports to Holden that Alyssa participated in a threesome with two guys during high school, which gave her the nickname "Finger Cuffs". Holden is deeply upset by this revelation, having previously believed that he is the first man Alyssa had ever slept with. He angrily confronts Alyssa while attending a hockey game, and clumsily attempts baiting her into confessing. During a tearful argument, she tells Holden about her "many" youthful sexual experimentations. She apologizes for letting him believe that he was the only man she had been with. However, she refuses to apologize for her past, and Holden leaves feeling disillusioned and furious. Later, during lunch with Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith), Silent Bob reveals that he was once in a relationship similar to Holden's. Despite the fact that he was in love with his girlfriend, Amy, his neurosis about her adventurous sexual past caused him to sabotage the relationship and leave her. Angry at himself for letting her go, he has "spent every day since then chasing Amy, so to speak." Moved by Silent Bob's story, Holden devises a plan to fix both his relationship with Alyssa and his estranged friendship with Banky. He invites them both over and tells Alyssa that he would like to get over her past and remain her boyfriend. He also tells Banky that he realizes that Banky is in love with him—kissing him passionately to prove the point. Holden suggests a threesome. Though initially shocked, Banky agrees to participate, whereas Alyssa explains to Holden that it will not save their relationship. Before leaving, she states that she loves him, but she will not be his "whore." Banky also leaves the apartment, instantly ending their friendship. One year later, both Banky and Holden are busy promoting their own respective comics at a convention in New York. It is revealed that Holden has dissolved their partnership over Bluntman and Chronic, leaving the viewer with the assumption that he sold the publishing and creative rights over to Banky (which is corroborated in the beginning of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). Banky smiles sadly at seeing his old friend, who silently congratulates him for his success on his own comic. Banky gestures over to a booth hosted by Alyssa, and provides wordless encouragement to Holden to go talk to her. He has a brief, quietly emotional conversation with Alyssa, and gives her a copy of Chasing Amy, his new comic based on their failed relationship. After Holden leaves, Alyssa's new girlfriend (Virginia Smith) arrives and asks who she was talking to. A shaken, misty-eyed Alyssa feigns indifference and replies, "Oh, just some guy I knew."

Dr Watson is called to tend Holmes, who is apparently dying of a rare disease contracted while he was on a case. Watson was shocked, having heard about his friend’s illness. Mrs. Hudson says that Holmes has neither eaten nor drunk anything in three days. Holmes instructs Watson not to come near him, because the illness is highly infectious. Although Watson wishes to examine Holmes himself or send for a specialist, Holmes demands that Watson wait several hours before seeking help. So, Watson is forced to wait, in extreme worry as Holmes mutters nonsense. While Watson waits, he examines several objects in Holmes’s room. Holmes grows angry when Watson touches items explaining that he does not like his things touched. At six o’clock, Holmes tells Watson to turn the gaslight on, but only half-full. He then instructs Watson to bring Mr Culverton Smith of 13 Lower Burke Street to see Holmes, but to make sure that Watson returns to Baker Street before Smith arrives. Watson goes to Smith's address. Although Smith refuses to see anyone, Watson forces his way in. Once Watson explains his errand on behalf of Sherlock Holmes, Smith's attitude changes drastically. Smith agrees to come to Baker Street within a half hour. Watson excuses himself, saying that he has another appointment, and returns to Baker Street before Smith's arrival. Believing that they are alone, Smith is frank with Holmes. It soon emerges, to the hiding Watson’s horror, that Holmes has been sickened by the same illness that killed Smith’s nephew Victor. Smith then sees the little ivory box, which he had sent to Holmes by post, and which contains a sharp spring infected with the illness. Smith pockets it, removing the evidence of his crime. He then resolves to stay there and watch Holmes die. Holmes asks Smith to turn the gas up full, which Smith does. Smith then asks Holmes if he would like anything else, to which Holmes replies — no longer in the voice of a man near death — "a match and a cigarette." Inspector Morton then enters — the full gaslight was the signal to move in. Holmes tells Morton to arrest Culverton Smith for the murder of his nephew, and perhaps also for the attempted murder of Sherlock Holmes. Smith, still as arrogant as ever, points out that his word is as good as Holmes’s in court, but Holmes then calls for Watson to emerge from behind the screen, to present himself as another witness to the conversation. Holmes was never really dying. His feigned illness was a ruse to induce Smith to confess to his nephew’s murder. Holmes was not infected by the little box; he has enough enemies to know that he must always examine his mail carefully before he opens it. Starving himself for three days,and the claim of the "disease's" infectious nature was to keep Watson from examining him and discovering the ruse.

Barbra (Judith O'Dea) and Johnny Blair (Russell Streiner) drive to rural Pennsylvania for an annual visit to their father's grave. Barbara is attacked by a strange man (Bill Hinzman). Johnny tries to rescue his sister, but the man throws him against a gravestone; Johnny strikes his head on the stone and is left unconscious. After a mishap with the car, Barbara escapes on foot, with the stranger in pursuit, and later arrives at a farmhouse, where she discovers a woman's mangled corpse. Fleeing from the house, she is confronted by strange menacing figures like the man in the graveyard. Ben (Duane Jones) takes her into the house, driving the "monsters" away and sealing the doors and windows. Throughout the night, Barbra slowly descends into a stupor of shock and insanity. Ben and Barbra are unaware that the farmhouse has a cellar, housing an angry married couple Harry (Karl Hardman) and Helen Cooper (Marilyn Eastman), along with their daughter Karen (Kyra Schon). They sought refuge after a group of the same monsters overturned their car. Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley), a teenage couple, arrived after hearing an emergency broadcast about a series of brutal murders. Karen has fallen seriously ill after being bitten by one of the monsters. They ventured upstairs when Ben turns on a radio, while Barbra awakens from her stupor. Harry demands that everyone hide in the cellar, but Ben deems it a "deathtrap" and continues upstairs, to barricade the house with Tom's help. Radio reports explain that a wave of mass murder is sweeping across the eastern United States. Ben finds a television, and they watch an emergency broadcaster (Charles Craig) report that the recently deceased have become reanimated and are consuming the flesh of the living. Experts, scientists, and the United States military fail to discover the cause, though one scientist suspects radioactive contamination from a space probe. It returned from Venus, and was deliberately exploded in the Earth's atmosphere when the radiation was detected. Ben plans to obtain medical care for Karen when the reports listed local rescue centers offering refuge and safety. Ben and Tom refuel Ben's truck while Harry hurls molotov cocktails from an upper window at the "undead". Judy follows him, fearing Tom's safety. Tom accidentally spills gasoline on the truck setting it ablaze. Tom and Judy try to drive the truck away from the pump, but Judy is unable to free herself from its door, and the truck explodes, instantly killing Tom and Judy; the undead promptly eat the charred remains. Ben returns to the house, but is locked out by Harry. Eventually forcing his way back in, Ben beats Harry, angered by his cowardice, while the undead feed on the remains of Tom and Judy. A news report reveals that, only a gunshot or heavy blow to the head can stop them, aside from setting the "reactivated bodies" on fire. It also reported that posses of armed men are patrolling the countryside to restore order. The lights go out moments later, and the undead break through the barricades. Harry grabs Ben's rifle and threatens to shoot him, but Ben wrestles the gun away and fires. Harry stumbles into the cellar and collapses next to Karen, mortally wounded. She has also died from her illness. The undead try to pull Helen and Barbra through the windows, but Helen frees herself. She returns to the refuge of the cellar to see Karen is reanimated and eating Harry's corpse. Helen is frozen in shock, and Karen stabs her to death with a masonry trowel. Barbra, seeing Johnny among the undead, is carried away by the horde and devoured. As the undead overrun the house, Ben seals himself inside the cellar, where Harry and Helen are reanimating, and he is forced to shoot them. Ben is awakened by the posse's gunfire outside the next morning. He ventures upstairs. A member of the posse mistakes him for one of the undead and shoots him through the forehead. The film ends with a photo montage of Ben as his body is thrown into the posse's bonfire.

Mrs. Tittlemouse is a tale in which no humans play a part and one in which events are treated as though they have occurred since time immemorial and far from human observance. It is a simple story, and one likely to appeal to young children. Mrs. Tittlemouse is a "most terribly tidy little mouse always sweeping and dusting the soft sandy floors" in the "yards and yards" of passages and storerooms, nut-cellars, and seed-cellars in her "funny house" amongst the roots of a hedge. She has a kitchen, a parlour, a pantry, a larder, and a bedroom where she keeps her dust-pan and brush next to her little box bed. She tries to keep her house tidy, but insect intruders leave dirty footprints on the floors and all sorts of messes about the place. A beetle is shooed away, a ladybird is exorcised with "Fly away home! Your house is on fire!", and a spider inquiring after Miss Muffet is turned away with little ceremony. In a distant passage, Mrs. Tittlemouse meets Babbitty Bumble, a bumble bee who has taken up residence with three or four other bees in one of the empty storerooms. Mrs. Tittlemouse tries to pull out their nest but they buzz fiercely at her, and she retreats to deal with the matter after dinner. In her parlour, she finds her toad neighbour Mr. Jackson sitting before the fire in her rocking chair. Mr. Jackson lives in "a drain below the hedge, in a very dirty wet ditch". His coat tails drip with water and he leaves wet footmarks on Mrs. Tittlemouse's parlour floor. She follows him about with a mop and dish-cloth. Mrs. Tittlemouse allows Mr. Jackson to stay for dinner, but the food is not to his liking, and he rummages about the cupboard searching for the honey he can smell. He discovers a butterfly in the sugar bowl, but when he finds the bees, he makes a big mess pulling out their nest. Mrs. Tittlemouse fears she "shall go distracted" as a result of the turmoil and takes refuge in the nut-cellar. When she finally ventures forth, she discovers everybody has left but her house is a mess. She takes some moss, beeswax, and twigs to partly close up her front door to keep Mr. Jackson out. Exhausted, she goes to bed wondering if her house will ever be tidy again. The fastidious little mouse spends a fortnight spring cleaning. She rubs the furniture with beeswax and polishes her little tin spoons, then holds a party for five other little wood-mice wearing their Regency finery. Mr. Jackson attends but is forced to sit outside because Mrs. Tittlemouse has narrowed her door. He takes no offence at being excluded from the parlour. Acorn-cupfuls of honeydew are passed through the window to him and he toasts Mrs. Tittlemouse's good health.

Jack (George Clooney), a gunsmith and contract killer, and his lover, Ingrid (Irina Björklund), are relaxing in Sweden. Jack becomes alarmed by a trail of footprints in the snow and pulls Ingrid towards shelter. Sniper gunshots ring out. Ingrid sees Jack pull a gun from his pocket and shoot the approaching sniper. Knowing his identity is in jeopardy, and with little hesitation, Jack shoots and kills Ingrid. He flees to Rome and contacts his handler Pavel (Johan Leysen), who insists that Jack cannot stay in Rome. Pavel sends him to Castelvecchio (a small town in the mountains of Abruzzo). Jack becomes nervous, and, disposing of the cell phone Pavel gave him, goes to nearby Castel del Monte, Abruzzo, instead. While in Abruzzo, Jack contacts Pavel, who sets him up with another job. He meets Mathilde (Thekla Reuten), who wants him to build a custom sniper rifle for an assassination. He also begins patronizing a prostitute, Clara (Violante Placido), and they begin a relationship separate from her business duties. Jack meets with Mathilde to test the weapon. She is impressed by the craftsmanship, but asks him to make a few more adjustments. Later, Jack realizes that he is being followed by an assassin from Sweden, whom he kills. Jack is tormented by dreams of the events in Sweden and regrets killing Ingrid. His friendship and conversations with a local priest, Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli), encourage him to question his life choices. Both Mathilde and Clara notice Jack's association with butterflies, Mathilde by his expertise in endangered butterflies and Clara by his prominent tattoo. When Father Benedetto tells Jack he senses he lives in a special kind of hell, "a place without love," Jack starts to let himself feel love for Clara, and envisions a life with her. Jack talks to Pavel one last time—asking how the Swedes have found him. In his growing fear, he even suspects Clara when he discovers a small pistol in her purse. He questions Clara about the gun and is satisfied with her explanation (to defend herself, since there have been newspaper reports of murdered prostitutes). Jack agrees to deliver the weapon to Mathilde as his last job—but at the last moment he opens the briefcase and sabotages the rifle. At the drop-off, Jack becomes suspicious that Mathilde plans to kill him. Before anything can happen, a busload of school children arrives. Mathilde gives Jack his payment—a thick envelope full of cash—and the two separate. As Mathilde drives away, Pavel contacts her and asks if she has killed Jack. She tells him she has not, but says she is following him and will kill him. Clara meets Jack at a religious procession in town. Jack asks her to go away with him and she agrees. Mathilde tries to shoot Jack from a nearby rooftop, but the sabotaged rifle explodes in her face. Seeing Mathilde fall from the roof, Jack gives Clara the envelope full of cash and tells her to go to a river where they had picnicked and wait for him. He runs to Mathilde, who is dying on the pavement, and discovers that she also works for Pavel. As Jack goes to meet Clara, he hears Pavel behind him. They exchange gunfire and Pavel drops dead. As Jack drives to meet Clara at the river, he feels his abdomen and realizes he has been shot. Jack arrives at the picnic spot and as he sees Clara, he collapses. Clara screams and runs to the car. A white butterfly flits skyward from Jack's car.

Ellen Ripley is rescued after drifting through space in stasis for 57 years. She is debriefed by her employers at the Weyland-Yutani Corporation over the destruction of her ship, the USCSS Nostromo; they are skeptical of her claims that an Alien killed the ship's crew and forced her to destroy the ship. The exomoon LV-426, where the Nostromo encountered the alien eggs, is now home to the terraforming colony Hadleys Hope. When contact is lost with Hadleys Hope, Weyland-Yutani representative Carter Burke and Colonial Marine Lieutenant Gorman ask Ripley to accompany Burke and a Colonial Marine unit to investigate the disturbance. Traumatized by her encounter with the Alien, Ripley initially refuses, but she relents after experiencing recurring nightmares about the creature; she makes Burke promise to destroy, and not capture, the Aliens. Aboard the spaceship USS Sulaco, she is introduced to the Colonial Marines, their commanding officer Lieutenant Gorman, and the android Bishop, toward whom Ripley is initially hostile following her experience with the traitorous android Ash aboard the Nostromo. A dropship delivers the expedition to the surface of LV-426, where they find the colony deserted. Inside, they find makeshift barricades and signs of a struggle, but no bodies; two live facehuggers in containment tanks in the medical lab; and a survivor, a traumatized young girl nicknamed Newt who used the ventilation system to evade capture or death. The crew uses the colony's computer to locate the colonists grouped beneath the fusion powered atmosphere processing station. They head to the location, descending into corridors covered in Alien secretions. At the center of the station, the marines find the colonists cocooned, serving as incubators for the Aliens' offspring. When the marines kill a newborn Alien, the Aliens are roused and ambush the marines, killing and capturing several. When the inexperienced Gorman panics, Ripley takes control of their vehicle and rams it through the nest to rescue marines Hicks, Hudson, and Vasquez. Hicks orders the dropship to recover the survivors, but a stowaway Alien kills the pilots, causing it to crash into the station. Ripley, Newt, Gorman, Burke and the remaining marines barricade themselves inside the colony command center. Ripley discovers that Burke deliberately sent the colonists to investigate the derelict spaceship where the Nostromo crew first encountered the Alien eggs, believing he could become wealthy by recovering Alien specimens for use as biological weapons. She threatens to expose him, but Bishop informs the group of a greater danger: the power plant was damaged by the dropship crash, and will soon explode with the force of a 40-megaton thermonuclear weapon. He volunteers to crawl through several hundred meters of piping conduits to reach the colony's transmitter and remotely pilot the Sulaco's remaining dropship to the surface. Ripley and Newt fall asleep in the medical laboratory, awakening to find themselves locked in the room with the two facehuggers, which have been released from their tanks. Ripley triggers a fire alarm to alert the marines, who rescue them and kill the creatures. Ripley accuses Burke of releasing the facehuggers so that they would impregnate her and Newt, allowing him to smuggle the Alien embryos past Earth's quarantine, and of planning to kill the rest of the marines in hypersleep during the return trip so that no one could contradict his version of events. Before the marines can kill Burke, the electricity is cut and Aliens assault through the ceiling. Hudson, Burke, Vasquez and Gorman are all killed and Newt is captured. Ripley and an injured Hicks reach Bishop in the second dropship, but Ripley refuses to abandon Newt. The group arrives at the processing station, allowing a heavily armed Ripley to enter the hive and rescue Newt. As they escape, the two encounter the Alien queen in her egg chamber. Ripley destroys the eggs, enraging the queen, who tears free from her ovipositor. Pursued by the queen, Ripley and Newt rendezvous with Bishop and Hicks on the dropship. All four escape moments before the station explodes with the colony consumed by the nuclear blast. On the Sulaco, Ripley and Bishop's relief at their escape is interrupted when the Alien queen, stowed away on the dropship's landing gear, emerges and tears Bishop in half. The queen advances on Newt, but Ripley clashes with her using an exosuit cargo-loader and expels it through an airlock into space. Ripley, Newt, Hicks and the badly damaged Bishop enter hypersleep for the return trip to Earth.

Recently divorced Meg Altman and her 11-year-old daughter Sarah have just purchased a four-story brownstone on the Upper West Side of New York City. The house's previous owner, a reclusive millionaire, installed an isolated room used to protect the house's occupants from intruders. The "panic room" is protected by concrete and steel on all sides, a thick steel door, and an extensive security system with multiple surveillance cameras, a public announcement system, and a separate phone line. On the night the two move into the home, it is broken into by Junior (Leto), the previous owner's grandson; Burnham (Whitaker), an employee of the residence's security company; and Raoul (Yoakam), a ski mask-wearing gunman recruited by Junior. The three are after $3 million in bearer bonds, which are locked inside a floor safe in the panic room. After discovering that the Altmans have moved in earlier than expected, Junior convinces a reluctant Burnham, who assumed the house was unoccupied, to continue with their heist. As they begin the robbery, Meg wakes up and happens to see the intruders on the video monitors in the panic room. Before the three can reach them, Meg and Sarah run into the panic room and close the door behind them. They are unable to use the phone in the room which has a separate phone line that was never hooked up by Meg. Intending to force the two out of the room, Burnham introduces propane gas into the room's air vents. Raoul, in conflict with Burnham and Junior, dangerously increases the amount of gas. Unable to seal the vents, Meg ignites the gas while she and Sarah cover themselves with fireproof blankets, causing an explosion which vents into the room outside and causes a fire, injuring Junior. The Altmans make several attempts to call for help, including signaling a neighbor with a flashlight through the opening of a ventilation pipe, but the neighbor ignores it. Meg then taps into the main telephone line and gets through to her ex-husband Stephen (Bauchau), before the burglars cut them off. When all attempts to get into the room fail, Junior lets slip that there is much more money in the safe than he let on, and gives up on the robbery. About to leave the house, he is shot by Raoul, who forces Burnham, at gunpoint, to finish the robbery. Stephen arrives at the home and is taken hostage by Burnham and Raoul—who severely beats him. To make matters worse, Sarah, who has diabetes, suffers a seizure. Her emergency glucagon syringe is in a refrigerator outside the panic room. After using an unconscious Stephen to trick Meg into momentarily leaving the panic room, Burnham enters it, finding Sarah motionless on the floor. After retrieving the syringe for Sarah, Meg struggles briefly with Raoul, who is thrown into the panic room, his gun knocked out of his hand. As Meg throws the syringe into the panic room, Burnham frantically locks himself, Raoul, and Sarah inside, crushing Raoul's hand in the sliding steel door. Meg, who now has the gun, begs the two intruders over the PA system to give Sarah the injection. After some time Burnham, who has shown no interest in hurting either Meg or Sarah throughout the film, gives Sarah the injection. While doing so, he tells Sarah he did not want this, and the only reason he agreed to participate was to give his own child a better life. After Burnham gives Sarah the injection, Sarah thanks him and he tells Meg that Sarah is now alright. Having earlier received a call from Stephen, two policemen arrive, which prompts Raoul to threaten Sarah's life. Sensing the potential danger to her daughter, Meg lies to the officers and they leave. Meanwhile, Burnham opens the safe and removes the $22 million in bearer bonds inside. As the robbers attempt to leave, using Sarah as a hostage, Meg hits Raoul with a sledgehammer and Burnham flees. After a badly injured Stephen shoots at Raoul and misses, Raoul disables him and prepares to kill Meg with the sledgehammer, but Burnham, upon hearing Sarah's screams of pain, returns to the house and shoots Raoul dead, stating, "You'll be okay now", to Meg and her daughter before leaving. The police, alerted by Meg's suspicious behavior earlier, arrive in force and capture Burnham, who lets the bearer bonds go; they fly away with the wind. Later, Meg and Sarah, having recovered from their harrowing experience, begin searching the newspaper for a new home.

Florence, 1492: Christopher Columbus has sailed towards the New World, and Florence has just mourned the death of its legendary leader, Lorenzo de' Medici. In this setting, a Florentine trader meets a shipwrecked stranger, who introduces himself as Tito Melema, a young Italianate-Greek scholar. Tito becomes acquainted with several other Florentines, including Nello the barber and a young girl named Tessa. He is also introduced to a blind scholar named Bardo de' Bardi, and his daughter Romola. As Tito becomes settled in Florence, assisting Bardo with classical studies, he falls in love with Romola. However, Tessa falls in love with Tito, and the two are "married" in a mock ceremony. Tito learns from Fra Luca, a Dominican monk, that his adoptive father has been forced into slavery and is asking for assistance. Tito introspects, comparing filial duty to his new ambitions in Florence, and decides that it would be futile to attempt to rescue his adoptive father. This paves the way for Romola and Tito to marry. Fra Luca shortly thereafter falls ill and before his death he speaks to his estranged sister, Romola. Ignorant of Romola's plans, Fra Luca warns her of a vision foretelling a marriage between her and a mysterious stranger who will bring pain to her and her father. After Fra Luca's death, Tito dismisses the warning and advises Romola to trust him. Tito and Romola become betrothed at the end of Carnival, to be married at Easter after Tito returns from a visit to Rome. The novel then skips ahead to November 1494, more than eighteen months after the marriage. In that time, the French-Italian Wars have seen Florence enter uneasy times. Girolamo Savonarola preaches to Florentines about ridding the Church and the city of scourge and corruption, and drums up support for the new republican government. Piero de' Medici, Lorenzo de' Medici's son and successor to the lordship of Florence, has been driven from the city for his ignominious surrender to the invading French king, Charles VIII. The Medici palace is looted and the Medici family formally exiled from the city. In this setting, Tito, now a valued member of Florentine society, participates in the reception for the French invaders. Tito encounters an escaped prisoner, who turns out to be his adopted father, Baldassarre. Panicked and somewhat ashamed of his earlier inaction, Tito denies knowing the escaped prisoner and calls him a madman. Baldassarre escapes into the Duomo, where he swears revenge on his unfilial adoptive son. Growing ever more fearful, Tito plans to leave Florence. To do this, he betrays his late father-in-law, Bardo, who died some months earlier, by selling the late scholar's library. This reveals to Romola the true nature of her husband's character. She secretly leaves Tito and Florence, but is persuaded by Savonarola to return to fulfil her obligations to her marriage and her fellow Florentines. Nevertheless, the love between Romola and Tito has gone. Again the action of the novel moves forward, from Christmas 1494 to October 1496. In that time, Florence has endured political upheaval, warfare and famine. Religious fervour has swept through Florence under the leadership of Savonarola, culminating in the Bonfire of the Vanities. The League of Venice has declared war on the French king and his Italian ally, Florence. Starvation and disease run rampant through the city. Romola, now a supporter of Savonarola, helps the poor and sick where she can. Meanwhile, Tito is embroiled in a complex game of political manoeuvring and duplicitous allegiances in the new Florentine government. Mirroring this, he has escaped attempts by Baldassarre to both kill and expose him, and maintains a secret marriage to Tessa, with whom he has fathered two children. Romola becomes defiant of Tito, and the two manoeuvre to thwart each other's plans. Romola meets an enfeebled Baldassarre, who reveals Tito's past and leads her to Tessa. Political turmoil erupts in Florence. Five supporters of the Medici family are sentenced to death, including Romola's godfather, Bernardo del Nero. She learns that Tito has played a role in their arrest. Romola pleads with Savonarola to intervene, but he refuses. Romola's faith in Savonarola and Florence is shaken, and once again she leaves the city. Meanwhile, Florence is under papal pressure to expel Savonarola. His arrest is effected by rioters, who then turn their attention to several of the city's political elite. Tito becomes a target of the rioters, but he escapes the mob by diving into the Arno River. However, upon leaving the river, Tito is killed by Baldassarre. Romola makes her way to the coast. Emulating Gostanza in Boccaccio's The Decameron (V, 2), she drifts out to sea in a small boat to die. However, the boat takes her to a small village affected by the Plague, and she helps the survivors. Romola's experience gives her a new purpose in life and she returns to Florence. Savonarola is tried for heresy and burned at the stake, but for Romola his influence remains inspiring. Romola takes care of Tessa and her two children, with the help of her older cousin. The story ends with Romola imparting advice to Tessa's son, based on her own experiences and the influences in her life.

Pierre Grassou de Fougères is a mediocre painter who lives off painting forgeries commissioned by an old swindler and art-dealer named Elias Magus. Grassou paints forgeries of works by Titian, Raphael, and other famous artists. Magus resells these forgeries for a large profit to members of the Petite bourgeoisie who are incapable of appreciating good art. Monsieur Vervelle, a prosperous bottle-dealer obsessed with art, is introduced to Grassou by Magus, who introduces the painter as a grand master. Vervelle and his wife are enchanted with Grassou and believe he would make a good match for their daughter Virginie. Grassou is invited to Ville-d'Avray, where the Vervelle mansion is garishly decorated, and also includes a large collection of Grassou’s work, including the forgery of a Titian. Grassou recognizes his own mediocrity, but when it is discovered by the Vervelles that the forgeries in their home were painted by Grassou, “far from denting his reputation, multiples Grassou’s value as an artist” and as a son-in-law, since Vervelle believes Grassou to possess all the combined talent of Rubens, Rembrandt, Terburg, and Titian. Despite his advantageous marriage, Grassou remains bitter that he is not a true artist. “This painter, a good father and a good husband, is unable to eradicate from his heart a fatal thought, namely, that artists laugh at his work; that his name is a term of contempt in the studios; and that the feuilletons take no notice of his pictures. But he still works on; he aims for the Academy, where, undoubtedly, he will enter."

Following the end of the 1990–91 Gulf War, U.S. soldiers are sent over to clean up loose ends. The soldiers are bored over the lack of violence and as a result throw parties at night. Major Archie Gates (George Clooney), a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, is trading sex for stories with a journalist, Cathy Daitch (Judy Greer) when he is interrupted by Adriana Cruz (Nora Dunn), the television reporter he is assigned to escort. While disarming and searching an Iraqi officer, U.S. Army Reserve Sergeant First Class Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg), his best friend Private First Class Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze), and their unit find a map between his buttocks. Troy goes to Staff Sergeant Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) to help translate the map. Major Gates appears, after tracking down a lead from Adriana. Archie convinces them that the document is a map of bunkers near Karbala, containing gold bullion stolen from Kuwait, which they decide to steal. To keep Adriana off his back, Gates sends Specialist Walter Wogeman (Jamie Kennedy) to aid her on a false lead. They set off the next day and, among other goods plundered from Kuwait, find the gold, and stumble on the interrogation of Amir Abdullah (Cliff Curtis). As they are leaving, Amir's wife pleads with them not to abandon the anti-Saddam dissidents, but she is executed by the Iraqi Republican Guard. The group decides to free the Iraqi prisoners, triggering a firefight. They pull out just as Iraqi reinforcements arrive, and as they try to evade a CS gas attack, they blunder into a minefield and get separated. Iraqi soldiers capture Troy while a group of rebels rescue the other Americans and take them to their underground hideout. There, Conrad, Chief and Archie agree to help the rebels and their families reach the Iranian border, after they rescue Troy. Troy gets taken back to the bunker, and is thrown in a room full of Kuwaiti cell phones. He manages to call his wife back home and tells her to report his location to his local Army Reserve unit. His call is cut short when he is dragged to an interrogation room where he is interrogated by Iraqi Captain Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui). The Americans with the rebels go to a band of Iraqi Army deserters, who are persuaded to sell them luxury cars stolen from Kuwait. The cars are outfitted as Saddam's entourage, in a ruse to scare away the bunker's defenders. After storming the bunker, they free Troy, who spares Saïd, and find more Shi'ite dissidents held in a dungeon. A few of the soldiers who ran away return, who shoot Conrad and Troy. Conrad dies, and Troy's lung is punctured, but he survives. Archie radios Walter and Adriana and arranges transport, while the hapless officers in the camp try to locate the trio after getting the message from Troy's wife. Each of the rebels is given a bar of gold and the rest is buried as they wait for the transport to arrive. The convoy goes to the Iranian border, where the three Americans will escort the rebels across to protect them from the Iraqi soldiers guarding the crossing. But the American officers arrive and stop the group, arresting the trio while the rebels are recaptured. Archie proffers the buried gold to the American officers in exchange for letting the refugees through. All of the soldiers are cleared of the charges, thanks to Adriana's reporting. Archie goes to work as a military adviser to Hollywood action films, Chief leaves his airport job to work with Archie, and Troy returns to his wife and baby, running his own carpet store. The stolen gold was returned to Kuwait; however, it is implied that some of the gold was missing.

The artist Théodore de Sommervieux falls in love with Augustine Guillaume, the daughter of a conservative cloth merchant, whose house of business on the Rue Saint-Denis in Paris is known by sign of the Cat and Racket. Théodore, a winner of the Prix de Rome and a knight of the Legion of Honor, is famous for his interiors and chiaroscuro effects in imitation of the Dutch School. He makes an excellent reproduction of the interior of the Cat and Racket, which is exhibited at the Salon alongside a strikingly modern portrait of Augustine. The affair blossoms with the help of Madame Guillaume's younger cousin Madame Roguin, who is already acquainted with Théodore. The lovers become engaged, somewhat against the best wishes of Augustine's parents, who had originally intended her to marry Monsieur Guillaume's clerk Joseph Lebas. In 1808 Augustine marries Théodore at the local church of Saint-Leu; on the same day her elder sister Virginie marries Lebas. The marriage is not a happy one. Augustine adores Sommervieux but is incapable of understanding him as an artist. Although she is more refined than her parents, her education and social standing leave her too far below the level of her husband to allow a meeting of minds to take place. Théodore's passion for her cools and she is treated with disdain by his fellow artists. Théodore instead finds a kindred soul in the Duchesse de Carigliano, to whom he gives the famous portrait of Augustine and to whom he becomes hopelessly attached, neglecting his rooms on the Rue des Trois-Frères (now a part of the Rue Taitbout). Realizing after three years of unhappiness that her marriage is falling apart and having been informed by a malicious gossip of Théodore's attachment to the duchess, Augustine visits Madame de Carigliano not to ask her to give her back her husband's heart but to learn the arts by which it has been captured. The duchess warns her against trying to conquer a man's heart through love, which will only allow the husband to tyrannize over the wife; instead a woman must use all the arts of coquetry that nature puts at her disposal. Augustine is shocked to learn that Madame de Carigliano sees marriage as a form of warfare. The duchess then returns to Augustine her own portrait, telling her that if she cannot conquer her husband with this weapon, she is not a woman. Augustine, however, does not understand how to turn such a weapon against her husband. She hangs the portrait in her bedroom and dresses herself exactly as she appears in it, believing that Théodore will see her once again as the young woman he fell in love with at the sign of the Cat and Racket. But when the artist sees the portrait hanging in her bedroom and asks how it came to be there, she foolishly reveals that it was returned to her by the Duchesse de Carigliano. "You demanded it from her?" he asks. "I did not know that she had it", replies Augustine. Théodore realizes that his wife is incapable of seeing the painting as he sees it - a consummate work of art. Instead of falling in love with its subject, he regards its return as a slap in the face from his mistress. His vanity wounded, he throws a fit and destroys the portrait, vowing vengeance upon the duchess. By morning Augustine has become resigned to her fate. Her loveless marriage comes to an end shortly thereafter when she dies of a broken heart at the age of twenty-seven.

Brion Brandd lives on the planet Anvhar which due to an elliptical orbit experiences a year with a long cold winter and a short hot summer to which the population have become adapted. To avoid social problems during the winter period Anvhar has initiated a planet wide series of mental and physical games called the Twenties. The novel starts with Brand winning the Twenties. As he recovers from the games Brandd meets Ihjel, a previous winner of the Twenties, who asks him to join a mission on the desert planet of Dis. The ruling class of Dis, the magter, have threatened to transport cobalt bombs onto a neighbouring planet if they refuse to surrender. As a result the planet is being blockaded and under threat of a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Brannd travels to Dis with Ihjel and a scientist from Earth called Lea but on arrival the trio are attacked and Ihjel is killed. After encounters with the local population and other humans Brandd starts to put together the reason for the magter's seemingly suicidal aggression. Brandd learns that most life on Dis survives the extremes of the planet by using symbiosis. The magter though have been infected by a parasite that destroys the higher functions of their brains. Eventually Brannd locates the cobalt bombs and disables the transmission mechanism allowing him to return home.

Mike Jackson, cricketer and scion of a cricketing clan, finds his dreams of studying and playing at Cambridge upset by news of his father's financial troubles, and must instead take a job with the "New Asiatic Bank". On arrival there, Mike finds his friend Psmith is also a new employee, and together they strive to make the best of their position, and perhaps squeeze in a little cricket from time to time.Playing cricket for a team run by Psmith's father, Mike meets John Bickersdyke for the first time when he walks behind the bowler's arm, causing Mike to get out on ninety-eight. Shortly afterward, Mike's father regretfully informs him that, having lost a large amount of money, he will have to sell the house, and won't be able to send Mike to Cambridge as he had hoped. Mike hears that Psmith is in the same position, as he is sent off to London. Mike, feeling very lonely, homesick and sorry for himself, rents a horrid room in Dulwich, and next day presents himself for work at the New Asiatic Bank. He is put to work under Mr Rossiter in the Postage Department, replacing a youth named Bannister, and is befriended by Mr Waller, a kindly employee of the bank, who takes him to lunch; on his return, he is joined by Psmith, also a new employee, in the same department as Mike. They go for a stroll, and Psmith reveals that he has been placed there on a whim of his father's, having annoyed Bickersdyke while he was staying for the weekend. Mike is worried that their employer has it in for them both and that they are powerless, but Psmith announces he plans to toy with Bickersdyke outside of work, being, like their employer, a member of the Senior Conservative Club. He also insists that Mike move in with him in his flat in Clement's Inn. That night Mike feels much happier for having an ally. Trying to find a means of pacifying their manager Mr Rossiter, they find out from Bannister that he is a devotee of association football and a fan of Manchester United. For a few weeks Psmith uses this knowledge to ingratiate himself with Rossiter, before moving on to Bickersdyke. He haunts the man at their club, his position in the workplace unassailable thanks to his friendship with Rossiter, and disrupts a political meeting, part of Bickersdyke's campaign to become a member of parliament, turning it into a near-riot. Bickersdyke is angry at Psmith, but powerless. Psmith continues to cultivate Mr Rossiter, and Mike gets used to his work. After a while, a new man starts, and Mike is moved on to the Cash Department, under Mr Waller. One day, hearing Psmith call Mike "Comrade", Waller reveals that he is an ardent socialist, and Psmith agrees to come and hear him speak, dragging Mike along. When a spectator goes to throw a stone at Waller, Mike intervenes, and a fight starts, which soon involves Psmith and a mob; the friends flee. Returning that evening for tea, Mike has an awful time, but Psmith acquires Waller's book of the proceedings of the "Tulse Hill Parliament", including some particularly fiery words from Mr Bickersdyke. One day, worried by his son being ill, Waller fails to spot a forged cheque. To save the man's job, Mike takes the blame, and is fired and roasted by Bickersdyke. After work, Psmith trails Bickersdyke to a Turkish bath and threatens to leak Bickersdyke's anti-royalty speeches from the Tulse Hill book. Bickersdyke, furious, agrees to keep Mike on at the bank. Soon after, he is narrowly elected to Parliament, rendering the threat of the book useless, and Mike is moved to a new department, Fixed Deposits, a much less pleasant spot, with Psmith replacing him under Mr Waller. As spring and sunshine arrive, Mike begins to long for the outdoors and his beloved cricket. One day, he is called by his brother Joe, who is playing for their county at Lord's. They are a man short, and need Mike to play; he agrees, asking Psmith to tell his new boss he has to "pop off"; the boss tells Mr Bickersdyke, who, as usual, is furious. Mike, convinced his job is over, resolves to play his heart out. Psmith leaves work early, to take his father to the match. Mr Smith is shocked that the bank does not approve of people leaving to play cricket; Psmith persuades him that rather than working at the bank, he should study for the Bar. They arrive at the game just as Mike, playing well, reaches his century. After the match, Psmith tells Mike of his plans to study Law at Cambridge, and also that his father, needing an agent for his estate, is willing to take Mike on, having first paid for him to go to the 'varsity too, to study the business. Mr Bickersdyke, relaxing in his club, overjoyed at the thought of finally being able to sack Psmith and Mike, is further enraged when Psmith sympathetically announces their retirement from business.

In an African desert millions of years ago, a tribe of man-apes faces starvation and competition for a water hole by a rival tribe. They awaken to find a featureless black monolith has appeared before them. Guided in some fashion by the Black Monolith, one man-ape realizes how to use a bone as a tool and weapon; the tribe learns to hunt for food, and kills the leader of their rivals, reclaiming the water hole. Millions of years later, a Pan Am space plane carries Dr. Heywood Floyd to a space station orbiting Earth for a layover on his trip to Clavius Base, a United States outpost on the moon. After a videophone call with his daughter, Floyd's Soviet scientist friend and her colleague ask about rumors of a mysterious epidemic at Clavius. Floyd declines to answer. At Clavius, Floyd heads a meeting of base personnel, apologizing for the epidemic cover story but stressing secrecy. His mission is to investigate a recently found artifact buried four million years ago. Floyd and others ride in a Moonbus to the artifact, which is a monolith identical to the one encountered by the man-apes. Sunlight strikes the monolith and a loud high-pitched radio signal is heard. Eighteen months later, the United States spacecraft Discovery One is bound for Jupiter. On board are mission pilots and scientists Dr. David Bowman and Dr. Frank Poole along with three other scientists in cryogenic hibernation. Most of Discovery's operations are controlled by the ship's computer, HAL 9000, referred to by the crew as "Hal". Bowman and Poole watch Hal and themselves being interviewed on a BBC show about the mission, in which the computer states that he is "foolproof and incapable of error." When asked by the host if Hal has genuine emotions, Bowman replies that he appears to, but that the truth is unknown. Later, when Bowman questions Hal on the purpose of the mission, Hal responds by reporting the imminent failure of an antenna control device. The astronauts retrieve the component making use of an EVA pod but find nothing wrong with it. Hal suggests reinstalling the part and letting it fail so the problem can be found. Mission Control advises the astronauts that results from their twin HAL 9000 indicate that Hal is in error. Hal insists that the problem, like previous issues ascribed to HAL series units, is due to human error. Concerned about Hal's behavior, Bowman and Poole enter an EVA pod to talk without Hal overhearing, and agree to disconnect Hal if he is proven wrong. Hal secretly follows their conversation by lip reading. While Poole is on a space walk outside his EVA pod attempting to replace the unit, Hal takes control of the pod and attacks Poole, severing his oxygen hose and setting him adrift. Bowman takes another pod to attempt rescue. Meanwhile, Hal turns off the life support functions of the crewmen in suspended animation. When Bowman returns to the ship with Poole's body, Hal refuses to let him in, stating that the astronauts' plan to deactivate him jeopardizes the mission. Bowman opens the ship's emergency airlock manually, enters the ship, and proceeds to Hal's processor core. Hal tries to reassure Bowman, then pleads with him to stop, and finally expresses fear. As Bowman deactivates the circuits controlling HAL's higher intellectual functions, HAL regresses to his earliest programmed memory, the song "Daisy Bell", which he sings for Bowman. When Hal is finally disconnected, a prerecorded video message from Floyd reveals the existence of the monolith on the moon, its purpose and origin unknown. With the exception of one short but extremely powerful radio emission aimed at Jupiter, the object has been inert. At Jupiter, Bowman leaves Discovery One in an EVA pod to investigate another monolith discovered in orbit around the planet. The pod is pulled into a vortex of colored light, and Bowman races across vast distances of space, viewing bizarre cosmological phenomena and strange landscapes of unusual colors. Bowman later finds himself, still in the pod, in a bedroom appointed in the neoclassical style. He sees older versions of himself, his point of view switching each time, first standing in the bedroom, middle-aged and still in his spacesuit, then dressed in leisure attire and eating dinner, and finally as an old man lying in the bed. A black monolith appears at the foot of the bed, and as Bowman reaches for it, he is transformed into a fetus enclosed in a transparent orb of light. The film ends as the new being floats in space beside the Earth, gazing at it.

United States Naval Aviator LT Pete "Maverick" Mitchell and his Radar Intercept Officer LTJG Nick "Goose" Bradshaw fly the F-14A Tomcat aboard USS Enterprise (CVN-65). They, with Maverick's wingman "Cougar" and his RIO "Merlin", intercept fictional Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-28s over the Indian Ocean. During the engagement, Maverick flies his Tomcat parallel to one of the MiGs and inverts his craft in order to give the other pilot the finger – a feat that adds to his already wild reputation. Cougar is almost taken out by one of the hostile aircraft, however, and afterwards is too shaken to land despite being low on fuel. In defiance of orders, Maverick aborts his landing and escorts Cougar back to the carrier being low on fuel. Cougar gives up his wings, citing his newborn child that he has never seen. Despite his dislike for Maverick's recklessness, CAG "Stinger" sends him and Goose—now his top crew—to attend the Top Gun school at NAS Miramar. Maverick flies recklessly in part to compensate for his father Duke Mitchell, a Naval Aviator with VF-51 aboard the USS Oriskany (CV-34) during the Vietnam War. The elder Mitchell died when his F-4 Phantom II was shot down in an incident Maverick refuses to believe was his fault. Goose is cautious and devoted to his wife Carol and child. The two officers are nonetheless close friends and effective partners. At a bar the day before Top Gun starts, Maverick, assisted by Goose, unsuccessfully approaches a woman. He learns the next day that she is Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood, an astrophysicist and civilian Top Gun instructor. Upon learning that Maverick is the pilot who flipped off a MiG-28 pilot (and as a result disproved her data suggesting the MiG-28 was limited in performing a "negative-G pushover" due to a "problem with its inverted flight tanks"), she is instantly more interested in him. Maverick's reckless flying both annoys and impresses LCDR Rick "Jester" Heatherly and other instructors. He defeats Jester in combat but breaks two rules of engagement in the process; becomes a rival to top student LT Tom "Iceman" Kazanski, who considers Maverick's methods "dangerous"; and continues to pursue Charlie. During class she analyzes Maverick's engagement with Jester's aircraft, calling it "an example of what not to do". Later, Charlie admits to him that she admires his tactics but criticized them to hide her feelings for him from the others, and they begin a romantic relationship. During a training sortie Maverick abandons his wingman "Hollywood" to chase chief instructor CDR Mike "Viper" Metcalf. Maverick matches the older pilot move for move, but Viper maneuvers Maverick into a position from which his wingman Jester—who has already defeated Hollywood—can shoot down Maverick from behind, demonstrating the value of teamwork over individual ability. Near the end of the training program, Maverick and Iceman both chase Jester; the latter attempts to gain a missile lock on the target. Maverick is close enough to take out Jester with his guns, and pressures Iceman to break off the engagement and clear his shot. Maverick's F-14 flies through the jet wash of Iceman's aircraft and suffers a flameout of both engines, forcing Maverick's aircraft into an unrecoverable flat spin. Maverick and Goose eject, but the force of the ejection slams Goose's head into the jettisoned aircraft canopy, killing him instantly. Although the board of inquiry clears Maverick of responsibility for Goose's death, he feels guilty and loses his aggressiveness when flying. Charlie and others attempt to console him, but Maverick considers retiring. Unsure of his future, he seeks Viper's advice. Viper reveals that he served with Maverick's father in VF-51, and tells him classified details that prove Duke Mitchell died heroically. He informs Maverick that he can graduate from Top Gun if he can regain his self-confidence. Maverick chooses to graduate, but Iceman wins the award for top pilot. During the graduation party Iceman, Hollywood, and Maverick are ordered to immediately return to Enterprise to deal with a "crisis situation", providing air support for the rescue of a stricken communications ship that has drifted into hostile waters. Maverick and Merlin are assigned to one of two F-14s as back-up for those flown by Iceman and Hollywood, despite Iceman's reservations over Maverick's state of mind. The subsequent hostile engagement with six MiGs sees Hollywood shot down; Maverick is scrambled alone due to catapult failure and nearly retreats after encountering circumstances similar to those that caused Goose's death. Upon finally rejoining Iceman they shoot down four MiGs and force the others to flee, and return triumphantly to Enterprise. Offered any assignment he chooses, Maverick decides to return to Top Gun as an instructor. At a bar at Miramar, Maverick and Charlie reunite.

The story takes place in the mythical town of Calivada where Lightnin' Bill Jones, or more correctly his wife, operates a rather seedy hotel that straddles the California-Nevada state line convenient for those looking for a quick Nevada divorce. He is nicknamed Lightnin’ because, as the local postmaster put it, “We call him Lightnin’ because he ain’t.” Lightnin’ Bill, a Civil War veteran known to brag that he advised General Ulysses S. Grant, also claims to be a jack of all trades, having been at one time or another, a judge, inventor, detective and bee keeper. Of the latter profession he spins the tale that he once drove a swarm across the prairie in the midst of winter without the loss of a single bee. When pressed Lightnin’ Bill concedes that during the drive he may have been stung once or twice. Lightnin’ Bill likes to spend his days and nights carousing with cronies rather than being at home with his wife and adopted daughter. When he refuses to go along with the sale of the hotel to group of out-of-town businessmen, his wife becomes furious and files for divorce. In court Lightnin’ Bill, with the help of young John Marvin, is able to prove that the buyers are unscrupulous scoundrels and wins back the love of his wife.

Justice (Janet Jackson) is a young woman living in South Central, Los Angeles. She was named Justice by her late mother, who gave birth to her while attending law school. After the shooting death of her boyfriend Markell (Q-Tip), Justice falls into a deep depression. She spends the majority of her time in the house she inherited from her grandmother, with her cat White Boy, only going out to her job at a local hair salon. Justice is a talented poet, she reads many of her poems throughout the course of the film, both to other characters and in voice over. Justice is at the hair salon working one day when a young postal clerk named Lucky (Tupac Shakur) comes in and begins flirting with her. She rebuffs his advances with the help of her female boss; the two women pretend to be lesbians and mock Lucky with their "relationship". Lucky has also had tragedy in his life: his main focus is caring for his young daughter Keisha. He had to forcibly remove her from the care of her mother, Angel, a crack addict who was using drugs and having sex with her drug dealer while leaving the child unattended in the apartment. Lucky dreams of a professional career in music and shows considerable promise, but he insists his cousin is the true talent. Justice's friend Iesha (Regina King) manages to talk Justice into taking a road trip to Oakland with Iesha's boyfriend, Chicago (Joe Torry), Lucky's co-worker at the post office. Justice warily accepts, mainly because she has to go to Oakland for a hair show, and her car dies at the last minute. Unbeknownst to Justice, Lucky is Chicago's co-worker also on the trip, and she will now be sharing a postal van with him and their two mutual friends. Initially they argue, but over the course of the film soften towards each other as they discover their similarities. The foursome make a couple of detours, the first being a family reunion barbecue they see signs for on the road. Here it becomes apparent (although there were ample hints earlier) that Iesha and Chicago's relationship is troubled. Iesha openly flirts with other men at the barbecue, while Chicago broods watching her behavior. Iesha and Chicago argue in the mailtruck until Justice talks to Iesha about her behavior with alcohol. Iesha throws up and cries on Justice and apologizes to her. The second stop is a beach where each of the four characters contemplate their separate situations in internal monologues. Next, they stop at an African Cultural Fair where Lucky and Justice grow closer as they discuss their lives. After leaving the fair, the friction between Chicago and Iesha explodes when Iesha informs Chicago she has been seeing someone on the side and he physically attacks her. Lucky initially decides not to get involved in the fight until Justice defends Iesha by kicking Chicago in the groin, and Chicago turns his physical brutality at Justice in retaliation. Lucky, Justice, along with a bleeding and shaken Iesha leave Chicago by the side of the road and continue on their journey. Lucky stops the postal van at a beach, and Justice goes to see what's wrong. She begins opening up to him about her life and Lucky becomes sympathetic. They share a kiss and Justice walks away apparently unsure of her feelings for Lucky. She goes back to him and they share another kiss. When the now-threesome arrive in Oakland, they are met with the news that Lucky's cousin, with whom he had been working on recording music, has been killed. Lucky blames himself for not being in Oakland sooner, believing he could have prevented the shooting had he been in town. He turns his anger on Justice, angrily blaming her for distracting him while they were on the road. Jessie gives Justice and Iesha advice about men before the hair show and Lucky's uncle and aunt give Lucky his cousin's recording equipment and decides not to come back to work and to take care of Keisha. Some months have passed, and Lucky and Keisha meet up with Justice again back at the hair salon, just at the moment Lucky brings in his daughter Keisha. Lucky is remorseful over his conduct in Oakland and the cruel words he said to Justice there, and apologizes. She smiles at him and they share a passionate kiss. Justice smiles coyly, and then turns her attention to Keisha, fussing over her hair. Justice and Lucky's eyes meet over Keisha's head and they smile, their connection as strong as ever.

At the story's start, Twinkle and Chubbins are lost in a "great forest." They encounter a "tuxix" — a creature that looks like a spiny turtle, but is in reality "a magician, a sorcerer, a wizard, and a witch all rolled into one...and you can imagine what a dreadful thing that would be." The evil tuxix casts a spell on the children, transforming them into little bird-like beings, with their own heads but the bodies of skylarks. (They resemble the human-headed, bird-bodied sirins, alkonosts, and gamayuns of Russian folklore.) Policeman Bluejay, the force of order in the avian world of the forest, leads the two child-larks on a flight through the sky; he esconces them in an abandoned thrush's nest in a maple tree, and with the help of a friendly eagle he retrieves their picnic basket (so that they don't have to eat bugs, worms, and grubs). Twinkle and Chubbins learn of their new maple-tree neighbors, a squirrel, an owl, and an o'possum; and Policeman Bluejay introduces them to the community of birds. The children see that the world of living beings in the forest has structure, relationships, and conflict. They hear stories of human cruelty to animals – and soon they witness it firsthand, when hunters enter the forest. The hunters kill Mrs. 'Possum and Mrs. Hootaway and Wisk the squirrel; Twinkle tries to protest, but she can only make a skylark's chirp. The hunters' dog almost catches Twinkle – but she and Chubbins are rescued by their friend the eagle, who swoops down, kills the dog, and leads them to safety. Or relative safety, at least: the eagle takes the two lark-children up to his eyrie, where his hungry hatchlings want to eat them for breakfast. (Baum acknowledges that animals, to survive, have to prey upon each other. Yet he maintains that "love" is the Grand Law of the forest.) Policeman Bluejay escorts the children to a safer location. Soon he takes them to the Paradise of Birds, where the contentions and violence of the forest never penetrate. The children are given a tour of its splendors, and meet the King Bird of Paradise. In the "suburbs" of Paradise, the child-larks are introduced to the community of bees, and meet the Queen Bee; and they witness a spectacular flight of butterflies. Beyond Paradise, in "the coarse, outer world," there is trouble in birdland; Policeman Bluejay must cope with a rebellion among the rooks, who would make the other birds their slaves. By uniting, the smaller birds beat the rooks in a battle. The King Bird of Paradise and his Royal Necromancer have told the children that they can restore themselves to human form by eating a fruit called "tingle-berries." They do so, and return to their normal bodies – though Chubbins almost gets stuck halfway. Their adventure done, the children make their way home in the waning light of evening.

Andy Kaufman's (Jim Carrey) "foreign man" character appears in black and white, declaring that (due to massive editing), this is actually the end of the film, not the beginning. He plays a phonograph record alongside the credits before walking somberly off. Kaufman then comes back, and, in his normal voice, claiming he "had to get rid of the people who don't understand me, and don't want to try," he proceeds to show the story of his life on a film projector, starting with his childhood home in Great Neck, New York, circa 1957. Kaufman is a struggling performer whose act fails in nightclubs because, while the audience wants comedy, he sings children's songs and refuses to tell conventional jokes. As the audience begins to believe that Kaufman may have no real talent, his peculiar "foreign man" puts on a rhinestone jacket and does a dead-on Elvis impersonation and song. The audience bursts into applause, realizing Kaufman had tricked them. He catches the eye of talent agent George Shapiro (Danny DeVito), who signs Kaufman as a client and immediately lands him a network TV series, Taxi, much to Kaufman's dismay, since he dislikes sitcoms. Because of the money, visibility, and promise that he can do his own television special, Kaufman accepts the role on Taxi, turning his foreign man into a mechanic named Latka Gravas. He secretly hates doing the show, however, and expresses a desire to quit. Invited to catch a different act at a nightclub, Shapiro witnesses a performance from a rude, loud-mouthed lounge singer, Tony Clifton, whom Andy wants to guest-star on Taxi. Clifton's bad attitude is matched by his horrible appearance and demeanor. But backstage, when he meets Shapiro in person, Clifton takes off his sunglasses and reveals that he is actually Kaufman. Clifton is a "villain character" created by Kaufman and his creative partner, Bob Zmuda (Paul Giamatti). Once again, the gag is on the audience. Kaufman's fame increases with his Saturday Night Live appearances, but he has problems with his new-found fame. When he travels to college campuses, audiences dislike his strange sense of humor and demand that he perform as Latka, so he deliberately antagonizes them by reading The Great Gatsby aloud from start to finish. Kaufman shows up on the Taxi set as Clifton and proceeds to cause chaos until he is removed from the studio lot. He relates to Shapiro that he never knows exactly how to entertain an audience "short of faking my own death or setting the theater on fire." Kaufman decides to become a professional wrestler—but to emphasize the "villain" angle, he would wrestle only women (hired actresses) and then berate them after winning, declaring himself "Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion." He becomes smitten with one woman he wrestles, Lynne Margulies (Courtney Love), and they begin a romantic relationship. Problems arise when an appearance on a live TV comedy show, ABC's Fridays, turns into a fiasco when Kaufman refuses to speak his lines. Also, the wrestling Kaufman enjoys getting a rise out of the crowds and feuds publicly with Jerry Lawler, a professional male wrestler, who challenges Kaufman to a "real" wrestling match, which Kaufman accepts. Lawler easily overpowers and seriously injures Kaufman, resulting in the comedian wearing a neck brace. Lawler and an injured Kaufman appear on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman, theoretically to call a truce, but Lawler insults Kaufman, who throws a drink at the wrestler and spews a vicious tirade of epithets. It is later revealed, however, that Kaufman and Lawler were in fact good friends, and staged the entire feud, but despite this, Andy pays a price when he is banned from Saturday Night Live by a vote of audience members, weary of his wrestling antics. Shapiro advises Kaufman and Lawler not to work together again, and later calls Kaufman to inform him that Taxi has been canceled. After a show at a comedy club, Kaufman calls together Lynne, Zmuda, and Shapiro to disclose that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer and may die soon. They aren't sure whether to believe this, thinking it could be yet another Kaufman stunt, with Zmuda actually believing a fake death would be a fantastic prank. With a short time to live, Kaufman gets a booking at Carnegie Hall, his dream venue. The performance is a memorable success, culminating with Kaufman inviting the entire audience out for milk and cookies. His health deteriorates. Desperate, he heads to the Philippines to seek a medical "miracle" (actually psychic surgery), where doctors supposedly pull out infected organs from the body; he discovers the scam and laughs at the irony. He dies soon after. Friends and loved ones do a sing-along with a video of Andy at his funeral. One year later, in 1985, Tony Clifton appears at Andy Kaufman's tribute at The Comedy Store's main stage performing, "I Will Survive." The camera pans over the crowd and reveals Zmuda in the audience. During the final credits, Kaufman briefly peeks in black-and-white again.

Billy (Marina Zudina), an FX make up artist who does not have the physical ability to speak, is in Moscow working on a low budget slasher film directed by her sister's boyfriend Andy (Evan Richards). On one particular night Billy returns to the set to fetch a piece of equipment for the next day's shoot when she is accidentally locked in the studio. Being unable to speak but having the ability to communicate with her sister Karen (Fay Ripley), Billy makes several telephone calls but is interrupted when she discovers a small film crew working after hours to shoot a cheap porno film. Watching unseen, Billy is amused until the performed sex becomes sadistic. When a masked actor pulls out a knife and stabs the actress (Olga Tolstetskaya), Billy reacts and is discovered. She flees pursued by the homicidal film crew. Billy narrowly escapes and manages to tell her story to her sister and the police, but the snuff film crew manages to convince the authorities that the onscreen 'murder' was a cinematic special effect. However, the events bring forward Larsen (Oleg Yankovsky), an undercover detective who is tracking the activities of the covert film crew and their connection to a shadowy criminal mastermind called "The Reaper". The Reaper (Alec Guinness) is a financier of an international underground snuff ring. He tells the criminal film crew that Billy is a witness and must be eliminated, thus motivating the snuff film director, his thug assistant and a host of subsidiary criminals to retrieve a missing computer disc from her and dispatch it. As more and more factions get involved in killing and saving Billy the action becomes wild and fantastic and hard to discern what's real from movie magic.

The Wonderful Visit tells how an angel spends a little more than a week in southern England. He is at first mistaken for a bird because of his dazzling polychromatic plumage, for he is "neither the Angel of religious feeling nor the Angel of popular belief," but rather "the Angel of Italian art." As a result, he is hunted and shot in the wing by an amateur ornithologist, the Rev. K. Hilyer, the vicar of Siddermoton, and then taken in and cared for at the vicarage. The creature comes from "the Land of Dreams" (also the angel's term for our world), and while "charmingly affable," is "quite ignorant of the most elementary facts of civilisation." During his brief visit he grows increasingly dismayed by what he learns about the world in general and about life in Victorian England in particular. As he grows increasingly critical of local mores, he is eventually denounced as "a Socialist." The vicar, his host, meanwhile comes under attack by fellow clerics, neighbours, and even servants for harbouring a disreputable character (no one but the vicar believes he comes from another world, and people take to calling him "Mr. Angel"). The angel's one talent is his divine violin-playing, but he is discredited at a reception that Lady Hammergallow agrees to host when it is discovered that he cannot read music and confides to a sympathetic listener that he has taken an interest in the vicar's serving girl, Delia. Instead of healing, his wings begin to atrophy. The local physician, Dr. Crump, threatens to have him put in a prison or a madhouse. After the angel destroys some barbed wire on a local baronet's property, Sir John Gotch gives the vicar one week to send him away before he begins proceedings against him. The Rev. Mr. Hilyer is regretfully planning how he will take the angel to London and try to establish him there when two catastrophes abort the plan. First, the angel, who "had been breathing the poisonous air of this Struggle for Existence of ours for more than a week," beats Sir John Gotch with Gotch's own whip in a fury after the local landowner insolently orders him off his land. Distraught to think (mistakenly) that he has killed a man, he returns to the village to find the vicar's house in flames. Delia, the serving girl, has entered the burning building in an attempt to rescue the angel's violin: this extraordinary act comes as a revelation to the angel. "Then in a flash he saw it all, saw this grim little world of battle and cruelty, transfigured in a splendour that outshone the Angelic Land, suffused suddenly and insupportably glorious with the wonderful light of Love and Self-Sacrifice." The angel attempts to rescue Delia, someone seems to see "two figures with wings" flash up and vanish among the flames, and a strange music that "began and ended like the opening and shutting of a door" suggests that the angel has gone back to where he came from, accompanied by Delia. An epilogue reveals that "there is nothing beneath" the two white crosses in Siddermorton cemetery that bear the names of Thomas Angel and Delia Hardy, and that the vicar, who never recovered his aplomb after the angel's departure, died within a year of the fire.

A vampire named Louis tells his 200-year-long life story to a reporter referred to simply as "the boy" (the character's name is revealed to be Daniel Molloy in The Queen of the Damned). In 1791, Louis is a young indigo plantation owner living south of New Orleans. Distraught by the death of his pious brother, he seeks death in any way possible. Louis is approached by a vampire named Lestat de Lioncourt, who desires Louis' company. Lestat turns Louis into a vampire and the two become immortal companions. Lestat spends time feeding off the local plantation slaves while Louis, who finds it morally repugnant to murder humans to survive, feeds from animals. Louis and Lestat are forced to leave when Louis' slaves begin to fear the monsters with which they live and instigate an uprising. Louis sets his own plantation aflame; he and Lestat exterminate the plantation slaves to keep word from spreading about vampires living in Louisiana. Gradually, Louis bends under Lestat's influence and begins feeding from humans. He slowly comes to terms with his vampire nature, but also becomes increasingly repulsed by what he perceives as Lestat's total lack of compassion for the humans he preys upon. Escaping to New Orleans, Louis feeds off a plague-ridden young girl, who is five years old, whom he finds next to the corpse of her mother. Louis begins to think of leaving Lestat and going his own way. Fearing this, Lestat then turns the girl into a vampire "daughter" for them, to give Louis a reason to stay. She is then given the name Claudia. Louis is initially horrified that Lestat has turned a child into a vampire, but soon begins to care for Claudia. Claudia takes to killing easily, but she begins to realize over time she can never grow up; her mind matures into that of an intelligent, assertive woman, but her body remains that of a young girl. Claudia blames Lestat for her condition and, after 60 years of living with him, she hatches a plot to kill Lestat by poisoning him and cutting his throat. Claudia and Louis then dump his body into a nearby swamp. As Louis and Claudia prepare to flee to Europe, Lestat appears, having recovered from Claudia's attack, and attacks them in turn. Louis sets fire to their home and barely escapes with Claudia, leaving a furious Lestat to be consumed by the flames. Arriving in Europe, Louis and Claudia seek out more of their kind. They travel throughout eastern Europe first and do indeed encounter vampires, but these vampires appear to be nothing more than mindless animated corpses. It is only when they reach Paris that they encounter vampires like themselves – specifically, the 400-year-old vampire Armand and his coven at the Théâtre des Vampires. Inhabiting an ancient theater, Armand and his vampire coven disguise themselves as humans and feed on live, terrified humans in mock-plays before a live human audience (who think the killings are merely a very realistic performance). Claudia is repulsed by these vampires and what she considers to be their cheap theatrics, but Louis and Armand are drawn to each other. Convinced that Louis will leave her for Armand, Claudia convinces Louis to turn a Parisian doll maker, Madeleine, into a vampire to serve as a replacement companion. Louis, Madeleine and Claudia live together for a brief time, but all three are abducted one night by the Theatre vampires. Lestat has arrived, having survived the fire in New Orleans. His accusations against Louis and Claudia result in Louis being locked in a coffin to starve, while Claudia and Madeleine are locked in an open courtyard. Armand arrives and releases Louis from the coffin, but Madeleine and Claudia are burned to death by the rising sun. A devastated Louis finds the ashen remains of Claudia and Madeleine. He returns to the Theatre late the following night, burning it to the ground and killing all the vampires inside, leaving with Armand. Together, the two travel across Europe for several years, but Louis never fully recovers from Claudia's death, and the emotional connection between himself and Armand quickly dissolves. Tired of the Old World, Louis returns to New Orleans in the early 20th century. Living as a loner, he feeds off any humans who cross his path, but lives in the shadows, never creating another companion for himself. Telling the boy of one last encounter with Lestat in New Orleans in the 1920s, Louis ends his tale; after 200 years, he is weary of immortality and of all the pain and suffering to which he has had to bear witness. The boy, however, seeing only the great powers granted to a vampire, begs to be made into a vampire himself. Angry that his interviewer learned nothing from his story, Louis refuses, attacking the boy and vanishing without a trace. The boy then leaves to track down Lestat in the hopes that he can give him immortality.

Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) is a hacker. Having served time for infecting the FBI's Carnivore program with a computer virus, he is now on parole but forbidden from touching computers. His alcoholic ex-wife Melissa (Drea de Matteo), who married a rich porn producer and is currently a part-time porn actress has sole custody over their daughter Holly, and a restraining order preventing him from visiting the latter. One day, he is solicited by Ginger Knowles (Halle Berry), speaking for her boss Gabriel Shear (John Travolta), for his hacking skills. He goes to meet Gabriel in Los Angeles, where he is put on the spot to crack a secure government server within a minute while simultaneously held at gunpoint and receiving fellatio. Successful, Gabriel offers Stanley $10 million to program multi-headed worm, a "hydra", to siphon $9.5 billion from several government slush funds. Stanley begins work, learning that Gabriel leads Black Cell, a secret group created by J. Edgar Hoover to launch retaliatory attacks against terrorists that threaten the United States. He also privately discovers Ginger is a DEA agent working undercover, and further is surprised to discover a corpse that looks like Gabriel. He goes to see Holly home from school but finds he is being followed by FBI agent J.T. Roberts (Don Cheadle), who had previously caught Stanley. Roberts, though monitoring Stanley closely, is more interested in Gabriel as he does not appear on any government database, and after learning that another hacker, Axl Torvalds (Rudolf Martin), had been killed by Gabriel's men, warns Stanley to be cautious. Stanley opts to secretly code a back door in his hydra that reverses the money transfer after a short period. Meanwhile, Senator Reisman (Sam Shepard), who oversees Black Cell, learns the FBI has started tracking Gabriel and orders him to stand down. Gabriel refuses, and narrowly avoids an assassination attempt ordered by Reisman. Gabriel personally kills Reisman in revenge and continues his plan. Stanley delivers the hydra to Gabriel and leaves to see Holly, only to find that Gabriel has killed Melissa and her husband and kidnapped Holly, framing Stanley. Stanley has no choice but to participate with the bank heist to get Holly back. Gabriel and his men storm a Worldbanc branch, and secure its employees and customers as hostages and fitting each with ball-bearing-based explosives similar to Claymore mines. When police and FBI surround the branch, Gabriel takes Stanley to the coffee shop across the street to meet with Roberts, but Gabriel spends the time to discuss the film Dog Day Afternoon and the nature of misdirection. Once back in the bank, Gabriel has one of his men escort a hostage to demonstrate the situation. A sniper kills the man, and other agents pull the hostage away from the bank, causing the bomb to detonate, ravaging the buildings and vehicles on the street and killing several people, a scene shown in medias res at the start of the film. Gabriel instructs Stanley to launch the hydra, and turns Holly over to him once completed. However, Stanley's back door triggers before they can leave the bank, and Stanley is recaptured while Holly is rescued. Gabriel threatens to kill Ginger, who he knows is a DEA agent, unless Stanley re-siphons the money back to a Monte Carlo bank. Despite doing so, Gabriel shoots Ginger. Gabriel and his men load the hostages on a bus and demand a plane wait for them at the local airport, but while en route, the bus is lifted off by a S-64 Aircrane and deposited on a roof of a local skyscraper. Gabriel deactivates the bombs and departs with his surviving men on a waiting helicopter, which Stanley shoots down using a rocket-propelled grenade from the bus. Roberts takes Stanley to verify the corpse they found, believing Gabriel was a Mossad agent while there was no record of a DEA agent named Ginger. Stanley recognizes the corpse as the one he discovered earlier and personally realizes that the whole scenario was misdirection. Gabriel had escaped a different route, and Ginger had been wearing a bulletproof vest and was working with Gabriel. Roberts arranges for Stanley to have full custody of Holly, and the two tour the US together. In Monte Carlo Gabriel and Ginger withdraw the money, and later watch as a yacht at sea explodes. Over the film's credits, a news report describes the destruction of the yacht, carrying a known terrorist, as the third such incident in as many weeks.

The memories of an unnamed elderly tailor form a parable from the distant year he worked as a village schoolteacher and met his fiancée Eva, a nanny. The setting is the fictitious Protestant village of Eichwald, Germany, from July 1913 to 9 August 1914, where the local pastor, the doctor and the baron rule the roost over the area's women, children and peasant farmers. The puritanical pastor leads confirmation classes and gives his pubescent children a guilty conscience over apparently small transgressions. He has them wear white ribbons as a reminder of the innocence and purity from which they have strayed. When his son confesses to impure touching, the pastor has the boy’s hands tied to his bed frame each night. The doctor, a widower, treats the village children kindly but humiliates his housekeeper (the local midwife) and is found with his teenage daughter at night. The baron, who is the lord of the manor, underwrites harvest festivities for the villagers, many of them his farm workers. He summarily dismisses Eva for no apparent reason yet defends the integrity of a farmer whose son has destroyed the baron's field of cabbages. The schoolteacher's friendship with Eva leads to an invitation to her family home during a Christmas break, and they receive permission from her parents to marry after a one-year engagement. Unexplained events occur. A wire is stretched between two trees causing the doctor a terrible fall from his horse. The farmer's wife dies at the sawmill when rotten floorboards give way; her grieving husband later hangs himself. The baron’s young son goes missing on the day of the harvest festival and is found the following morning in the sawmill, bound and badly caned. A barn at the manor burns down. The baroness tells her husband that she is in love with another man. The steward's daughter has a violent dream about the midwife's handicapped son, then the boy is attacked and almost blinded. Shortly after the pastor's daughter opens his parakeet's cage with scissors in hand, the pastor finds the bird cruelly impaled. The steward at the baron's estate thrashes his son for a petty theft. The midwife commandeers a bicycle from the schoolteacher to go into town, claiming that she has evidence for the police given to her by her son. She and her son are not seen again, and the doctor's family has also vacated the premises, leaving his practice closed. The schoolteacher's growing suspicions lead to a confrontation in the pastor's rectory, where he insinuates that the pastor's children had prior knowledge of the local troubles. Offended, the pastor threatens the schoolteacher, warning that he will face legal action if he repeats his accusations. The film ends at the time of the declaration of war on Serbia by Austria–Hungary, with the conclusion in church on the day of a visit from the narrator's prospective father-in-law. Disquiet remains in the village. The narrator left Eichwald, never to return.

Scientist Dr. Peyton Westlake is developing a new type of synthetic skin to help acid-burn victims. He is frustrated with a flaw that causes the skin to rapidly disintegrate after 99 minutes. His girlfriend, attorney Julie Hastings, discovers the Bellasarious Memorandum, an incriminating document proving that corrupt developer Louis Strack has been bribing members of the zoning commission. Before she leaves, Westlake asks her to marry him, but she hesitates. When she confronts Strack, he confesses, but shows Julie what he's been planning: To design a brand new city which would create a substantial number of new jobs. He also warns Julie to keep her guard up as mobster Robert Durant wants the document. Back at Westlake's lab, Dr. Westlake is conducting an experiment when the lights go out. Dr. Westlake and his assistant, Yakatito are astounded to find the synthetic skin is stable after 100 minutes. Westlake deduces that the synthetic skin is photosensitive. Their joy is short lived, as Durant and his henchmen show up and demand the Bellasarious Memorandum which Westlake knows nothing about. While searching for the document, Durant and his gang kill Yakatito. The gang then proceed to beat Westlake, burn his hands on a piece of machinery and dip his face in acid, disfiguring him. After they find the document, they rig the lab to explode, with Julie watching the explosion. The blast throws Westlake through the roof and into the river. Thought to be dead by Julie, who attends his funeral, he survives but is hideously burned. He is brought to a hospital and subjected to a radical treatment which cuts the nerves of the spinothalamic tract, so physical pain is no longer felt. However, he also loses his tactile sensation. Removing this sensory input gives him enhanced strength due to adrenal overload and keeps his injuries from incapacitating him, but it also mentally destabilizes him. After mourning the loss of his lab and realizing how badly burnt he has become, Westlake re-establishes the lab in a condemned building, using digitization to create a mask of his original face. The process is long, and in the meantime, Westlake plots revenge against Durant and his men. He kills Durant's favorite henchman Rick, but not before forcing the latter to reveal the identities of those involved, along with their criminal activities. Westlake then studies his enemies in order to subdue and impersonate them. When his face mask is complete, Westlake manages to convince Julie that he is indeed alive, and that he was in a coma rather than dead. He is aware of Julie seeing Strack after his supposed death, and eventually confronts her, to which she responds that Strack only comforted her. Westlake does not tell Julie about his condition, but asks her various questions on whether or not she would accept him, regardless of his appearance. Westlake now has a full clock schedule: Making the skin last longer than 99 minutes, visiting Julie, studying his enemies and even mimicking their voice patterns. His next excursion has him impersonating Durant himself, causing confusion among the mobster and his henchmen. The next time Westlake and Julie have a date at the carnival, an altercation causes Westlake to lose his temper and inadvertently reveals to Julie that there is indeed something wrong with him. She follows him as he flees (his 99 minutes were up,) and when she discovers that he was using masks to hide his true face, she calls out to Peyton that she still loves him regardless. Julie later tells Strack that she can no longer see him, and after discovering the Bellasarious Memorandum on his desk while he was on the phone, she confirms that Strack was collaborating with Durant the entire time. She tells him that Westlake is still alive, but Strack tells her that as long as he has the memorandum, no charges can be filed. When Julie leaves, Durant enters and is told by Strack to capture Julie and kill Westlake. Westlake eventually succeeds in killing Durant and all of his henchmen (except for the one with the wooden gun leg whose fate is unknown). Westlake impersonates Durant one final time when he meets up with Strack and a captive Julie as Strack plans to make the city "one less attorney." Westlake's ruse is broken by Strack who fights him on an unfinished building floor 650 feet from the ground upon Strack unmasking him. When Westlake gets the upper hand, Strack calls his bluff by saying that killing him would not be something he could live with. Westlake then drops Strack to his death saying to himself: "I'm learning to live with a lot of things." Julie tries to convince Westlake that he can still return to his old life, but Westlake tells her he has changed on the inside as well as out, and can not subject anyone to his new vicious nature. In the final scene, he runs away from Julie as they exit an elevator, and is seen from behind pulling on a mask which, when he turns around, reveals the face of Bruce Campbell. During this scene, Westlake can be heard off-screen: "I am everyone and no one. Everywhere. Nowhere. Call me... Darkman."

The play focuses on Don Rodrigue and Chimène. Rodrigue's father, Don Diègue, is the old upstart general of Kingdom of Castile and past his prime, whereas Chimène's father is the successful current general, Comte de Gormas. Rodrigue and Chimène love each other, but any chance of marriage is brutally disturbed when Chimène's father insults Rodrigue's father. Torn between his love for Chimène and his duty to avenge his father's honour, Rodrigue chooses the latter and faces the general in a duel in which Don Gormas is killed. Without denying her love, Chimène asks the King for Rodrigue's head. When the Moors attack, Rodrigue gets the chance to redeem himself in the eye of the nation, and, more importantly, gets a chance to win back Chimène with honour still satisfied. His victories on the battlefield win him the renown of the people, the title of "the Cid", and the gratitude of the King. Chimène then approaches the King to request that one of his knights duel with Rodrigue for her honor's sake, with the goal of bringing her Rodrigue's head. Chimène chooses Don Sanche as her champion; although she dislikes him, she agrees to marry whoever is the victor of the duel to the death. The King agrees to the duel unhappily (he does not want to risk losing Rodrigue). Rodrigue speaks to Chimène privately, saying that he will not defend himself against what is symbolically "her" hand. She finally persuades him to do his best, because if he wins, they will marry. After the duel, Don Sanche (Chimène's champion), carrying a bloody sword, comes to where she is waiting. Chimène assumes the worst without giving him the chance to speak. Going before the king, she finally feels free to confess her love for Rodrigue because she believes him to be dead. Don Sanche then explains that Rodrigue disarmed him and granted him mercy. After the duel, Rodrigue returns straight to the king, leaving Don Sanche to bring his sword to Chimène. Although they love each other, Chimène and Rodrigue are reluctant to marry because of their history, but the king says that although it seemed impossible at first, circumstances have proven that they were meant to be together. Still, he realizes they need time to adapt. Chimène will set the date for the wedding, up to a year in advance. Meanwhile, Rodrigue, known as the Cid, will conduct a war against the Moors in their own territory.

Newcastle-born gangster Jack Carter has lived in London for years in the employ of organised crime bosses Gerald and Sid Fletcher. Jack is sleeping with Gerald's girlfriend Anna and plans to escape with her to South America. But first he must return to Newcastle and Gateshead to attend the funeral of his brother Frank, who died in a purported drunk-driving accident. Unsatisfied with the official explanation, Jack investigates for himself. At the funeral Jack meets with his teenage niece Doreen and Frank's evasive mistress Margaret. It is later implied that Doreen might actually be Jack's daughter. Jack goes to Newcastle Racecourse seeking old acquaintance Albert Swift for information about his brother's death, however Swift spots Jack and evades him. Jack encounters another old associate, Eric Paice, who refuses to tell Jack who is employing him as a chauffeur. Tailing Eric leads him to the country house of crime boss Cyril Kinnear. Jack bursts in on Kinnear who is playing poker but learns little from him, he also meets a glamorous drunken woman Glenda. As Jack leaves Eric warns him against damaging relations between Kinnear and the Fletchers. Back in town, Jack is threatened by henchmen who want him to leave town, but he fights them off, capturing and interrogating one to find out who wants him gone. He is given the name "Brumby". Jack knows Cliff Brumby as a businessman with controlling interests in local seaside amusement arcades. Visiting Brumby's house Jack discovers the man knows nothing about him and, believing he has been set up, he leaves. The next morning two of Jack's London colleagues arrive, sent by the Fletchers to take him back, but he escapes. Jack meets Margaret to talk about Frank, but Fletcher's men are waiting and pursue him. He is rescued by Glenda who takes him in her sports car to meet Brumby at his new restaurant development at the top of a multi-storey car park. Brumby identifies Kinnear as being behind Frank's death, also explaining that Kinnear is trying to take over his business. He offers Jack ÂŁ5,000 to kill the crime boss, which he flatly refuses. Jack has sex with Glenda at her flat, where he finds and watches a pornographic film where Doreen is forced to have sex with Albert. The other participants in the film are Glenda and Margaret. Overcome with emotion Jack becomes enraged and pushes Glenda's head under water as she is taking a bath. She tells him the film was Kinnear's and she thinks Doreen was 'pulled' by Eric. Forcing Glenda into the boot of her car, Jack drives off to find Albert. Jack tracks Albert down at a betting shop. Albert confesses he told Brumby Doreen was, indeed, Frank's daughter. Brumby showed Frank the film to incite him to call the police on Kinnear. Eric and two of his men arranged Frank's death. Information extracted, Jack fatally knifes Albert. Jack is attacked by the London gangsters and Eric, who has informed Fletcher of Jack and Anna's affair. Jack shoots one of them dead. As Eric and the others escape they push the sports car into the river with Glenda trapped inside. Returning to the car park Jack finds Brumby, beats him senseless and throws him over the side to his death. He then posts the pornographic film to the Vice Squad at Scotland Yard in London. Jack abducts Margaret at gunpoint. He telephones Kinnear in the middle of a wild party, telling him he has the film and makes a deal for Kinnear to give him Eric in exchange for his silence. Kinnear agrees, sending Eric to an agreed location; however, he subsequently phones a hitman to dispose of Jack. Jack drives Margaret to the grounds of Kinnear's estate, kills her with a fatal injection and leaves her body there. He then calls the police to raid Kinnear's party. Jack chases Eric along a beach. He forces Eric to drink a full bottle of whisky as he did to Frank, then beats him to death with his shotgun. As Jack is walking along the shoreline, he is shot through the head by the hitman with a sniper rifle.

Stewart "Stew" Smith (Robert Williams), ace reporter for the Post, is assigned to get the story about the latest escapade of playboy Michael Schuyler (Donald Dillaway), a breach of promise suit by chorus girl Gloria Golden, who has been paid to drop it. Unlike rival Daily Tribune reporter Bingy Baker (Walter Catlett), he turns down a $50 bribe from Dexter Grayson (Reginald Owen), the Schuylers' lawyer, to not write anything. He does pretend to be swayed by the pleas of Anne (Jean Harlow), Michael's sister, but then brazenly calls his editor with the scoop, appalling the Schuylers. Stew returns to the house to return a copy of Conrad he had taken from the Schuylers' library. The butler, Smythe (Halliwell Hobbes), tries to make him leave, but Anne sees him. Stew surprises Anne by presenting her with Michael's love letters to Gloria, who had intended to use them to extort more money from the Schuylers. Anne offers Stew a $5,000 check, which he refuses. She asks why he reported the suit, but not the love notes. Stew explains that one was news, the other, blackmail. He later tells her he is writing a play. Intrigued, Anne wonders if she can turn him into a gentleman. She invites him to a party at the house. They fall in love and soon elope, horrifying Anne's widowed mother, Mrs. Schuyler (Louise Closser Hale), an imperious dowager who looks down on Stew's lower-class background. Michael takes it in stride, telling Stew he's not as bad as everyone thinks. The wedding is scooped by the rival Daily Tribune, enraging his editor, Conroy (Edmund Breese). Even more upset is Stew's best friend Gallagher (Loretta Young), a "sob sister" columnist secretly pining for him. Conroy taunts Stew as "a bird in a gilded cage." Despite his bravado, Stew is upset by the implication he is no longer his own man, vowing not to live on Anne's money. However, she cajoles him into moving into the mansion and starts to make him over, buying him garters (despite his objections) and hiring a valet, Dawson (Claud Allister). When the Schuylers hold a reception for the Spanish ambassador, Gallagher substitutes for the society reporter and chats with Stew. Anne is surprised to learn that her husband's best friend (whom she had assumed was a man) is actually a lovely young woman and treats Gallagher icily. Then, Bingy tells Stew the Tribune will give him a column if he signs it "Anne Schuyler's husband." Insulted, Stew punches Bingy when he calls him Cinderella Man. The next morning, Mrs. Schuyler is aghast to find Stew's brawl has made the front page. Wrestling with his play, Stew invites Gallagher and another friend, Hank (Eddy Chandler) from Joe's. They arrive with Joe and several bar patrons in tow and even Bingy shows up to apologize. A raucous party ensues. Meanwhile, Stew and Gallagher ponder the play, deciding to base it on Stew's marriage. Anne, Mrs. Schuyler, and Grayson return as the party is in full swing. Stew apologizes for letting the party get out of control, but protests that he can invite friends to "my house." Anne replies, "Your house?" Stew returns with Gallagher to his own apartment. Along the way, he gives a homeless man his expensive garters. Grayson stops by to say Anne will pay him alimony, whereupon Stew punches him (earlier, Stew had warned Grayson that his twentieth insult would earn him a "sock to the nose"). Stew tells Gallagher the play could end with the protagonist divorcing his rich wife and marrying the woman whom he had always loved without ever realizing it. Overwhelmed, Gallagher hugs him.

Zuleika Dobson, 'though not strictly beautiful', is a devastatingly attractive young woman of the Edwardian era, a true femme fatale, who is a prestidigitator by profession, formerly a governess. Zuleika's current occupation (though, more importantly, perhaps, her enrapturing beauty) has made her something of a small-time celebrity and she manages to gain entrance to the privileged, all-male domain of Oxford University because her grandfather is the Warden of Judas College (based on Merton College, Beerbohm's alma mater). There, she falls in love for the first time in her life with the Duke of Dorset, a snobbish, emotionally detached student who—frustrated with the lack of control over his feelings when he sees her—is forced to admit that she too is his first love, impulsively proposing to her. As she feels that she cannot love anyone unless he is impervious to her charms, however, she rejects all her suitors, doing the same with the astonished Duke. The Duke quickly discovers that Noaks, another Oxford student, also claims to have fallen in love with her, without ever having even interacted with her. Apparently, men immediately fall in love with her upon seeing her. As the first to have his love reciprocated by her (for however brief a time) the Duke decides that he will commit suicide to symbolise his passion for Zuleika and in hopes that he will raise awareness in her of the terrible power of her bewitching allure, as she innocently goes on crushing men's affections. Zuleika is able to interrupt the Duke's first suicide attempt from a river boat, but seems to have a romanticised view of men dying for her, and does not oppose the notion of his suicide altogether. The Duke, instead pledging to kill himself the next day—which Zuleika more or less permits—has dinner that night with his social club where the other members also affirm their love for Zuleika. Upon telling them of his plan to die, the others unexpectedly agree to also commit suicide for Zuleika. This idea soon reaches the minds of all Oxford undergraduates, who inevitably fall in love with Zuleika upon first sight. The Duke eventually decides that the only way he can stop all the undergraduates from killing themselves is by not committing suicide himself, hoping they will follow his example. By an ancient tradition, on the eve of the death of a Duke of Dorset, two black owls come and perch on the battlements of Tankerton Hall, the family seat; the owls remain there hooting through the night and at dawn they fly away to an unknown place. After debating whether to follow through with his suicide, while seeming to decide at last to embrace his life as just as valuable as Zuleika's, the Duke receives a telegram from his butler at Tankerton, reporting the portentous return of the owls. The Duke promptly interprets the omen as a sign that the gods have decreed his doom. He proudly tells Zuleika that he will still die, but no longer for her; she agrees as long as he makes it appear that he is dying for her by shouting her name as he jumps into the river. Later the same day, a thunderstorm overwhelms the Eights Week boat races while the Duke drowns himself in the River Isis, wearing the robes of a Knight of the Garter. Every fellow undergraduate, except one, promptly follows suit. All of the Oxford undergraduates now dead, including, with some delay, the cowardly Noaks, Zuleika discusses the ordeal with her grandfather, who reveals that he too was enamoured by all when he was her age. While Oxford's academic staff barely notice that nearly all of their undergraduates have vanished, Zuleika decides to order a special train for the next morning ... bound for Cambridge.

Young fearless prospector Roy Glenister and his older partner, Dextry are headed back to Nome on the first ship of the season, eager to return to protect their gold claim called the "Midas", which promises to yield them great wealth. On the trip, they defend a young woman who boards the ship from her pursuers—and who is also intent on reaching Nome as soon as possible. Glenister immediately begins to fall for the young beauty, who turns out to be Helen Chester, niece of Judge Arthur Chester, recently appointed as the first federal judge for the Alaska Territory—the "law" is coming to the wild northern frontier. Except it turns out the law is crooked. The Judge and the federal marshall are really under the thumb of strongman politician Alexander McNamara. After reaching Nome, McNamara succeeds in being appointed receiver of all the most lucrative mining claims in the region, based on fraudulent disputes over the validity of the miners' claims. Glenister, Dextry, and a number of naive Swedes are dispossessed of their lands. The miners hire lawyers to fight on the legal side, and also form a vigilante group to fight the "law". McNamara rules ruthlessly, running the mines himself. Glenister sinks into despair, believing that Helen is in on the conspiracy against the miners, and almost loses his stake in the Midas in a night of reckless gambling. He is only saved from that fate by Cherry Malotte, whose unrequited love for Glenister has brought her to Nome. Helen slowly learns about the scheme being perpetrated by McNamara, her uncle, and others, while her affections are torn between Glenister and McNamara.

Tonnison and Berreggnog make a fishing holiday to the remote village of Kraighten in rural Ireland. On the third day of their stay, they stumble upon the ruins of a strangely shaped house on a large lake. They discover the mouldering journal of the Recluse, an unidentified man who recorded his last days in the house before its destruction. The Recluse begins his journal with descriptions of how he acquired the house, along with his daily life with his sister and his faithful dog, Pepper. He started the diary to record the strange experiences and horrors occurring in and around the house. The Recluse relates a vision in which he travels to a remote and vast arena, "the Plain of Silence", surrounded by mountains with representations of mythological beast-gods, demons, and other "bestial horrors" on their slopes. In the center of the plain stands a house almost identical to his own, save that the house in the arena is much larger and appears to be made of a green jade-like substance. Along the way, he sees a huge, menacing humanoid with swine-like features. Shortly after his vision of the "arena," he is attacked by humanoid pig-like creatures that he names "the swine-things", which appear to come from the depths of a great chasm under the house. The struggle with these creatures lasts for several nights of increasing ferocity, but the man kills several of the creatures and drives them off. As he searches for the origin of the swine-things, the man finds a pit beyond the gardens where a river descends into the earth. There he finds a tunnel leading to the great chasm. A rock slide dams the water in the pit. The man is trapped, but Pepper rescues him. The house transports the Recluse to an unknown place called "the Sea of Sleep" where he briefly reunites with his lost love. Tonnison and Berreggnog must stop reading there as the house collapse has destroyed much of the journal. Except for an enigmatic fragment, the book becomes unreadable between the passage describing "the Sea of Sleep" and a later entry titled "The noise in the night". They realise that the water from the dammed pit has overflowed to create the lake. They suppose that the destroyed section of the journal may have explained other mysteries about the house. As the Recluse's story continues, he notices that the passage of day and night has increased in speed, eventually blurring into a never-ending twilight. As he watches, his surroundings decay and collapse to dust. The dead world slowly grinds to a halt and the sun goes out after several million millennia. Once the world ends, the man floats through space, seeing angelic, human, and demonic forms passing before his eyes. Later, he finds himself back in his own study on Earth, with everything apparently returned to normality, with one exception: Pepper is dead. The malicious swine-beast from his earlier journeys to the "arena" has followed him back to his own dimension. The creature infects the man's new dog with a luminous fungal disease. Although the man shoots the suffering animal, he also contracts the disease. The manuscript ends with the man, by then partly covered by the fungal growth, locked (from the outside only) in his study as the creature comes through a trap door in the basement from the chasm under the house. As he ponders suicide to end his suffering, the creature tries to open the study door and the diary abruptly ends. Tonnison and Berreggnog search for information about the man and his circumstances. They learn that the house was long believed to be evil before the unsociable old man and his elderly sister acquired it. Monthly supplies were brought in by a man who would say nothing about the Recluse. After several years, the man returned early one day from his delivery trip and said that the house had mysteriously fallen into the chasm. The two travellers leave Kraighten and never return. The novel ends with a five-verse poem titled "Grief", found behind the fly-leaf of the diary.

Emmeline is set in Pembroke, Wales and centres around the eponymous heroine. Her parents are both dead and she has been supported by her father's brother, Lord Montreville, at Mowbray Castle. It is suggested at the beginning of the novel that Emmeline's parents were not married when she was born, making her illegitimate; on these grounds, Lord Montreville has claimed Mowbray Castle for himself and his family. Emmeline has been left to be raised by servants, but through reading, she has become educated and accomplished and catches the eye of Lord Montreville's son, Lord Delamere. Delamere falls in love with her and proposes but Emmeline refuses him because his father does not approve and she feels only sisterly affection for him. To escape Delamere's protestations of love, Emmeline leaves Mowbray Castle and lives first with Mrs. Stafford and then Mrs. Ashwood, where Delamere continues to pursue her. Emmeline also rejects the suits of other rich men, confounding the people around her. The Croft family, lawyers who are trying to rise in society, have influence over and control Lord Montreville. The younger Croft son secretly marries the eldest Montreville daughter to secure a fortune—a most unfortunate match from Lord Montreville's perspective. Delamere abducts Emmeline: he attempts to take her to Scotland and to force her to marry him. However, after falling ill of a fever, she convinces him to abandon his plans. When Delamere’s mother, Lady Montreville, becomes ill, he is compelled to visit his family. To help her recover, he promises not to see Emmeline for a year. If, after that period, he still loves her, his parents promise to allow him to marry her and she reluctantly agrees. Emmeline becomes friends with Augusta, Delamere’s sister. Augusta marries Lord Westhaven, who by happenstance, is the brother of Emmeline’s new acquaintance in the country—Adelina. Adelina left her dissipated husband for a lover who abandoned her with a child. She is so distraught that when she sees her brother, Lord Westhaven, she fears his chastisement so much that she briefly goes insane. Emmeline nurses her and her baby; while doing so, she meets Adelina's other brother, Godolphin. The Crofts circulate rumours of Emmeline’s infidelity to Delamere and when he visits her and sees her with Adelina’s child, he assumes the child is hers and abandons her. Emmeline then travels to France with Mrs. Stafford and Augusta, where she discovers her parents were actually married and that she deserves to inherit Mowbray Castle. Lord Montreville hands the estate over to her, after discovering he was duped by the Crofts. Delamere becomes ill upon discovering that Emmeline was never unfaithful to him. She nurses him, but refuses to marry him. His mother dies in her anxiety over his condition and he dies fighting a duel over his sister’s lover. In the end, Emmeline marries Godolphin.

In the Mediterranean Sea, Italian fishermen rescue an unconscious American (Matt Damon) floating adrift with two gunshot wounds in his back. They tend to his wounds, and when the man wakes, they find he suffers from dissociative amnesia. He has no memory of his own identity, while he retains his speech and finds himself capable of advanced combat skills and fluency in several languages. The skipper finds a tiny laser projector under the man's hip that, when activated, gives a number of a safe deposit box in Z端rich. Upon landing, the man heads to investigate the box. Arriving at the bank, the man finds the box contains a large sum of money in various currencies, numerous passports and identity cards with his picture on all of them, and a handgun. The man takes everything but the gun, and leaves, opting to use the name on the American passport, Jason Bourne. After Bourne's departure, a bank employee contacts Operation Treadstone, a CIA black ops program. Treadstone's head, Alexander Conklin (Chris Cooper), activates three agents to take down Bourne: Castel (Nicky Naude), Manheim (Russell Levy), and the Professor (Clive Owen), while also issuing alerts to local police to capture Bourne. Meanwhile, CIA Deputy Director Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) contacts Conklin about a failed assassination attempt against exiled African dictator Nykwana Wombosi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). Conklin promises Abbott that he will deal with the Treadstone agent who failed. Bourne attempts to evade the Swiss police by using his U.S. passport to enter the American consulate, but he is discovered by guards. He evades capture, leaves the embassy, and gives a German woman, Marie Kreutz (Franka Potente), $20,000 to drive him to an address in Paris listed on his French driving license. At the address, an apartment, he hits redial on the phone and reaches a hotel. He inquires about the names on his passports there, learning that a "John Michael Kane" had been registered but died two weeks prior in a car crash. Castel ambushes Bourne and Marie in the apartment, but Bourne gets the upper hand. Instead of allowing himself to be interrogated, Castel throws himself out a window to his death. Marie finds wanted posters of Bourne and herself, and after agonizing, agrees to continue to help Bourne. After a chase in which Bourne evades Paris police in Marie's car, the two fugitives spend the night together in a Paris hotel. Meanwhile, Wombosi continues to obsess over the attempt on his life. Conklin, having anticipated this, planted a body in the Paris morgue to appear as the assailant, but Wombosi is not fooled and threatens to report this. The Professor assassinates Wombosi on Conklin's orders. Bourne, posing as Kane, learns about Wombosi's yacht, and that the assailant had been shot twice in the back during the escape, just as he was. Bourne now considers himself to have been the assailant. He and Marie take refuge at the French countryside home of her step-brother Eamon (Tim Dutton) and his children. Under pressure from Abbott to tie off the Wombosi matter entirely, Conklin tracks Bourne's location and sends the Professor there, but Bourne shoots him twice with Eamon's shotgun, mortally wounding him. The Professor reveals their shared connection to Treadstone before dying. Bourne sends Marie, Eamon, and Eamon's children away for their protection, and then contacts Conklin via the Professor's phone to arrange a meeting. From a rooftop near the arranged location in Paris, Bourne sees Conklin has brought backup, so he abandons the meeting, but uses the opportunity to place a tracking device on Conklin's car, leading Bourne to Treadstone's safe house. Bourne breaks in and holds Conklin and logistics technician Nicolette "Nicky" Parsons (Julia Stiles) at gunpoint. When Conklin begins pressing him to remember his past, Bourne recalls his attempt to assassinate Wombosi through successive flashbacks. As Kane, and working under orders from Treadstone, Bourne infiltrated Wombosi's yacht but could not bring himself to kill Wombosi while Wombosi's children were present, and instead fled, being shot during his escape. Bourne announces he is resigning from Treadstone and is not to be followed. As agents descend on the safe house, Bourne fights his way free. When Conklin leaves the safe house he is killed by Manheim operating under Abbott's orders. Abbott shuts down Treadstone. Abbott reports to an oversight committee that Treadstone is "all but decommissioned" before discussion turns to a new project codenamed "Blackbriar". In the final scene, Bourne finds Marie renting out scooters to tourists on Mykonos, and the two reunite.

In 2379, two hundred years after the events of Alien 3, military scientists on the space vessel USM Auriga create a clone of Ellen Ripley using DNA from blood samples taken before her death. The Alien queen's DNA was mixed in with Ripley's, and the clone grows up with an embryo inside it. The scientists extract the embryo, raise it and collect its eggs. The Ripley clone is kept alive for further study. As a result of the alien's DNA inside her, she develops enhanced strength and reflexes, has acidic blood and a psychic link with the Aliens. Also, the alien's genetic memory allows the clone to have some of Ripley's memories. A group of mercenaries, Elgyn, Johner, Christie, Vriess, Hillard and Call, arrive at Auriga on their ship Betty. They deliver several kidnapped humans in stasis. The military scientists use the humans as hosts for the Aliens, raising several adult Aliens for study. The Betty crew soon encounters Ripley. Call recognizes her name and tries to kill her, suspecting she may be used to create more Aliens. The Aliens have already matured and escape confinement by killing off one of their own and using the acidic blood to burn through their enclosures. They damage the Auriga and kill the crew members who do not evacuate, including General Perez and Elgyn. Military scientist Dr. Wren reveals that the ship's default command in an emergency is to return to Earth. Realizing this will unleash the Aliens on Earth, Ripley, the mercenaries, Wren, a Marine named DiStephano and surviving Alien host Purvis decide to head for the Betty and use it to destroy the Auriga. Along the way, Ripley encounters the grotesque products of failed attempts to clone Ripley. The surviving one begs Ripley to mercy kill her, and she complies. As the group makes their way through the damaged ship, they swim through a flooded kitchen. They are chased by two Aliens. One is killed, while the other snatches Hillard. As they escape the kitchen, the Alien returns and blinds Christie, who sacrifices himself to kill the Alien so the others can escape. After Wren betrays the group, Call is revealed to be an android. Using her ability to interface with the Auriga's systems, Call sets it on a collision course with Earth, hoping to destroy the Aliens in the crash. She cuts off Wren's escape route, and directs the Aliens towards him. Ripley is captured by the Aliens, while the others head for the Betty. Wren shoots Purvis and takes Call hostage, demanding that she abort the collision. An injured Purvis attacks Wren and forces his head to his chest just as the Alien embryo he is carrying bursts through his ribcage, causing it to go through Wren's head and kill them both. The survivors shoot the embryo. Ripley is taken to the Alien nest, where the Queen, now possessing a womb as a result of the genetic mixture, gives birth to a Newborn, a Xenomorph with human traits. The hybrid Alien recognizes Ripley as its mother, kills the queen Alien and Dr. Jonathan Gediman, a scientist previously captured and cocooned. Ripley takes advantage of the distraction to escape and makes her way to the Betty. The Newborn reaches the Betty and attacks Call. It kills DeStephano when he tries to help her. Ripley finds her way onto the ship and saves Call by distracting the Newborn. Using her acidic blood, Ripley melts the glass of a window and pushes the Newborn towards the hole. It is violently sucked through the hole due to decompression. The countdown on the Auriga continues as the survivors escape in the Betty. The Auriga collides with Earth, causing a large explosion. Call and Ripley look down at Earth, and when Call asks what Ripley wants to do next, she says, "I'm a stranger here myself." In an alternate ending that is used in some extended adaptations, the Betty lands in a ruined Paris.

In the near future, the Moon has been colonized and supports a station on its surface. A lunar shuttle known as Mayflower One is being rushed to launch from Houston. The head of the ground crew, The Sarge (Chuck Connors), does not like what is occurring, but he defers to the airline's management. On the flight crew are Captain Clarence Oveur (Peter Graves), navigator/co-pilot Unger (Kent McCord) and first officer/flight engineer Dunn (James A. Watson, Jr.). Also on board is computer officer Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty). Elaine has long left Ted Striker (Robert Hays) and is now engaged to one of the flight crew, Simon Kurtz (Chad Everett). Striker has in the meantime been committed to an insane asylum, as he was declared mentally incompetent in a lawsuit following a test flight that Ted piloted and in which the lunar shuttle crashed. Striker believes that the lawsuit was used to silence him, because he knew there were problems with the lunar shuttle that made it unsafe, and he is once more haunted by his actions in "The War" - causing a relapse of his "drinking problem", specifically the events that took place over "Macho Grande", where he lost his entire squadron. When Striker reads of the upcoming lunar shuttle launch, he escapes the asylum and buys a ticket for the flight. During the flight, Mayflower One suffers a short circuit, causing the artificially intelligent computer ROK to go insane and send the ship toward the Sun. Unger and Dunn try to deactivate the computer, but are blown out of an airlock. Oveur tries to stop ROK, but the computer gasses him. Kurtz abandons Elaine and leaves in the only escape pod. Once again, Striker is called upon to save the day, but first he has to figure out how to make the computer relinquish control. Steve McCroskey (Lloyd Bridges), the air traffic controller, reveals that a passenger named Joe Seluchi (Sonny Bono) had boarded Mayflower One with a bomb in a briefcase, intending to commit suicide so that his wife can collect on insurance money. Striker manages to wrestle the bomb from Seluchi and uses it to blow up ROK and set course for the Moon as originally intended. Using the bomb to destroy the computer causes collateral damage to the shuttle, meaning the flight is not out of danger yet. On the way to the Moon, control of the flight is shifted to a lunar base, commanded by Commander Buck Murdock (William Shatner). He has a high level of contempt for Striker because of Macho Grande, but agrees to help anyway. They manage to land the craft on the Moon. Ted and Elaine fall back in love and are married at the end. After the wedding, Seluchi looks into the cockpit and asks for his briefcase back. A postcredit scene shows a screen that says "Coming From Paramount Pictures: "Airplane III". Murdock is then seen saying "That's exactly what they'll be expecting us to do!"

Many of the events of the novel are narrated twice; first by the 'editor', who gives his account of the facts as he understands them to be, and then in the words of the 'sinner' himself. The 'Editor's Narrative' starts in 1687 with the marriage of Rabina Orde to the much older George Colwan, Laird of Dalcastle. Rabina despises her new husband because he falls short of her extreme religious beliefs, his love of dancing and penchant for drinking alcohol. She initially flees him but her father forces her back, and they live separately in the one house. Rabina gives birth to two sons. The first, George, is indisputably the son of the Laird, but it is strongly implied – though never confirmed – that her second son, Robert, was fathered by the Reverend Wringhim, Rabina’s spiritual adviser and close confidante. George, raised by the Laird, becomes a popular young man who enjoys sport and the company of his friends. Robert, educated by his mother and adoptive father Wringhim, is brought up to follow Wringhim’s radical antinomian sect of Calvinism, which holds that only certain elect people are predestined to be saved by God. These chosen few will have a heavenly reward regardless of how their lives are lived. The two brothers meet, as young men, in Edinburgh where Robert starts following George through the town, mocking and provoking him and disrupting his life. He appears to have the ability of appearing wherever George is. When on a hill-top, George sees a vision of his brother in the sky and turns to find him behind him, preparing to throw him off a cliff. Robert rejects any friendly or placatory advances from his brother. Finally, George is murdered by being stabbed in the back, apparently during a duel with one of his drinking acquaintances. The only witnesses to the murder were a prostitute and her despicable client, who claim that the culprit was Robert, aided by what appears to be the double of George’s friend. Before Robert can be arrested, he disappears. The second part of the novel consists of Robert's account of his life. It purports to be a document, part-handwritten and part-printed, which was found after his death. It recounts his childhood, under the influence of the Rev Wringhim, and goes on to explain how he becomes in thrall to an enigmatic companion who says his name is Gil-Martin. This stranger, who could be seen to be the Devil, appears after Wringhim has declared Robert to be a member of 'the elect' and so predestined to eternal salvation. Gil-Martin, who is able to transform his appearance at will, soon directs all of Robert’s pre-existing tendencies and beliefs to evil purposes, convincing him that it is his mission to “cut sinners off with the sword”, and that murder can be the correct course of action. From Gil-Martin's boasting of the number of his adherents and size of his dominions, Robert falls into the delusion that he is Peter the Great of Russia, who visited England about that time. The confession traces Robert's gradual decline into despair and madness, as his doubts about the righteousness of his cause are counteracted by Gil-Martin’s increasing domination over his life. Finally, Robert loses control over his own identity and even loses track of time. During these lost weeks and months, it is suggested that Gil-Martin assumes Robert’s appearance in order to commit further crimes. However, there are also suggestions in the text, that 'Gil-Martin' is a figment of Robert's imagination, and is simply an aspect of his own personality: as, for example when 'the sinner' writes, 'I feel as if I were the same person' (as Gil-Martin). Robert flees, but is pursued and tormented by devils and can find refuge only as a shepherd. Finally he hangs himself with a grass rope – in which it is suggested that he is aided by devils. The novel concludes with a return to the 'Editor's Narrative' which explains how the sinner's memoir was discovered in his grave. Hogg appears as himself in this section, expressing scorn of the project to open the grave.

In the 1820s, Eugene Onegin is a bored Saint Petersburg dandy, whose life consists of balls, concerts, parties and nothing more. One day he inherits a landed estate from his uncle. When he moves to the country, he strikes up a friendship with his neighbor, a starry-eyed young poet named Vladimir Lensky. One day, Lensky takes Onegin to dine with the family of his fiancĂŠe, the sociable but rather thoughtless Olga Larina. At this meeting he also catches a glimpse of Olga's sister Tatyana. A quiet, precocious romantic and the exact opposite of Olga, Tatyana becomes intensely drawn to Onegin. Soon after, she bares her soul to Onegin in a letter professing her love. Contrary to her expectations, Onegin does not write back. When they meet in person, he rejects her advances politely but dismissively and condescendingly. This famous speech is often referred to as Onegin's Sermon: he admits that the letter was touching, but says that he would quickly grow bored with marriage and can only offer Tatyana friendship; he coldly advises more emotional control in the future, lest another man take advantage of her innocence. Later, Lensky mischievously invites Onegin to Tatyana's name day celebration promising a small gathering with just Tatyana, Olga, and their parents. When Onegin arrives, he finds instead a boisterous country ball, a rural parody of and contrast to the society balls of St. Petersburg he has grown tired of. Onegin is irritated with the guests who gossip about him and Tatyana, and with Lensky for persuading him to come. He decides to avenge himself by dancing and flirting with Olga. Olga is insensitive to her fiancĂŠ and apparently attracted to Onegin. Earnest and inexperienced, Lensky is wounded to the core and challenges Onegin to fight a duel; Onegin reluctantly accepts, feeling compelled by social convention. During the duel, Onegin unwillingly kills Lensky. Afterwards, he quits his country estate, traveling abroad to deaden his feelings of remorse. Tatyana visits Onegin's mansion, where she looks through his books and his notes in the margins, and begins to question whether Onegin's character is merely a collage of different literary heroes, and if there is, in fact, no "real Onegin". Several years pass, and the scene shifts to St. Petersburg. Onegin has come to attend the most prominent balls and interact with the leaders of old Russian society. He sees the most beautiful woman, who captures the attention of all and is central to society's whirl, and he realizes that it is the same Tatyana whose love he had once turned away. Now she is married to an aged prince (a general). Upon seeing Tatyana again, he becomes obsessed with winning her affection, despite the fact that she is married. However, his attempts are rebuffed. He writes her several letters, but receives no reply. Eventually Onegin manages to see Tatyana and presents to her the opportunity to finally elope after they have become reacquainted. Does he desire her only for her wealth and position? She recalls the days when they might have been happy, but that time has passed. Onegin repeats his love for her. Faltering for a moment, she admits that she still loves him, but she will not allow him to ruin her and declares her determination to remain faithful to her husband. She leaves him regretting his bitter destiny.

Out of Time's Abyss is a direct sequel to The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot, continuing the lost world saga begun in the earlier stories. It connects the previous two installments, bringing in characters introduced in each. Burroughs completes the revelation of his lost world's unique biological system, only hinted at in the previous installment, in which the slow progress of evolution in the world outside is recapitulated as a matter of individual metamorphosis. This system forms a thematic element serving to unite the three otherwise rather loosely linked Caspak stories.The book begins with Bradley, who had left Fort Dinosaur on an expedition in the first novel and never returned. Bradley and his party are attempting to return to Fort Dinosaur. Along the way, they encounter a creature which appears to be a flying dead man. Some of the members of the party consider it to be a ghost or banshee. Tippet is convinced that he is soon to die, and the next day he is killed by a Tyrannosaurus. The ghost-like creature is seen again, and James is killed by a Smilodon. Bradley disappears during the night, and the remaining members of the party make it safely to Fort Dinosaur. Bradley had been captured by the ghost-like creature, which is soon revealed to be a naturally winged human being, belonging to a subgroup of humanity known as the Wieroo. The Wieroo takes Bradley to the island of Oo-oh, set in Caspak's inland sea. It attempts to keep Bradley in a prison, but he escapes through a secret passage. He meets Co-Tan, a member of the highest human race of mainland Caspak, the Galu, fully human and of a neolithic cultural level. They enter the chamber of the Wieroo king, a huge member of the race, and Bradley kills the creature with its own sword. Co-Tan and Bradley escape the city of the Wieroo and live for several months on the forested coast of Oo-oh. Finally, though, they are discovered by Wieroo. They succeed in capturing two of the Wieroo and forcing them to fly to the mainland, one bearing each of the humans. On the Caspakian mainland, Co-Tan and Bradley meet the party from the outside world from the previous two books, and they return home to America, where Bradley will marry Co-Tan.

In the San Fernando Valley during the summer of 1962, protagonist Scott "Scotty" Smalls moves to a new town with his mother and stepfather Bill and attempts to join a neighborhood baseball team who plays in a local sandlot. With the help of team captain Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez, known as Benny by the others, Smalls becomes a proficient player. Smalls joins his new friends, Benny Rodriguez, Hamilton 'Ham' Porter, Michael 'Squints' Palledorous, Alan 'Yeah-Yeah' McClennon, Bertram Grover Weeks, Kenny DeNunez, Timmy Timmons and Tommy 'Repeat' Timmons on their many misadventures including being banned from the pool, besting a snooty long-time rival team, and getting sick on one of the rides at an amusement park. He then learns that many of the team's baseballs have ended up in Mr. Mertle's junkyard over the sandlot's back fence, which is protected by a giant dog known as "The Beast", who had allegedly eaten a kid foolish enough to enter it. One day, when Benny hits the hide off of the team's last ball, Smalls substitutes one from his stepfather's prized collection. When this ball is also lost over the fence, Smalls reveals that the ball is special. To the team's horror, they learn the ball has Babe Ruth's autograph, making it valuable--something Smalls didn't know when he took it. The team constructs a progressively complex series of machines to recover it remotely, but each attempt ends in failure and the ball itself grows increasingly damaged due to attention from the Beast. While Smalls prepares to face certain discipline from his stepfather for the loss of the signed baseball, Benny has a dream where Babe Ruth encourages him to follow his heart. Inspired by his idol, Benny climbs the fence the next day, resolving to retrieve the ball himself, but he is confronted by the Beast, a large English Mastiff. After recovering the ball, he leads the Beast on a lengthy chase around the neighborhood, which ends with the sandlot fence's collapse, which pins the dog. Overcoming their fear of the dog, Smalls and Benny free the Beast and return the dog to its owner, Mr. Mertle, who reveals that he wasn't the kind of person the team thought he was. Understanding Smalls' predicament with the now-damaged ball, Mr. Mertle reveals himself as a retired Negro League baseball player who knew Babe Ruth personally, and offers him another baseball signed by the entire 1927 Yankees team, including Ruth. Smalls presents the baseball signed by the Murderers' Row to his stepfather, who is impressed by the replacement but still angry that he stole the first ball. Smalls doesn't feel too bad when Bill only grounds him for a week, instead of the rest of his life, and things work out between the two. The sandlot kids continue playing baseball over the summers, joined by the Beast, now known by his real name of Hercules, as the team's mascot. The kids eventually grow up. Yeah-Yeah is shipped off to military school, Bertram gets really into the 60's and is never seen again, Timmy and Tommy become an architect and a contractor, Squints marries Wendy the lifeguard, has 9 kids with her and becomes the owner of the town's drugstore, Ham becomes a professional wrestler known as "The Great Hambino", Kenny goes on to play Triple-A (baseball) but doesn't make it to the major leagues and Benny is revealed to have become a star MLB player (earning the nickname "The Jet"), while Smalls has become a sports announcer. The movie ends with Benny running fast, stealing home plate and winning the pennant for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The crowd cheers. Benny looks up at Smalls in the announcer box and gives him the thumbs up and Smalls gives Kenny the thumbs up, too. Smalls smiles and looks at the photo on the wall of him and the gang standing in the Sandlot together.

The book begins with the death of Helen Carey, the much beloved mother of nine-year-old Philip Carey. Philip has a club foot and his father had died a few months before. Now orphaned, he is sent to live with his aunt Louisa and uncle William Carey. Early chapters relate Philip's experiences at his uncle's vicarage. Aunt Louisa tries to be a mother to Philip, but his uncle takes a cold disposition towards him. Philip's uncle has a vast collection of books, and Philip enjoys reading to find ways to escape his mundane existence. Less than a year later, Philip is sent to a boarding school. His uncle and aunt wish for him to eventually attend Oxford. Philip's disability and sensitive nature make it difficult for him to fit in with the other students. Philip is informed that he could have earned a scholarship for Oxford, which both his uncle and school headmaster see as a wise course, but Philip insists on going to Germany. In Germany, Philip lives at a boarding house with other foreigners. He enjoys his stay in Germany. Philip's guardians decide to take matters into their own hands and they persuade him to move to London to take up an apprenticeship. He does not fare well there as his co-workers resent him, because they believe he is a "gentleman". He goes on a business trip with one of his managers to Paris and is inspired by the trip to study art in France. In France, Philip attends art classes and makes new friends, including Fanny Price, a poor and determined but talentless art student who does not get along well with people. Fanny Price falls in love with Philip, but he does not know and has no such feelings for her; she subsequently commits suicide. Philip realizes that he will never be a professional artist. He returns to his uncle's house in England to study medicine and pursue his late father's field. He struggles at medical school and comes across Mildred, who is working as a waitress in a tea shop. He falls desperately in love with her, and they date regularly, although she does not show any affection for him. Mildred tells Philip she is getting married to another man, leaving him heartbroken; Philip subsequently enters into an affair with Norah Nesbit, a kind and sensitive author of penny romance novels. Later Mildred returns, pregnant, and confesses that the man for whom she had abandoned Philip never married her. Philip breaks off his relationship with Norah and supports Mildred financially, though he can ill afford to do so. To Philip's dismay, after Mildred has her baby she falls in love with his good friend Harry Griffiths, and runs away with him. About a year later, Philip runs into Mildred again and, feeling sympathy for her, takes her in again. Though he no longer loves her, he becomes attached to her baby. When he rejects her advances, she becomes angry with him, destroys most of his belongings, and leaves forever. In shame, and quickly running out of money, Philip leaves the house for good. He meets Mildred once more towards the end of the novel, when she summons him for his medical opinion. As she is probably suffering from syphilis resulting from her work as a prostitute, Philip advises Mildred to give up this life. Mildred declines and exits from the plot, her fate remaining unknown. While working at a hospital, Philip befriends family man, Thorpe Athelny. Athelny has lived in Toledo, Spain. Enthusiastic about the country, he is translating the works of St. John of the Cross. Meanwhile, Philip invests in mines but is left nearly penniless because of events surrounding the Boer War. Unable to pay his rent, he wanders the streets for several days before the Athelnys take him in and find him a department store job, which he hates. His talent for drawing is discovered and he receives a promotion and a raise in salary, but his time at the store is short-lived. After his uncle William dies, Philip inherits enough money to allow him to finish his medical studies and he finally becomes a licensed doctor. Philip takes on a temporary placement at a hospital with Dr. South, an old, cantankerous physician whose wife is dead and whose daughter has broken off contact with him. However, Dr. South takes a shine to Philip's humour and personable nature, eventually offering Philip a partnership in his medical practice. Although flattered, Philip refuses because of his plans to visit Spain. He soon goes on a small summer vacation with the Athelnys, hop-picking in the Kent countryside. There he finds that one of Athelny's daughters, Sally, likes him. In a moment of romantic abandon one evening they have sex, and when she thinks she is pregnant, Philip decides to marry Sally and accept Dr. South's offer, instead of traveling the world as he had planned. They meet in the National Gallery where, despite learning that it was a false alarm, Philip becomes engaged to Sally, concluding that "the simplest pattern, that in which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died, was likewise the most perfect." He stops searching for happiness and decides to be content with his lot.