Richard's Ideas

My Mom's Favorite Movie

2010-05-28T10:23:00.000-07:00

Sex And The City 2 (2010): The story begins with a flashback to how Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) first meets Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte (Kristin Davis), and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) in the heyday of Studio 54. The movie then jumps to the present, two years after the events of the first film. At the Connecticut same-sex wedding of Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson) and Anthony Marantino (Mario Cantone), Liza Minnelli appears in a cameo and sings Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". The four friends now have lives that are more stressful than before: All are married except for Samantha, who is now 52 and trying to keep her libido alive while dealing with menopause; Charlotte's two children are a handful; and Carrie's marriage to Mr. Big (Chris Noth) has settled down, though they differ on how to spend their spare time: she always wants to go out, he would prefer to stay home and watch television some evenings. Samantha is approached by an Arab sheikh to devise a PR campaign for his business, and he offers to fly her and her friends on an all-expenses-paid luxury vacation to Abu Dhabi. While in Abu Dhabi, Carrie runs into her former lover, Aidan (John Corbett), and agrees to a dinner date. In a moment of passion, the two kiss. Carrie deals with the question of whether or not to tell Big. Samantha tells her to sleep on it while Miranda reflects on the events of the previous film, when her husband, Steve (David Eigenberg), told her about his affair and how, while it helped clear his conscience, was something that she was not so sure she wanted to know in retrospect given the months it took her to recover. Carrie opts to call Big from Abu Dhabi to tell him. Previously, in the television series, Carrie had an affair with the then-previously-married Big while dating Aidan, ending their relationship. Meanwhile, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda run up against a culture clash in the Middle East, as their style and attitudes contrast with Muslim society. This clash, and comedy derived from their defiance, makes for "comic relief." The sheik stops paying the bills and they have to return prematurely.

By Richard Moody

Spyro The Dragon

2010-04-30T03:41:00.000-07:00

Spyro The Dragon: The First Game Story:

Before the game begins, the five Dragon families live in harmony in their five worlds (these being Artisans, Peace Keepers, Magic Crafters, Beast Makers and Dream Weavers). Their lives were happy and peaceful until Gnasty Gnorc broke the rules. He was an unpleasant creature who trapped dragons. Along the way, they return a favour by giving hints and tips up until the final conflict where Spyro battles with Gnasty. After Spyro defeats Gnasty another documentary is presented about Spyro. If the player collects all gems, saves all the dragons, and rescues all the eggs, then an alternate ending is presented.

Gameplay:

The game is made up of many different levels (realms), all connected together by hub worlds (homeworlds). The goal in each homeworld is to collect a certain amount of items, be it gems, rescued dragons, or dragon eggs, in order to travel to the next homeworld. Each homeworld and its realms are progressively more difficult than the last. Each realm contains a certain number of gems to recover and dragons to rescue. The first half of the game also has dragon eggs to collect. The first few realms are small fields with few ways to die, but they become harder later in the game. Many later levels focus on Spyro's ability to glide from platform to platform. Each homeworld contains an optional boss to defeat, except for the final homeworld where the boss is mandatory. Every homeworld contains a flying level (speedway) where Spyro's normal gliding ability is replaced with the ability to fly freely. The goal is to complete a certain number of obstacles (such as planes to blow up and rings to fly through) which each add a small amount of time to a countdown. If the countdown ends the player must restart the course.

The Legend of Spyro Trilogies:

A New Beginning: The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning marked the third title to be released on the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube and the second on the Xbox, released in Autumn 2006 and developed by Krome Studios. Portrayed as a reboot to the series, Spyro is sent on a quest to find the captured Guardian dragons so the Dark Master does not return from his prison. An evil dragoness named Cynder uses her dark minions to harness the power of the four Guardian dragons (fire, electricity, ice, and earth) in order to open the Dark Master's prison, bringing terror throughout the lands. The cast includes Elijah Wood as Spyro, David Spade as Sparx, Gary Oldman as Ignitus, and Cree Summer as Cynder. Although it was first advertised as a prequel to the first Spyro game, this game is in fact a reboot to the series, starting off from scratch and having nothing to do with the previous games. The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning has received average, but mostly decent reviews and ratings from critics, often in agreement as being a good start for the trilogy, but open for improvement on the future installments as well.

The Eternal Night: The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night was a sequel to A New Beginning, was released on October 2007 for the PlayStation 2 and Wii consoles and was once again developed by Krome Studios. In this game, the Ape King Gaul planned to free the Dark Master from the Well of Souls on the Night of Eternal Darkness, and Spyro—having faced several visions of the threat—embarked on a journey to stop him. Elijah Wood and Gary Oldman reprised their roles for the game, with Billy West taking over the role for Sparx, and Mae Whitman taking over the role for Cynder. The Eternal Night received less acclaim than its predecessor, usually in part to its difficulty, controls and usual linear setup. Regardless, its sales warranted for continuation, but also improvement of the trilogy.

Dawn of the Dragon: The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon is the third and final installment in The Legend of Spyro trilogy, as well as the tenth anniversary game of the series. It was released on October, 2008 for the Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 for North America, and was devolped by Etranges Libellules. In the game, Spyro and Cynder awaken in the future, and set out to stop Malefor, the Dark Master, from spreading his evil across the world. Unlike previous Spyro games, this game features the ability to switch between Spyro and Cynder at any time. There is also a two player mode, with two players either playing as Spyro and Cynder simultaneously. Along with this new freedom comes "Free Flight," which allows Spyro and Cynder to fly at any time. Once again, Elijah Wood and Gary Oldman reprise their roles while Billy West is replaced as the voice of Sparx by Wayne Brady, Christina Ricci replaces Mae Whitman as the voice of Cynder, and Blair Underwood voices Hunter of Avalar. Mark Hamill does the voice for Malefor, the Dark Master.

About My Favorite Game:
Since in 1998 I enjoying playing it very well. Spyro the Dragon first videogame is suitable for all ages to play even for quite young children. It was interesting the videogame I give it 10 out of 10.

By Richard Moody

My Tribute To Desmond Llewellyn as Q

2010-03-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

1. From Russia With Love (1963): In a mansion garden at night, James Bond is seen alternately stalking and being stalked by a tall, blond assassin. Bond is captured and strangled violently to death by a man named Red Grant, using a garrote wire. Suddenly, floodlights switch on and the dead person turns out to be a man wearing a Bond mask, in a scenario that completes a SPECTRE training exercise. Kronsteen, a chess grandmaster, and SPECTRE's expert planner, has devised a plot to steal a Lektor cryptographic device from the Soviets and sell it back to them while punishing MI6 (the British Secret Service) for killing their agent Dr. No. Ex-SMERSH operative Rosa Klebb is put in charge of the mission by the megalomaniac Number 1. She has already chosen a pawn: Tatiana Romanova, a cypher clerk at the Soviet consulate in Istanbul. Klebb departs to SPECTRE Island, the organisation's secret training base, where she assigns Grant to be the assassin. In London, M tells Bond that Romanova has contacted their "Station 'T'" in Turkey, offering to defect with a Lektor, which MI6 and the CIA have been after for years. She has said that she will only defect to Bond, whose photo she has allegedly found in a Soviet intelligence file. In fact she is following orders from Klebb, who pretends she is still working for SMERSH and that this is a SMERSH deception. Bond flies to Istanbul to meet station head Ali Kerim Bey. He is followed from the airport by an unkempt man in glasses and by Red Grant. The next day, after Kerim Bey's office is bombed, Bond and Kerim Bey spy on the Soviet consulate using a periscope from an underground tunnel beneath the consulate. Seeing rival agent Krilencu, Kerim Bey takes Bond to a rural gypsy settlement, where Kerim Bey plans to lie low while deciding how to deal with Krilencu. While two jealous gypsy girls fight over a lover, the camp is attacked by Krilencu's men. From concealment Red Grant saves Bond's life from Krilencu's men. Although he is wounded in the attack, Kerim Bey kills Krilencu the next night with Bond's sniper rifle. When Bond returns to his hotel suite, he finds Romanova in bed waiting for him, unaware that they are being filmed by Grant and Klebb. The next day, Romanova heads off for a pre-arranged rendezvous at Hagia Sophia. Bond follows her and stalks the bespectacled man who had followed him at the airport. The man attempts to intercept Romanova's floor plan of the Soviet consulate, but he is killed by Grant. When Bond finds the body, he takes the floor plan. Kerim Bey and Bond set up a plan to steal the Lektor and smuggle it back to Britain. On the appointed day, Bond enters the consulate lobby. Kerim Bey then sets off an explosion under the building, which releases tear gas. In the resulting chaos, Bond finds Romanova and escapes with the Lektor on the Orient Express. Kerim Bey and a Soviet security officer named Benz, who spots Romanova, also board the train, but Grant later kills both of them, making it appear as if they killed each other. The train crosses southern-central Europe to Belgrade. There Bond arranges for agent Nash from "Station 'Y'" to meet him at Zagreb. When the train stops, Grant finds and kills Nash. Grant boards the train once again, meeting Bond as Nash. He drugs Romanova at dinner, then overcomes Bond. Grant taunts him, boasting SPECTRE has been pitting the Soviets and the British against each other. He also claims that Romanova thinks that "she's doing it all for mother Russia" when she is really working for SPECTRE. Bond tricks Grant into opening Bond's attaché case, which releases tear gas. In the ensuing struggle, Bond eventually manages to stab Grant with the knife hidden in the attaché case, and strangles Grant with his own garrote. At dawn, Bond and Romanova leave the train, hijack Grant's getaway truck, destroy an enemy helicopter, and drive to a dock, eventually boarding a powerboat. Number 1 is very unhappy, and summons Kronsteen and Klebb. He reminds them that SPECTRE does not tolerate failure; they blame each other. Number 1 promptly brings in Morzeny to then execute Kronsteen with a poisoned spike in the toe of his shoe. Number 1 tells a frightened Klebb that she has one last chance. Klebb sends Morzeny after Bond with a squadron of SPECTRE's boats. When stray bullets puncture several barrels of fuel stored on his boat, Bond throws them overboard. Pretending to surrender, he fires a signal flare into the fuel, engulfing all the enemy boats in flames. Bond and Romanova reach Venice and check into a hotel. Rosa Klebb, disguised as a maid, attempts to steal the Lektor. In the climax, Klebb gets the drop on Bond, and holds him at gunpoint but the gun is knocked away by Romanova. Klebb releases her poisoned toe-spike, but Bond pins her to the wall with a dining chair. Romanova grabs the gun and shoots Klebb. Riding in a gondola, Bond throws the film of him and Romanova into the water, and they sail away.

2. Goldfinger (1964): In the pre-title sequence, James Bond (Sean Connery) infiltrates a Mexican drug lord's base by water wearing a dry suit with a snorkel camouflaged as a seagull. He destroys a hidden building with plastic explosives and electrocutes an assassin in a bathtub. The main story begins in Miami Beach, Florida, at the Fontainebleau Hotel with Central Intelligence Agency agent Felix Leiter (Cec Linder) delivering a message to Bond from M to watch Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe). Bond foils Goldfinger's cheating at gin rummy by distracting his employee, Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton). After blackmailing Goldfinger into losing, Bond and Jill consummate their new relationship in Bond's hotel suite. Following an unflattering remark concerning The Beatles (the entire production was filmed and released during the height of Beatlemania), Bond is knocked out by Goldfinger's Korean manservant Oddjob (Harold Sakata), who then covers Jill in gold paint, supposedly killing her by epidermal suffocation. In London, Bond learns that his true mission is determining how Goldfinger transports gold internationally. Prior to his assignment he is issued an Aston Martin DB5 from Q modified with several gadgets, including an ejector seat much to Bond's amusement, but is later used during a chase scene. He plays and wins a high-stakes golf game against Goldfinger with a recovered Nazi gold bar at stake. Goldfinger, who was caught cheating during the game, warns Bond to stay out of his business by having Oddjob decapitate a statue by throwing his steel-rimmed top hat. Undeterred, Bond follows him to Switzerland, where he unintentionally foils an assassination attempt on Goldfinger by Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet) to avenge the death of her sister, Jill. Bond sneaks into Goldfinger's plant and overhears him talking to a Red Chinese agent about "Operation Grand Slam." Leaving, he encounters Tilly as she is about to make a second attempt on Goldfinger's life, but accidentally trips an alarm. Bond and Tilly attempt to escape, but Oddjob breaks Tilly's neck with his hat. Bond is soon captured and Goldfinger has Bond tied to a table underneath an industrial laser, which slowly begins to slice the table in half. Bond then lies to Goldfinger that British Intelligence knows about Grand Slam, causing Goldfinger to spare Bond's life in order to mislead MI6 and the CIA into believing that Bond has things well in hand. Bond is transported by Goldfinger's private Lockheed JetStar, flown by his personal pilot, Pussy Galore, to his stud farm near Fort Knox, Kentucky. Bond escapes and witnesses Goldfinger's meeting with US mafiosi, who have brought the materials he needs for Operation Grand Slam. At the end of the briefing, one of the mafiosi asked Goldfinger to pay him immediately, rather than wait a few days for the larger return from Operation Grand Slam, as Goldfinger has just outlined. Goldfinger accepts and leads him out of the conference room. The rest of them are killed by a gas Goldfinger claims could render people unconscious for 24 hours. The dissenting mafioso is escorted to the airport in a Lincoln Continental driven by Oddjob, who kills him before continuing on to a wrecking yard where the car is crushed into a cube with the body inside. Bond is recaptured after hearing the details of Operation Grand Slam, but soon learns additional information from Goldfinger himself. He intends to irradiate the US gold supply stored at the United States Gold Depository at Fort Knox with an atomic device, thereby rendering it useless for 58 years and greatly increasing the value of his own gold. This will also give the Chinese increased buying power following economic chaos in the West. Operation Grand Slam begins with the women pilots of Pussy Galore's Flying Circus spraying the nerve gas over Fort Knox to dispatch its garrison. However, Bond had seduced Pussy and persuaded her to contact the CIA, who replaced the poison with a harmless gas. The military personnel of Fort Knox convincingly play dead until they are certain that they can prevent the criminals escaping the base with the bomb. They choose this plan because Goldfinger had earlier suggested that if thwarted at Fort Knox, there was no telling where he might explode the device, so the CIA knew their scheme had to trap both Goldfinger and the bomb beyond any reasonable hope of escape. After following the rest of the operation, Goldfinger's Chinese agents gain entry to the vault. Oddjob handcuffs Bond to the atomic device and lowers both into the vault. As Goldfinger and his men prepare to leave, the Army troops surround them and all but wipe them out. Goldfinger has planned for every contingency, however: he takes off his coat, revealing a US Army uniform and kills Mr. Ling and the troops seeking to open the vault before escaping. Goldfinger's henchman Kisch, forced to retreat to the vault, intends to shut off the bomb but Oddjob throws him off a balcony to his death. Bond retrieves the man's keys and unlocks his handcuffs, but before he can disarm the bomb, Oddjob races down the stairs and attacks. Bond manages to duck under Oddjob's lethal hat and the ensuing fight proves that Oddjob is the superior combatant. A second hat-throw by Oddjob also misses and cuts an electrical line, with one of the severed cables lying loosely on the floor. Finally, Bond retrieves the hat and tries to throw it himself without success. It wedges in between two of the vault bars. When Oddjob tries to recover it, Bond reaches the severed cable and brushes the exposed wiring with the metal gate, electrocuting Oddjob because of the metal in his own hat.Turning to the bomb, Bond manages to force the lock by hammering on it with a pair of gold bars, but the mechanism inside baffles him. With the clock winding down, Bond tries to yank one of the cables, but an atomic specialist comes over and turns off a switch seven seconds before detonation, the American troops having forced entry into the vault in the meantime. The stopped clock is shown stuck on "007", Bond's own code number.With Fort Knox safe, Bond is invited to the White House for a meeting with President Lyndon B Johnson. He boards a military Lockheed JetStar for Washington, D.C., but Goldfinger has forced Pussy Galore to hijack it and fly to Cuba. Bond and Goldfinger struggle for the latter's gold-plated revolver and accidentally shoot a window, creating an explosive decompression of the aircraft. Goldfinger is blown out of the cabin. Bond rescues Galore, and they parachute safely from the aircraft before it crashes.

3. Thunderball (1965): In the pre-title sequence, James Bond (Sean Connery) attends the funeral of Colonel Jacques Bouvar, a SPECTRE operative (Number 6), who had murdered two British spies. Bouvar is actually disguised as his widow but is identified by Bond. Following him to a château, Bond kills him and then escapes flying a jetpack to his Aston Martin DB5 parked outside. Bond is sent by M to a health clinic to improve his health. While massaged by physiotherapist Patricia Fearing (Molly Peters), he notices Count Lippe (Guy Doleman), a suspicious man with a criminal tattoo (from a Tong). He searches Lippe's room, but is seen leaving it by Lippe's clinic neighbor who is bandaged because of plastic surgery. Later, Lippe tries to murder Bond with a spinal traction machine, but the attempt is foiled by Fearing, whom he then seduces and spends an intimate evening with. Bond soon finds a dead bandaged man, and survives a second murder attempt. The dead man is François Derval (Paul Stassino), a French NATO pilot deployed to fly aboard an Avro Vulcan jet bomber loaded with two atomic bombs for a training mission. Derval has been murdered by Angelo, a SPECTRE henchman surgically altered to match his appearance. Angelo takes Derval's place on the training flight, gasses the crew, and sinks the plane near the Bahamas. He is killed underwater by Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) (SPECTRE No. 2), however, for trying to extort more money from the organization than he had been promised. Largo and his henchmen then steal the atomic bombs on the seabed. The theft summons Bond and all other double-0 agents to Whitehall. En route, Lippe chases Bond but is killed by SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi) for failing to foresee Angelo's greed. At the meeting, Bond recognizes Derval from a photograph as the cadaver he encountered in the health clinic. Since Derval's sister, Domino (Claudine Auger), is in Nassau, Bond asks M (Bernard Lee) to send him to the Bahamas. Domino turns out to be Largo's mistress. Bond will exploit this knowledge to get to Largo via Domino. Bond goes out via boat to where Domino is scuba diving, after saving her life, he asks her to take him back to shore as his boat won't start. She agrees and they end up having lunch together. Later Bond goes to a party, where he sees Largo and Domino gambling. Bond gets into the game against Largo, and not surprisingly Bond wins. Bond and Domino leave the game and dance together. Bond returns to the Hotel and instead of entering his room, he enters the room next to it and goes through a corridor into his. He listens to a tape recorder and notices someone has entered his room. Felix comes to the room and is about to say 007 when Bond winds him and makes him be quiet. Bond enters the bathroom, and attacks and disarms the henchman who came into his room. He tells the henchman to report to his superiors.The henchman returns to his superior Largo who isn't pleased to hear the news, so the henchman is thrown into a pool of sharks to meet his untimely demise. Bond goes into town with Felix where they meet two friends who lead them to meet Q. Bond enters the building, where upon Q starts giving him the needed collection of gadgets. Including an underwater infra-red camera, a distress beacon, underwater breathing apparatus, a flare gun and a geiger counter. Bond attempts to scuba under Largo's boat to gain information and is nearly killed by grenades. After narrowly escaping death, he is picked up by Fiona and driven back to the hotel. Bond's assistant Paula (Martine Beswick) is eventually abducted by Largo for questioning; she kills herself just before Bond can rescue her.At a Junkanoo celebration in Nassau, Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi) tries to kill Bond but is shot by her own bodyguard. Soon, Bond and CIA case officer Felix Leiter (Rik Van Nutter) search for the Vulcan by helicopter, eventually finding it underwater, along with the crew corpses and Angelo the counterfeit NATO observer pilot. Afterwards, Bond tells Domino that Largo killed her brother, pleading for her help in finding the atomic bombs. She tells Bond where and how to replace a SPECTRE agent on a mission with Largo, who is retrieving the bombs from a submarine hiding place. Disguised as Largo's henchman, Bond uncovers his plan to detonate the bombs in Miami Beach. En route to the cave where the bombs will be temporarily stored, Bond's cover is blown by Largo. After an underwater battle with Largo's men, Bond is rescued by Leiter who orders a unit of United States Coast Guard sailors to parachute to the area for underwater battle against SPECTRE frogmen. Bond joins the fray, killing several SPECTRE frogmen with high tech submarine weapons, and his knife and hands. The surviving henchmen surrender. Finally, Largo escapes to his ship, the Disco Volante (Italian: Flying Saucer), which still has one bomb aboard; Bond follows him and sneaks aboard. During a hand-to-hand fight, Largo gains the upper hand and is about to shoot Bond, however, Domino shoots a spear into Largo's back. With the dying Largo death-locked to the uncontrolled yacht's wheel, Bond and Domino jump overboard as it runs aground and explodes. A sky hook-equipped U.S. Navy Boeing B-17 airplane rescues Bond and Domino from the sea.

4. You Only Live Twice (1967): An American Gemini spacecraft is hijacked from orbit by a carnivorous spacecraft; a similar fate next befalls a manned Soviet spacecraft. With each country thinking that the other is the cause of its loss, the world is thrown to the brink of World War III. The United Kingdom's government, however, believes the spacecraft landed in the Sea of Japan, thus suspecting Japanese involvement. The pre-title sequence depicted 007 (Sean Connery) faking his murder in Hong Kong, allowing Bond more freedom to operate. He is sent to Japan to investigate the British suspicion, in conjunction with the Japanese secret service leader "Tiger" Tanaka (Tetsurō Tamba). At a Tokyo sumo wrestling match Bond contacts Tanaka's assistant Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi), who takes him to meet with a local MI6 operative, Dikko Henderson (Charles Gray). Henderson claims to have critical evidence for the rogue craft originating in Japan, but is murdered before he can reveal it. Bond kills the assailant and steals his identity. He is brought to their headquarters, which turns out to be Osato Chemicals. Once there, Bond breaks into an office safe of the Japanese corporate head, Mr. Osato (Teru Shimada), and steals some documents after triggering the alarm. As Bond flees, Aki picks him up in her car. However, Bond becomes suspicious when she avoids his questions and flees to a secluded subway station. When Bond chases her, he falls through a trapdoor and slides into Tanaka's office. After identifying each other, they examine Bond's documents. The main item of interest is a tourist photograph of a cargo ship called the Ning-Po and a microdot on it containing a message that operatives "liquidated" the tourist who took the photo as a security measure. The following morning, 007 goes to Osato Chemicals under the guise of Mr. Fisher, head of Empire Chemicals, to have a proper meeting with Mr. Osato himself. Once the industrialist arrives by helicopter with his secretary, Helga Brandt (Karin Dor), he introduces himself to Bond and they discuss Bond's affairs with Empire Chemicals. As Bond leaves, Osato orders Helga Brandt to "Kill him [Bond]." Outside the building, a carload of assassins pursue 007 after being rescued just in the nick of time by Aki in her Toyota 2000GT. The couple are chased to a highway as a Japanese SIS helicopter literally picks up the assassins' car with a huge magnet, and drops them into Tokyo Bay. Bond and Aki continue driving to Kobe and the city's docks, where Ning-Po is docked. After being discovered by many more SPECTRE henchmen, they give chase but Bond eludes them until Aki gets away and Bond himself captured by one thug. He awakens tied up in Helga Brandt's cabin onboard Ning-Po. She briefly interrogates Bond, who manages to bribe his way out of imprisonment. The next day, Brandt flies Bond to Tokyo, but she drops a flare into the plane and bails out. As the plane dives to annihilation, Bond manages to land, just before the plane explodes. He then returns to Tanaka and his crew with information. Interested in what was worth killing for in that photo, Bond investigates the company's dock facilities and discovers that the ship was delivering liquid oxygen, an oxidizer for rocket fuel; the document used the term LOX, which Bond states is an American name for smoked salmon, providing a convenient cover. Together, Bond and Tanaka learn that the true mastermind behind this is Osato's boss Ernst Stavro Blofeld and his organization SPECTRE, who had recently killed Helga Brandt for her failure to eliminate Bond. After the spies learn from surveillance photos that the Ning-Po unloaded its cargo overnight at the island, Bond investigates the area in the air with a heavily armed autogyro called Little Nellie. While in midflight and having no luck finding the SPECTRE base, Bond is attacked by four armed helicopters, but he destroys them all. Preparing to conduct a closer investigation of the island, Bond trains with Tanaka and his elite ninja force. Tanaka suggests that the best disguise for Bond is as a Japanese fisherman. Pretending to live with Aki as husband and wife, Bond narrowly escapes being poisoned by an assassin, who kills Aki instead after she and Bond shared a passionate night together. Bond receives training in Japanese culture and stages marriage to Tanaka's student, Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama). To make matters worse, Bond and Tanaka learn that the United States has moved up their next space mission, which means it will likely be hijacked by SPECTRE and a world war will likely be triggered before they can stop the plot. However, they gain a major clue when Kissy mentions that a local woman had just mysteriously died after rowing her boat into a cave in the area where Bond's aerial battle took place. Bond and Kissy set out on a reconnaissance mission into that cave and discover that SPECTRE has a secret rocket base hidden in a hollow volcano. Bond slips in through the crater door, while Kissy returns to alert Tanaka. Bond locates and frees the captured Soviet and American astronauts, and with their help, he steals a spacesuit in attempt to infiltrate the SPECTRE craft (code named "Bird One"). Before he can enter the craft Blofeld personally notices Bond mishandle the air conditioning unit of his suit and is caught. Kissy has her own difficulties when she is sighted and attacked by SPECTRE guards in a helicopter, but she uses her considerable experience as a pearl diver to hide underwater long enough to trick her pursuers into thinking that she drowned. Bond is taken to Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) for interrogation, while Bird One is launched with the backup astronaut aboard. Soon after, Kissy leads Tanaka's troops to the crater entrance, but are detected and attacked by the crater's sentry guns on Blofeld's order. Meanwhile, Bird One closes in on the American space capsule and US forces prepare to launch a nuclear attack on the USSR. In response, Bond asks for a cigarette, which conceals a small rocket. Killing the guard next to the crater hatch controls, Bond manages to open the door and allow in Tanaka's troops to storm the base. In the course of the fighting, the control room is evacuated, and Osato is shot by Blofeld for his failed attempts to kill 007. Bond, after escaping Blofeld, rejoins Tanaka and Kissy, proceeds to the control room, where there is a self destruct switch for the spacecraft. After fighting Blofeld's bodyguard, Hans (Ronald Rich), Bond manages to get the destruct key from him and detonates Bird One, seconds before it reaches the American craft. The Americans stand down after learning their spacecraft is safe. Blofeld escapes along a secret passage, but before leaving he activates the base's self-destruct system, killing several dozen more of Tanaka's men. Bond, Kissy, Tanaka, and the surviving ninjas escape through the tunnel which Bond and Kissy had previously investigated. Safe from the now erupting volcano, the survivors board air-dropped lifeboats, and Bond (along with Kissy) is personally picked up by M's personal submarine.

5. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969): The pre-title sequence shows Miss Moneypenny, M and Q discussing the whereabouts of Bond. Bond is actually in Portugal, driving on a coastal highway when a woman in a Mercury Cougar overtakes him. Bond follows the woman to a beach where she attempts suicide by drowning in the waters. Bond drives down to the shore, saving the woman's life by carrying her back to the beach. As he brings the woman back to consciousness and introduces himself, two thugs try to kill Bond. After a fight with the thugs, from which Bond emerges the victor, the woman jumps into Bond's car, driving it back from the beach to the road, then transfers to her car and speeds away. Retrieving her discarded shoes, George Lazenby as Bond, looks at the audience and notes that "This never happened to the other feller" (a nod to previous James Bond Sean Connery). Bond later encounters the same woman in a casino where she places a bet; a bet which she is unable to cover. On her behalf, Bond rescues the woman by paying her bet. The woman, Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo invites him to her hotel room to thank Bond for his deed. When Bond later visits Tracy's room, a thug emerges behind Bond, Bond knocks him out then goes back to his room where he finds Tracy. Tracy threatens to kill Bond "for a thrill"; however, Bond disarms Tracy and questions her about the thug in her room. Tracy has nothing to say about that. The next morning, Tracy leaves the hotel, and later, as Bond leaves the hotel, several men kidnap him and take him to meet Marc-Ange Draco, the head of the European crime syndicate Unione Corse, whom Bond recognizes immediately. Draco reveals that Tracy is his only daughter and tells Bond of her troubled past, offering Bond a personal dowry of one million pounds if he will marry her. Bond refuses, but agrees to continue romancing Tracy under the agreement that Draco reveals the whereabouts of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE. Bond returns to MI6 but is told by M that he has been relieved from the task of hunting Blofeld, prompting Bond to resign. After M accepts the letter, Bond learns that as Moneypenny was recording his dictation, she had changed the wording to request two weeks' leave instead. Realizing he can pursue Blofeld on his time off and not quit MI6, Bond thanks Moneypenny and heads for Draco's birthday party in Portugal. There, Tracy discovers Bond's deal with her father and strong-arms him into providing Bond with the information he requested. Draco tells Bond that his next line of pursuit should be a law firm in Bern, Switzerland. After a brief argument, Bond and Tracy begin a whirlwind romance. Bond and Tracy go to Bern with Draco to investigate the Swiss lawyer, Gumbold's, connection with Blofeld. Searching the law office, Bond finds Blofeld's correspondence with the London College of Arms: Blofeld is attempting to claim the title 'Comte Balthazar de Bleuchamp'. His College of Arms correspondent is genealogist Sir Hilary Bray. Bond visits M at home and is granted permission to recommence investigation of Blofeld. Posing as Bray, Bond travels back to Switzerland where he visits Blofeld, who has established a clinical research institute atop Piz Gloria in the Swiss Alps. In disguise, Bond meets ten young women, the "Angels of Death", that are patients of the institute's clinic. After having an uneventful dinner with them, Bond later that night, sneaks out of his room and meets one of them, named Ruby, in her room for a romantic encounter. But at midnight, Bond sees that Ruby and apparently each of the other ladies go into a sleep-induced trance while Blofeld gives them audio instructions for when they return to the civilization. In fact, the women are being brainwashed to distribute bacteriological warfare agents throughout various parts of the world. In that same night, Bond meets another woman named Nancy, who sneaks out of her room to visit his. The next day, Bond meets with Blofeld again to persuade him to leave Switzerland to visit Augsburg outside Switzerland where according to the College of Arms, the ancestral home of de Bleuchamp, a royal family which may have historical research for Blofeld as his title of a Count. Bond knows that if he lures Blofeld out of Switzerland, the British Secret Service can arrest him without violating Swiss sovereignty. But Blofeld refuses, for he is busy with work at his research facility. Bond's lasciviousness betrays him to Blofeld's henchwoman Irma Bunt, who captures him during a second visit to Ruby. Blofeld identifies Bond after he had made a small slip earlier that the real Sir Hilary Bray would not have made. (Bond had explained to Blofeld that the de Bleuchamp tombs are in the Augsburg Cathedral, which are actually located in the St. Anna Kirche.) Bond escapes imprisonment, skiing down Piz Gloria while Blofeld and many of his men give chase. Arriving at the village of Mürren, Bond is almost trapped at a carnival by Irma and her men, when Bond encounters Tracy. After another long car chase through the town and the nearby town of Grindelwald, they escape. A blizzard forces them to a remote barn, where Bond declares his love for Tracy and proposes marriage to her. Tracy accepts Bond's marriage proposal. The next morning, Blofeld captures Tracy while leaving Bond to die in a man-made avalanche, which Bond survives. Blofeld holds the world to ransom with the threat of destroying its agriculture using his brainwashed women, demanding amnesty for all past crimes and that he be recognized as the current Count de Bleauchamp. Bond enlists Draco and his forces to attack Blofeld's headquarters, while also freeing Tracy from Blofeld's captivity. The following day, while Blofeld is proposing marriage to Tracy, Bond and Draco's men appear in a fleet of helicopters to raid the mountain fortress. The raid is successful as Bond and Blofeld are the last to escape before the institute is destroyed. The pair engage in a furious bobsled chase down Piz Gloria, culminating with Blofeld becoming snared in a tree branch, breaking his neck, while Bond drives away in the bobsled. Bond and Tracy marry in Portugal, then drive away in Bond's Aston Martin. Bond pulls over to the roadside to remove flowers from the car. Tracy thanks Bond for marrying her and having a future away from the British Secret Service. As this happens, Blofeld (wearing a neck brace) and Bunt in a Mercedes-Benz 600 drive past the couple's car, then Bunt sprays the car with bullets from an MP40. Bond dives behind the car and survives the drive-by attack, only to discover that Tracy has been killed by a shot to the forehead. A police officer pulls over to inspect the bullet-riddled car, prompting a stunned Bond to mutter that there's no need to hurry to call for help by saying, "We have all the time in the world," as he cradles Tracy's lifeless body. On that sad note, the movie comes to a close.

6. Diamonds Are Forever (1971): n the pre-title sequence, James Bond (Sean Connery) is pursuing Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Charles Gray). After interrogating several of Blofeld's associates worldwide, Bond traces him to a Central American facility where he is surgically creating look-alikes. Bond kills a test subject who is lying in a mud bath, drowning him, but is captured by the 'real' Blofeld. After a brief fight, Bond overpowers and kills Blofeld by throwing him into a pool of superheated mud. Suspecting that South African diamonds are being stockpiled to depress prices by dumping, and convinced that Blofeld is now dead, M (Bernard Lee) orders Bond to go undercover as smuggler Peter Franks and unveil the smuggling ring. Meanwhile, Blofeld's henchmen Mr. Wint (Bruce Glover) and Mr. Kidd (Putter Smith) systematically kill several diamond smugglers involved in the ring. Posing as Franks, Bond travels to Amsterdam to meet his contact, Tiffany Case (Jill St. John), at her apartment where he is to pick up the diamonds. However, the real Franks shows up and tries to contact Case. Bond intercepts and kills him and sabotages the attack to make it seem like Franks is actually James Bond. The two then smuggle the diamonds to Los Angeles hiding them inside Franks' corpse. At the airport Bond meets his CIA ally Felix Leiter (Norman Burton) and transports the body to Slumber Inc., a funeral home where the body is cremated and the diamonds passed onto the next smuggler, Shady Tree. Bond (still posing as Franks) collects his $50,000 fee for smuggling the diamonds but concludes that the money is counterfeit after Wint and Kidd try to assassinate him (and destroy the fake money) in Slumber's cremation furnace. When Tree and Slumber find that the diamonds in Franks' body were fakes planted by Bond and the CIA they save Bond from incineration and demand that Bond delivers the real diamonds in return for the real $50,000. Bond tells Leiter to ship the real diamonds while he relaxes at Las Vegas in the Whyte House, a casino-hotel owned by the reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte (Jimmy Dean), where Tree works as a stand-up comedian. There, Bond discovers Tree has been killed by Wint and Kidd, who do not know that the diamonds were fake. Bond goes to the craps table in the Whyte House casino. He deliberately shows Bert Saxby (Willard Whyte's assistant) the Slumber envelope containing the fake $50,000 to use as collateral for gambling. Later, Bond meets an opportunistic woman named Plenty O' Toole (Lana Wood). She cheers him on as he gambles and "wins" $50,000 at the craps table - the perfect way for the real payout for the diamond smuggling to be laundered, and, in a deleted scene, they have dinner together. She invites herself up to his room, but after Bond undresses Plenty she is quickly thrown out to the hotel pool by the smugglers already waiting in his room, who have now come for the real diamonds. They leave Bond to spend the rest of the night with Tiffany Case. In another deleted scene, Plenty returns to Bond's room to retrieve her clothes. She sees Bond and Tiffany in bed together, and takes a card from Tiffany's purse, later to show up at Tiffany's house. Tiffany tries to get Bond to reveal the location of the real diamonds by offering to help him steal the diamonds for themselves. Bond pretends to give in and arranges for her to retrieve the diamonds at the Circus Circus Las Vegas casino. At the circus, Tiffany picks up the diamonds in a soft toy, unaware that she is under the surveillance of Felix Leiter and his men, but she reneges her deal with Bond and flees, shipping off the diamonds to the next smuggler. When Tiffany returns to her operation residence she finds Bond waiting for her and finds the body of Plenty, who was killed when mistaken for Tiffany. Having survived the attempt on her life, the initially reticent Tiffany tells Bond where the diamonds are. Posing as a lab worker, Bond enters the apparent destination of the diamonds – a research laboratory owned by Willard Whyte, where he finds laser refraction specialist Professor Dr. Metz (Joseph Fürst) constructing a satellite. He escapes by stealing a moon buggy and the first TV appearance of a Honda ATC90 (US90) and reunites with Tiffany in a car chase with security and the local police. They go to a suite in the Whyte house where Bond later scales the walls to the top floor of the Whyte House to confront Willard Whyte. Inside 007 is confronted by two identical Blofelds who are posing as Whyte using an adapted telephone to mask their voice — Bond had previously killed a look-alike. Not knowing which to kill, Bond kicks Blofeld's cat into the arms of one of the pair and shoots him. However, Bond chose the wrong man, killing a look-alike. Bond is rendered unconscious and then left to die inside a pipeline by Wint and Kidd. He escapes and contacts Blofeld, posing as one of Whyte's employees and Blofeld's right-hand man, Bert Saxby. He finds out Whyte's location and rescues him, but in the meantime Blofeld abducts Case. With the help of Whyte, Bond raids the lab and uncovers Blofeld's plot to create a laser satellite using the diamonds, which is now already in orbit. Blofeld destroys nuclear installations in the United States, Russia, and China, then proposes an international auction for global nuclear supremacy. Bond identifies an oil rig off the coast of Baja California as Blofeld's base of operations. Arriving at the rig, he switches the cassette containing the codes which control the satellite with a music tape, giving the coded one to Tiffany who is living there as a hostage. However, trying to be helpful, she re-switches the tapes, gets caught trying to fix her mistake and is sent down to the brig. At this point, Leiter and the CIA have already begun a heavy attack on the oil-rig. Tiffany manages to escape amidst the chaos and regroup with Bond. Blofeld tries to escape on a mini-sub, but Bond gains control of it, and crashes the sub into the control room, defeating Blofeld and destroying the satellite control along with the rest of the base. Bond and Tiffany then head for home on a P&O ship Canberra, where Wint and Kidd also aboard disguised as waiters. Bond sees through their ploy, and disposes of them overboard when they try to assassinate him. The film ends with Tiffany asking Bond how they can get all the diamonds from the laser satellite back down to Earth again.

7. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974): In the pre-title sequence, Rodney (Marc Lawrence), a hired hitman can be seen arriving on Francisco Scaramanga's island. The assassin receives his instructions from Scaramanga's dwarf servant named Nick Nack (Hervé Villechaize), who later has the two of them pursue each other through Scaramanga's funhouse. The assassin is startled by automated gun firing mannequins of a western gun slinger, Al Capone and his gang from the 1920s (which the assassin was revealed to be an admirer of Capone), and of James Bond. Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) eventually kills the gangster in the hall of mirrors and jokingly says that Nick Nack will have to try harder to inherit his fortune. He then shoots the fingers off the mannequin of Bond. In London, a golden bullet with Bond's code "007" etched into its surface is received by MI6. It is believed that Scaramanga has been hired to assassinate Bond (Roger Moore) and has sent the bullet to intimidate him. Bond's mission revolves around the work of a scientist named Gibson, thought to be in possession of information crucial to solving the energy crisis by inventing a new technique of harnessing the sun's power. But because of the perceived threat to the agent's life, M (Bernard Lee), his boss, forces him to go on a leave. Bond sets out unofficially to find Scaramanga. After tracking the bullet via a Saida (Carmen du Sautoy), a belly dancer in Beirut and Lazar (Marne Maitland), an expert gunsmith in Macau, Bond sees Andrea Anders (Maud Adams), Scaramanga's mistress, collecting golden bullets at the Macau casino. Bond follows her to Hong Kong and after encountering her in the shower and a brief fight, pressures her to tell him about Scaramanga, his appearance and his plans. He is led to a strip club but unbeknownst to him, this is the location of Scaramanga's next 'hit'. The target is Gibson (Gordon Everett) who is shot while leaving the club. Before Bond can assert his innocence, however, Lieutenant Hip (Soon-Taik Oh) whisks him away from the scene as the police arrive. Nick Nack steals the "Solex Agitator" needed for operating a solar power plant from Gibson's pocket. Bond is ferried out of Hong Kong; inside the shipwreck SS Seawise University, formerly the RMS Queen Elizabeth, he meets M and Q and also learns that Hip is their ally. Bond's mission is now to retrieve the solex agitator in the face of the energy crisis and assassinate Scaramanga. He travels to Bangkok to meet a Thai entrepreneur, Hai Fat (Richard Loo), who is suspected of hiring Scaramanga to murder Gibson, speculating that they never met personally. Bond uses a fake, synthetic nipple to make him look as if he has three nipples (Scaramanga is known to have three himself) and meets Hai Fat at his estate. Hai Fat, however, having already met with Scaramanga, captures and places Bond in his personally owned dojo, instructing his fighters to kill the agent. Bond escapes with the aide of Lt. Hip and his karate-adept nieces, who defeat the entire dojo. Bond speeds away by boat on a Bangkok canal and reunites with his British assistant Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland) during dinner. Later, Anders enters his room, revealing that she had sent the bullet to London and wants Bond to kill Scaramanga. In payment, Anders promises to hand over the Solex to him at a boxing venue the next day. Instead of spending the night as he promised with Goodnight (whom he hid in a closet), Bond spends the night with Anders. At the match, Bond discovers that the mistress has been quietly shot and meets Scaramanga for the first time. Bond is able to smuggle the Solex from Anders' purse away to Hip, who passes it to Goodnight waiting outside. Attempting to place a homing device, she is locked into Scaramanga's car, an AMC Matador, as he drives away. Bond follows him in an AMC Hornet 'X' with Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) at his side — whom he encounters when acquiring the vehicle — and a car chase across Bangkok ensues, concluding at a barn in the countryside outside the city with Scaramanga's car transforming into a plane and flying away to his island in the Yellow Sea near China. Picking up Mary Goodnight's tracking device, Bond flies a Republic RC-3 Seabee into Red Chinese waters low under radar, and lands in his seaplane at Scaramanga's island. On arriving, Bond is welcomed by Scaramanga and is shown the high-tech solar power plant that Scaramanga has taken over by killing Hai Fat. Scaramanga intends to show off his technology built by Hai Fat to the world superpowers; and sell the technology to the highest bidder. That bidder will be able to build hundreds of the solar energy plants as well as sell franchises. As a result there will be a monopoly on solar energy, and the oil sheiks will be forced to pay Scaramanga millions to keep it off the market. He is also shown the solar gun operated by the Solex, which "comes with no extra charge" that is powered by a receptor hidden in a mushroom-shaped rock nearby. Bond's plane is destroyed by the gun, much to his annoyance and Scaramanga's enjoyment. They then enjoy a brief meal prepared by Nick Nack, until Bond becomes angered by Scaramanga's belief that they both enjoy killing in their profession. Scaramanga proposes a pistol duel with Bond on the beach, a "duel between titans". The two men stand back to back and are ordered by Nick Nack to take twenty paces, but when Bond turns and fires, Scaramanga has vanished. Nick Nack leads Bond into the Funhouse. After a few minutes, Bond poses as the mannequin of himself while Scaramanga walks by, taking him by surprise and killing him, but not before Goodnight, in way-laying a henchman into a pool of liquid helium, upsets the balance of the solar plant, which gradually goes out of control. Bond retrieves the Solex unit at the last moment just before the island explodes, and they escape unharmed in Scaramanga's Chinese junk ship. While trying to take some relaxation on the ship, however, they are attacked by Nick Nack, who is out for revenge for being deprived of his inheritance. He is put out of commission by Bond, who stuffs him into a wicker cage strapped to the mast, and the ship sails off into the sea.

8. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977): Nuclear submarines carrying ballistic missiles from the Royal Navy and the Soviet fleet mysteriously disappear. Bond (Roger Moore) is summoned to investigate. On the way he escapes an ambush by Soviet agents in Austria, killing one of them in a downhill ski chase that concludes when he skies off a cliff to fake his death and uses a Union Jack parachute to save himself. Bond learns that the plans for a highly advanced submarine tracking system are on the market. He travels to Egypt. While there Bond narrowly escapes assassination when a gorgeous young woman distracts him, while one of Stromberg's henchmen aims a gun at him. However, the henchman accidentally shoots the girl, killing her and allowing Bond to escape. Whether the girl is an accomplice or innocent is not revealed. After this, Bond attempts to contact the prospective seller near the pyramids, where he first encounters Major Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) (codename "Triple X") of the KGB, his rival for the plans. Together, they travel across Egypt tracking the microfilm plans, meeting the seven feet-tall steel-toothed assassin Jaws (Richard Kiel) along the way. Ultimately, they partner due to a truce supported by their respective superiors (M from MI6 and General Gogol from the KGB) and identified the person behind all the thefts as Karl Stromberg (Curd Jürgens), a shipping tycoon. While traveling to Stromberg's base in Sardinia, Bond saves Amasova from Jaws and their rivalry changes into affection. Posing as a marine biologist and his wife, they visit Stromberg's base and learn of his mysterious new supertanker, the Liparus. With Q's help, they figured that the "Liparus" has never come into port. After they leave the base, Jaws and other henchmen, including a helicopter pilot named Naomi (Caroline Munro), chase them, but all attempts fail due to Bond's driving skills and the fact that his car—a Lotus Esprit from Q Branch—can convert into a submarine that is capable of firing missiles and torpedoes and planting mines. As a result, Bond is forced to fake both of their deaths by driving off a pier dock and destroys Naomi's helicopter with a surface-to-air missile. Amasova learns Bond killed her lover in Austria when she saw the lighter that he bought from Austria during the time that Amasova's lover was killed. Amasova says that she will complete the mission with him, but kill him when it ends. Assisted by an American submarine, Bond and Amasova examine Stromberg's underwater Atlantis base and confirm that he is operating the tracking system. The two board an American submarine in pursuit of the "Liparus." The submarine in which they then attempt to pursue the Liparus is captured by the supertanker itself. Stromberg sets his plan in motion: the launching of nuclear missiles from the previously captured submarines were going to be used to destroy Moscow and New York City. This would trigger a global nuclear war, which Stromberg would outlive in Atlantis, and subsequently a new civilization would be established. He leaves for Atlantis with Amasova. After managing to escape, Bond frees the captured British, Russian, and American submariners and they battle the Liparus' crew. Bond reprograms the British and Soviet submarines to destroy each other, saving Moscow and New York. The victorious submariners escape the sinking Liparus on the surviving American submarine. Bond insists on a final confrontation with Stromberg and the rescue of Amasova before the submarine has to follow its orders and destroy Atlantis. Bond confronts Stromberg in a dining room. He kills Stromberg but again encounters Jaws. Bond lifts Jaws using an electromagnet (which attracts Jaws' metal teeth), dropping him into a tank with a shark inside. Bond reunites with Amasova and they flee in an escape pod as Atlantis is sunk. In the pod Amasova reminds Bond that she has vowed to kill him and picks up Bond's gun, but admits having forgiven him and havng fallen in love with him and the two engage in sexual intercourse. They are unknowingly picked up by the Royal Navy and their escape pod is opened in front of everyone, much to the consternation of their superiors, M and General Gogol (Walter Gotell). Jaws is shown ironically biting the shark to death, before swimming to freedom (to return in Moonraker).

9. Moonraker (1979): A Drax Industries Moonraker space shuttle on loan to the United Kingdom is hijacked in mid-air, destroying the carrier plane. Bond is recalled from Africa to investigate. En route in a small plane, on an unrelated case, Bond is attacked by the pilot (Jean-Pierre Castaldi) and crew (Leila Shenna) and is pushed out of the plane by the mercenary assassin Jaws (Richard Kiel), whom he has met before. Bond survives by stealing a parachute from the pilot in mid-air, whilst Jaws lands on a circus tent. Bond reports to MI6 headquarters in London, and is briefed by M (Bernard Lee) and Q (Desmond Llewelyn) about the hijacking. He begins his investigation at the Drax Industries shuttle-manufacturing complex in southern California. At Drax Industries, Bond is coldly greeted by the owner of the company, Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale), and henchman Chang (Toshiro Suga). Bond meets an astronaut, Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles), and survives an assassination attempt via a centrifuge chamber. Bond is later inadvertently aided by Drax's personal pilot, Corinne Dufour (Corinne Clery), as he finds blueprints for a glass vial made in Venice. Bond then foils another attempt on his life, shooting a Drax sniper with a hunting shotgun. When Drax discovers that Dufour assisted Bond in his investigations, Drax fires her, then has his hunting dogs fatally maul her. Bond again encounters Goodhead in Venice. He is chased through the canals by Drax's henchmen but his gondola, with the ability to transform into a hovercraft, allows him to escape across the Piazza San Marco in a comic fashion. Bond discovers a secret biological laboratory; by accidentally poisoning the scientists there, he learns that the glass vials are to hold a deadly nerve gas. Chang battles Bond and is killed. During the fight, Bond sees evidence that Drax is moving his operation to Rio de Janeiro. Rejoining Goodhead, he deduces that she is a CIA agent spying on Drax (Bond pointedly notes, "I have friends in low places," an oblique reference to his CIA friend Felix Leiter). They promise to work together (and consummate their alliance), but quickly dispense with the truce. Bond has saved one of the vials he found earlier, as the only evidence of the now-empty laboratory, giving it to M for analysis, who permits him to go to Rio de Janeiro. In Rio de Janeiro, Bond meets and seduces his Brazilian contact Manuela (Emily Bolton). Drax hires Jaws to finish Chang's job of eliminating Bond. Bond meets Goodhead at the top of Sugarloaf, where they are attacked by Jaws on a cable car. After Jaws' car crashes he is rescued by Dolly (Blanche Ravalec)—a petite blonde girl with super strength—from the rubble, and the two fall in love. Bond and Goodhead are captured by henchmen, but Bond escapes. Bond reports to a MI6 base in Brazil and learns that the toxin comes from a rare orchid indigenous to the upper catchments of the Amazon jungle. While deadly to humans, it is harmless to all other life. Bond travels the Amazon River looking for Drax's research facility, and soon encounters Jaws and other henchmen again. Bond escapes from his boat just before it hits the Iguacu Falls, and finds Drax's base. Captured by Jaws again, Bond is taken to Drax and witnesses four Moonrakers lifting off. Drax explains that he himself stole the Moonraker because another in the fleet had developed a fault during assembly. Bond is reunited with Goodhead; they escape and successfully pose as pilots on the sixth shuttle. The shuttles dock with Drax's hidden space station. Drax plans to destroy all human life by launching fifty globes containing the toxin into the Earth's atmosphere. Before launching the globes, Drax also transported several dozen young men and women of varying races, which he regarded as genetically perfect, to the space station. They would live there until Earth was safe again for human life; their descendants would be the seed for a "new master race." Bond persuades Jaws and Dolly to switch allegiance by getting Drax to admit that anyone not measuring up to his physical standards would be exterminated (Dolly's glasses and Jaws' metal teeth, as well as their odd heights, being traits that exclude them both) and Jaws starts to brutalise Drax' guards. Bond and Goodhead disable the radar jammer hiding the station from Earth. The U.S. sends a platoon of Marines in a military shuttle. A laser battle ensues in which Drax's guards as well as his new master race die. During the battle, Bond pushes Drax into an airlock and ejects him into space. The space station, heavily damaged in the battle, disintegrates. Jaws helps Bond and Goodhead escape in Drax's space shuttle. In celebration, Jaws opens a champagne bottle and he and Dolly toast (in his only spoken line: "Well, here's to us!"). They too escape the space station as their module breaks away before the station explodes. Before the battle Drax launched three of the globes towards Earth, which Goodhead and Bond destroy from their shuttle. The two make love in space (prompting the memorable exchange between Sir Frederick Gray and Q: "My God, what's Bond doing?" Gray demands, and Q, not looking at the visual monitor but instead reading a tracking scanner, replies, "I think he's attempting re-entry, Sir."). Goodhead has the penultimate line, with "James, take me around the world one more time," to which Bond simply replies, "Why not?" Moonraker 5 then soars past the camera high above the Earth and out of view.

10. For Your Eyes Only (1981): n the pre-title sequence, Bond is picked up at his wife's gravesite by a helicopter; he escapes after being trapped in the aircraft. It is remotely controlled by someone who is presumed to be Blofeld - who was accomplice to Tracy's assassin Irma Bunt. The unknown man pilots the helicopter around various parts of London before Bond manages to gain control of the helicopter and turns it on his enemy, who is in a motorized wheelchair; picking him up, Bond then drops him into a smokestack, presumably killing him. The film then turns its focus to the fishing trawler St Georges of Valetta on the Ionian Sea, which is revealed to be a British spy ship equipped with Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC), the system used by the Ministry of Defence to communicate with and co-ordinate the Royal Navy's fleet of Polaris submarines. The ship dramatically sinks when an old naval mine becomes entangled in the fishing nets and pulled into the hull, causing it to explode and flood the lower compartments of the ship. Sir Timothy Havelock (Jack Hedley), a marine archaeologist based in Greece, is contacted by the British government to secretly locate the St Georges. However, before he can give a report, he and his wife are shot down by a Cuban hitman, Hector Gonzales (Stefan Kalipha), who passes their yacht in a machine-gun equipped floatplane. Havelock's daughter Melina (Carole Bouquet) survives and vows revenge. The British Minister of Defence and his Chief of Staff summon James Bond (Roger Moore) and assign him the task of recovering the ATAC. They explain that if the transmitter were retrieved underwater by another superpower the Polaris submarines' ballistic missiles could be used against major western cities. Bond is sent to Spain after Gonzales to find out who hired him. Melina kills him before Bond can find out. Melina owns a Citroën 2CV which proves to be very resilient in the following car chase by two bigger and more powerful cars driven by Gonzales's henchmen; they manage to disable both of the other cars in the Spanish highlands with a series of clever manouveres. After identifying a hitman (Michael Gothard) in Gonzales's estate (Locque) who appeared to be paying him, Bond is led to a well-connected Greek businessman and intelligence informant, Aris Kristatos (Julian Glover), in Cortina d'Ampezzo, a resort in northern Italy's Dolomites. He later tells Bond that the man he saw is employed by Milos Columbo, a Greek Smuggler. Kristatos's 15-year-old niece Bibi Dahl (Lynn-Holly Johnson), a figure skating champion, attempts to seduce Bond who refuses, acknowledging she is a minor (at the time of filming, Johnson was in her early 20s and Moore was in his mid-50s). Bond is also forced to contend with Eric Kriegler (John Wyman), a German biathlete. Kriegler attempts to kill Bond with his biathlon rifle, and pursues him on a machine gun armed motorcycle, over a chalet balcony, bobsled track, and into a farm where Bond escapes. He and two other men also attempted to kill Bond on an indoor ice rink, but he manages to fend them off once again and after discovers that Ferrara was murdered. When Bond is eventually captured by men working for Columbo (Chaim Topol) (who have saved him from being killed by Locque and Locque's accomplice Claus) it emerges that Locque is actually in the employ of Kristatos who himself is in the employ of the KGB. Kristatos is attempting to recover the ATAC for the KGB, and had set up Columbo as the villain as the latter knew too much about Kristatos's KGB leanings. Columbo proves this connection to Bond by allowing Bond to take part in a raid on one of Kristatos's warehouses in Albania, where they find Locque. In this factory, Bond discovers false rolls of paper containing poppy syrup, and additional naval mines similar to the one that sank the St. Georges, suggesting that the sinking was not an accident. Locque places explosives to destroy this evidence and flees as the building explodes into a fierce inferno, destroying all the heroin which was stored there. He then loses control of his car when Bond wounds him by shooting him through the car's windshield, and ultimately ends up teetering on the edge of a cliff. Bond approaches him there and gives the car a solid shove, sending Locque plunging to his death. Bond and Melina later recover the ATAC from the wreckage of the St Georges, but Kristatos is waiting for them when they surface, and he takes the ATAC from them. He attempts to dispose of them by dragging them behind his yacht while sharks circle in the water; however, Bond effects their escape. They discover Kristatos's rendezvous point when Melina's parrot repeats the phrase "ATAC to St. Cyril's". With Columbo's help, Bond, Columbo's team, and Melina break into a mountaintop monastery, St. Cyril's, being used by Kristatos to meet KGB chief General Gogol (Walter Gotell) where he will turn over the ATAC. Bond climbs up the sheer face of the mountain and, upon reaching the top, gains control of the lift basket and brings the rest of the team up. Bond eventually retrieves the ATAC system and talks Melina out of killing Kristatos after he surrenders. Kristatos tries to kill Bond with a hidden weapon, but Columbo throws a knife at him from behind and kills him. Gogol arrives by helicopter to collect the ATAC, but Bond throws it over the cliff and it is dashed to pieces on the rocks below, with the quip, "That's détente, comrade. You don't have it; I don't have it." General Gogol gives Bond an understanding smile and leaves. Bond and Melina later spend a romantic evening aboard her father's yacht. When a call from the office comes in (which is patched through to the home of prime minister Margaret Thatcher), Bond passes it along to the bird while persuading Melina to undress and join him for a night swim.

11. Octopussy (1983): he pre-title sequence involves Bond with a beautiful agent named Bianca (Tina Hudson) on a sabotage mission in Air base commanded by the Coloner Luis Toro (Ken Norris) in an undisclosed Latin American country (probably Cuba) and features him flying a nimble homebuilt Bede BD-5J aircraft. The pre-title story has no relevance to the main story. When a fatally wounded British agent 009 (Andy Bradford) stumbles into the British Embassy in East Berlin with a fake Fabergé egg, MI6 immediately suspects Soviet involvement. When the real egg appears at an auction in London, Bond (Roger Moore) is sent to find out who the seller is and track down 009's murderer. Bond is able to secretly replace the real egg with the fake, and lures exiled Afghan prince, Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan), into paying £500,000 for the egg. Bond follows Khan back to his palace in India, and learns that he is working with the regenade Soviet General Orlov (Steven Berkoff), seeking to expand the Soviet's borders through Europe. Orlov has been supplying Khan with priceless Soviet treasures, replacing them with replicas, while Khan has been smuggling the real versions into the west through a circus troop run by Octopussy (Maud Adams), a fabulously wealthy woman who lives in a floating palace in Delhi, India and surrounded by women who are members of her "Octopus" cult. Bond defeats Khan in a game of backgammon, exposing Khan's use of loaded dice. Assisted by his ally Vijay (Vijay Amritraj), Bond foils Khan's bodyguard Gobinda's (Kabir Bedi) attempts to kill them as they race through the Indian streets in an Auto rickshaw. One of Khan's associates, Magda (Kristina Wayborn), seduces Bond and steals the real Fabergé egg, while Bond is captured by Gobinda and locked in Khan's palace. Using a pen containing aqua regia, Bond cuts a window's iron bars and escapes. His Seiko watch, fitted with a beacon, traces the Fabergé egg. He hears through a microphone that Orlov is planning to meet Khan at Karl-Marx-Stadt in East Germany, where Octopussy's circus is scheduled to perform. Khan discovers a microphone in the egg, and orders Bond's death. Posing as a corpse, Bond escapes. Bond infiltrates Octopussy's island and confronts her, only to find out that she feels indebted to him for letting her father, a British Major, commit suicide rather than face the shame of a court martial when Bond was sent after him for smuggling and murder some years before. Bond infiltrates the circus in East Germany as it prepares to leave the Soviet base via train. He finds that while Orlov has shown Octopussy the means of secretly transporting a large cache of Soviet treasures within the base cannon for the Human Cannonball, he and Khan have secretly replaced the jewels with a nuclear warhead primed to explode during the circus show at a US Air Force base in West Germany. The explosion would trigger Europe into seeking disarmament in the belief that the bomb was a US one that detonated by accident, leaving its borders open to Soviet invasion. Bond seizes Orlov's personal car, where the jewels have been stashed, and drives after the train, followed closely by Orlov in another vehicle. When Orlov shoots out Bond's tires, he drives the car on the rails, and jumps onto the train moments before a second train sends Orlov's car into a nearby river. As the train crosses the border, Orlov attempts to follow on foot, but is shot by GDR border guards. General Gogol (Walter Gotell), having discovered the jewels in Orlov's car and having previously denounced Orlov's plan for Soviet conquest of Europe, watches the man die, disgraced. Bond's presence on the train is discovered by Gobinda and twin knife-throwers, Mischka and Grischka (David Meyer and Tony Meyer). Though forced to abandon the train, Bond is able to kill Mischka and Grischka in revenge for the death of 009. Bond commandeers a civilian's Alfa Romeo and races to the Air Force base, chased by police. At the base, Bond disguises himself as a clown and attempts to convince Octopussy that Khan has betrayed her by showing her one of the treasures she was to be smuggling that he took from Orlov's car. Octopussy realizes the double-cross and assists Bond in deactivating the warhead in time. Bond and Octopussy return to India and launch an assault on Khan's palace. Khan and Gobinda flee the palace, capturing Octopussy in the process. Bond follows them as they attempt to escape on an airplane, and jumps aboard before it takes off and disables one of its engines. Bond and Gobinda fight on the roof of the plane, but Gobinda falls to his death. As the plane continues to lose height, Bond rescues Octopussy from Khan, and they jump safely to a nearby cliff moments before the plane and Khan crash and explode into the side of a mountain. While M (Robert Brown) and Gogol discuss the return of the jewelry, Bond recuperates with Octopussy aboard her private boat in India.

12. A View to a Kill (1985): James Bond (Roger Moore) is sent to Siberia to locate the body of 003 and to recover a microchip. Upon doing so, he is ambushed by Soviet troops but flees in a submarine built to resemble an iceberg. After Bond returns to England a week later, Q (Desmond Llewelyn) has the microchip analysed and informs M (Robert Brown), Bond and the Minister of Defense that its design is an exact match of a microchip made by Zorin Industries. The retrieved microchip is also designed to withstand the damage caused to other chips by a nuclear explosion. Bond and his superiors visit Ascot Racecourse to observe the company's owner, Max Zorin (Christopher Walken). While at the track, Zorin's horse miraculously wins the race; Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee), a horse trainer, believes Zorin's horse was given drugs, although when screened prior to the race, it did not show any signs of doping. Through Tibbett, Bond meets a French private detective named Achille Aubergine (Jean Rougerie) to discuss how the horse won. Aubergine informs Bond that Zorin is holding an annual horse sale later in the month. However, during their dinner at the Eiffel Tower, Aubergine is assassinated by Zorin's mysterious bodyguard, May Day (Grace Jones). Bond steals a Renault taxi to chase May Day but fails to apprehend her. Bond and Tibbett travel to Chantilly, France where Bond poses as James St. John Smythe (pronounced "sin-jin-smythe"), a rich dilettante. They break into Zorin's secret laboratory and learn that he is using microchips in his horses to release a drug when prompted by a hidden switch. Their intrusion is discovered however and Tibbett is later killed by May Day, but they fail to kill Bond in an attempt to drown him in a lake. Later, General Gogol (Walter Gotell) from the Soviet Union shows up at Zorin's estate with several other KGB agents, but Zorin, an ex-KGB agent himself, becomes upset with Gogol and forces him to leave. In his airship, Zorin unveils to a group of investors his plan to destroy Silicon Valley in an operation he dubs "Main Strike" in order to gain a monopoly in the microchip market. Bond later learns that Zorin is a psychopath, the product of Nazi medical experimentation during World War II, and later trained by the KGB. 007 goes to San Francisco and spies on an oil rig owned by Zorin. He catches KGB agent Pola Ivanova (Fiona Fullerton) trying to blow up the rig, while recording Zorin announcing his plans. Bond soon meets state geologist Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts), whose oil company had been taken over by Zorin, and the two team up to steal documents about his plan from the San Francisco City Hall. Zorin arrives, holding them hostage, and then forces a city official to call the police. He kills the official with Bond's Walther PPK and sets the building on fire in order to frame Bond for the murder. Bond and Sutton escape from the fire but when the police try to arrest Bond, they escape in a fire engine. The next day, Bond and Sutton infiltrate Zorin's mine, discovering his plot to detonate explosives beneath the lakes along the Hayward Fault and the San Andreas Fault causing them to flood. A larger bomb is also on site in the mine to destroy a "geological lock" that is in place to prevent the two faults from moving at the same time. Once destroyed, it would supposedly cause a double earthquake. Zorin and Scarpine flood the mines, nearly killing Bond and May Day and murder all of the mine workers as they attempt to flee. Stacey manages to escape. Because she was betrayed, May Day helps Bond remove the larger bomb that would destroy the lock. They put the bomb on a handcar and push it out of the mine along a railroad line. May Day stays on the car to hold the faulty brake lever, sacrificing her own life as the bomb explodes outside, away from the lock. Sutton is quickly captured by a devastated Zorin, who is escaping via airship with Scarpine (Patrick Bauchau) and his mentor, Dr. Carl Mortner (Willoughby Gray). Bond grabs hold of the mooring rope and clings on as the airship ascends. Zorin tries to kill Bond by flying him into the Golden Gate Bridge, but Bond manages to moor the airship to the bridge framework, stopping it from moving. Stacey attacks Zorin and in the ensuing fracas, Mortner and Scarpine are temporarily knocked out. Stacey flees onto the bridge and joins with Bond, but Zorin comes after them with an axe and engages in a fierce battle with Bond. Bond gains the upper hand and sends Zorin plummeting off the bridge to his death. An enraged Mortner attempts to kill Bond with a bundle of dynamite, but Bond slashes the mooring rope, causing Mortner to drop the dynamite into the cabin. Seconds later, the dynamite explodes and destroys the airship, killing Mortner and Scarpine. In the aftermath, Bond is ironically awarded the Order of Lenin by General Gogol. Q, inside a special van in California, uses his fake-dog surveillance camera to locate 007. He finds him safely making love to Stacey in her shower.

13. The Living Daylights (1987): n the pre-title sequence, Agents 002, 004, and 007 parachute onto the Rock of Gibraltar as part of a war games scenario to test its defenses. 002 (Glyn Baker) is immediately captured by the SAS, while Bond and 004 (Frederick Warder) begin scaling the cliffs to the base. As they ascend, an assassin (Carl Rigg) appears and, after shooting an SAS guard, sends a carabiner-attached tag reading "Smiert Spionam" ("Death to Spies") down the rope before cutting it, killing 004. Bond (Timothy Dalton) chases the assassin, ending in an explosives-laden Land Rover careening down Gibraltar's roads and then into the air. Bond escapes (via his reserve parachute) mid-air from the falling jeep, while the assassin is killed when the Land Rover explodes. Bond lands on a nearby yacht owned by a woman named Linda (Kell Tyler), who on the phone states she is looking for a "real man". Linda subsequently offers Bond a glass of champagne and says "Won't you join me?" Eyeing her and the drink, Bond delays his report time to two hours. In Bratislava, Bond along with Saunders (Thomas Wheatley), another MI6 Agent, conducts the defection of a KGB officer, General Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé), covering his intermission escape from a concert hall. He notices a sniper assigned to assassinate Koskov, who is actually a cellist named Kara Milovy (Maryam d'Abo). Suspecting that she is not an actual assassin, he shoots her sniper rifle out of her hands, instead of killing her, much to Saunders's condemnation. Koskov is smuggled through the Russian gas pipeline into Austria and flown to England. There, at a countryside manor (Blayden House), Koskov informs MI6 that the KGB's old policy of Smert' Spionam, meaning Death to Spies, has been revived by General Leonid Pushkin, the new head of the KGB (heir to General Gogol). He presents them a list of British and American targets of SMERSH. Milovy is immediately speculated as an assassin. The leaders of MI6 leave for London to convene, while Koskov stays at the manor. Some time later, an assassin named Necros (Andreas Wisniewski) infiltrates the building, burns the list of targets, and abducts Koskov by helicopter, killing two staff members and sending another two to the hospital. Bond is assigned to kill Pushkin but first travels to Bratislava, Slovakia to investigate the connection with Milovy. On learning that the bullets in her rifle were blanks, and that Milovy was Koskov's girlfriend, he begins to suspect that Koskov staged his "defection." While taking care to fool the man tailing him while finding Milovy, she and Bond (and her Stradivarius 'cello, the "Lady Rose", escape to Austria - the final leg of this journey involving sledding down a mountain using the 'cello case as their sled (they literally sled through the border customs kiosk). After a brief tryst with Kara in Vienna, he meets up his MI6 ally, Saunders, at the Wurstelprater amusement park. There, he reveals a link between Koskov and arms dealer, ex-American General Brad Whitaker (Joe Don Baker), whose offer to sell the KGB high-tech weapons in Tangier was declined. Saunders is killed by Necros, who is disguised as a balloon seller; he leaves a balloon marked "Smiert Spionam". Bond infiltrates Pushkin's hotel room in Tangier at gun point. Pushkin (John Rhys-Davies) reveals to Bond that contrary to Koskov's explanation, he had actually been investigating Koskov himself for the embezzlement of government funds. Bond and Pushkin then join forces by Bond faking Pushkin's assassination, allowing Whitaker and Koskov, who now believe Pushkin is dead, to progress with their scheme. Later Bond meets with his long friend Felix Leiter (John Terry) who gives information to Bond. Meanwhile, Milovy contacts Koskov, who convinces her that Bond is a KGB agent. Accordingly, she puts Bond to sleep with a spiked beverage and engenders his capture. They are flown to a Soviet air base in Afghanistan, where Koskov betrays Milovy and imprisons her along with Bond. They escape from the air base's prison, and in doing so free a condemned prisoner, Kamran Shah (Art Malik), leader of the local Mujahideen. Kamran leads Bond and Milovy to the Mujahideen's base, where Bond informs Kamran of Whitaker's plan to sell the Soviets weapons that could be used against the Afghan resistance. The next day, during a mission, Bond discovers that Whitaker and Koskov are paying diamonds for a large $500 million shipment of opium in order to turn a huge profit with enough left over to supply the Soviets with their arms. And, while Whitaker gets rich, Koskov will use newfound fame to take control of the KGB, hence the attack on Pushkin. The Mujahideen help Bond and Milovy to infiltrate the air base. Bond plants a bomb in the back of the cargo aeroplane transporting the opium, but Koskov recognises him just as he is leaving. Bond hijacks the plane, while the Mujahideen attack the airbase on horseback, killing many Soviets in the battle. Milovy joins Bond on a jeep in the back of the plane as they take off and later assumes the controls while Bond leaves to defuse his bomb. Necros, however, had stowed away on board and attacks Bond. Bond throws Necros to his death after a struggle and deactivates the bomb. Milovy flies over Kamran Shah's Mujahideen, who are being pursued by two Soviet armored cars across a bridge. Bond drops his bomb onto the bridge, killing the Soviets and ending their pursuit of Kamran and his men. When their plane runs out of fuel, Bond and Milovy escape on the jeep, while the plane crashes into the hills. Bond returns to Tangier and helped by Leiter arrives at Whitaker's residence as General Whitaker is playing Pickett's Charge on Little Round Top, fighting the Battle of Gettysburg on his terms. When Bond tells him that the opium is burned, Whitaker takes out a submachine gun with a shield of bullet-proof glass. When Bond uses up all of his bullets, Whitaker fires. Bond hides behind a pillar with a bust of the Duke of Wellington, and inserts his explosive key chain on it while Whitaker taunts Bond on how Wellington had to hire German mercenaries to defeat Napoleon. Bond's explosive key-chain, triggered by a wolf whistle, topples the bust onto Whitaker, who crashes onto a diorama of Waterloo, and, as Bond sums it up, "He [dies|meets] his Waterloo." At the same time Pushkin and his bodyguards arrive. Koskov is arrested and ordered to be flown back to Moscow in a "diplomatic bag," indicating that his dead body is what will be making the return flight. The final scene is of Milovy as lead cellist in a London recital, her musical future assured by the British and Soviets cooperating to provide her with travel visas allowing her to perform both behind the Iron Curtain and in the West. Told he is on assignment, Bond surprises her in her dressing room after the recital and together they celebrate their mutual success.

14. Licence To Kill (1989): The story opens with Bond and his friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter (David Hedison), on their way to Leiter's wedding to Della Churchill (Priscilla Barnes). Meanwhile, DEA agents spot drug lord Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) flying near The Bahamas, and a Coast Guard helicopter collects Leiter and Bond in an attempt to capture Sanchez. They capture Sanchez by attaching a hook and cord to Sanchez's plane and pulling it out of the air with the helicopter. Afterwards, Bond and Leiter parachute down to the church and make the wedding ceremony on time. Later that day, bribed DEA agent Ed Killifer (Everett McGill) assists Sanchez in escaping. That evening, Leiter and Della are captured by Sanchez's henchmen; Leiter is maimed by a shark as his wife is killed. After hearing the news of Sanchez's escape, Bond returns to Leiter's house to find Della dead and Felix alive but severely injured. Bond begins his revenge by pushing Killifer into the same tank with the shark that maimed Leiter. M (Robert Brown) meets Bond in Key West's Hemingway House and orders him to an assignment in Istanbul, Turkey. Bond refuses the assignment and subsequently resigns. M refuses his resignation, saying, "We're not a country club!" However, he suspends Bond and immediately revokes his licence to kill. Bond quickly escapes MI6 custody and becomes a rogue agent, bereft of official backing but later surreptitiously helped by armourer Q (Desmond Llewelyn). Bond boards a ship run by Milton Krest (Anthony Zerbe), Sanchez's key lieutenant, where he ruins Sanchez's latest drug shipment and steals five million dollars. In Leiter's records which were stored on a CD-ROM, Bond finds details of a rendezvous in Bimini with Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell), an ex-CIA agent-pilot who he meets in a bar. Sanchez henchman Dario and his team arrive at the bar, ostensibly to kill Bouvier. A bar brawl erupts, but Bond and Bouvier escape, with Bond convincing Bouvier to assist him in his mission. Bond and Bouvier journey to the Latin American country of the "Republic of Isthmus" (a fictional country loosely based on Panama, which is known for its Isthmus of Panama), where he finds his way into Sanchez's employ by posing as an assassin looking for work. Bond attempts to kill Sanchez from an abandoned building, using a sniper rifle and C4 supplied by Q. While peering through the telescopic sight, he observes Bouvier talking to Heller (Don Stroud) and handing him an envelope. He detonates the charge, knocking the bulletproof window of Sanchez's office. However, before he can shoot Sanchez, he is attacked and incapacitated by several agents in ninja garb. He awakens tied to a table to find out his captors are, in fact, undercover Hong Kong narcotics agents trying to infiltrate Sanchez's operation. They are joined by Fallon (Christopher Neame), a corrupt MI6 agent who was sent by M to apprehend Bond either dead or alive. Bond is about to be executed via lethal injection and sent back to England in disgrace when Sanchez and his men raid the building and kill the agents. They find Bond unconscious, still tied to the table. Next morning Bond wakes up in Sanchez house where he informs Sanchez that those men were freelance assassins and were worried that Bond would've warned Sanchez of their plans. Later, with the aid of Bouvier, Q, and Sanchez's battered girlfriend Lupe (Talisa Soto), Bond manages to frame Krest, making him appear disloyal to Sanchez. Sanchez traps Krest in a hyperbaric chamber and then suddenly depressurises the chamber, causing Krest's head to explode; meanwhile, for Bond's perceived loyalty, Sanchez admits him into his inner circle. After an overnight stay at his villa, Sanchez takes Bond to his base, which is disguised as a meditation retreat (not before Bond sleeps with Lupe). Bond learns that Sanchez's scientists can dissolve cocaine in gasoline, and then sell it disguised as fuel to Asian drug dealers. The buying and selling are conducted via the American televangelist Professor Joe Butcher (Wayne Newton), working under orders from Sanchez's business manager Truman-Lodge. The re-integration process will be available to those underworld clients who can pay Sanchez's price. In addition, Sanchez has brokered a deal to buy Stinger missiles from the Contras, and has threatened to shoot down an American airliner if the DEA interferes in his operations. During Sanchez's presentation to potential Far Eastern customers, Bond is recognized by Sanchez's henchman Dario (Benicio del Toro), who met Bond in Bimini and knows Bond to be against Sanchez's interests. Trying to escape, Bond starts a fire in the laboratory which spreads to the whole base; despite this, Bond is re-captured and placed on the conveyor belt that drops the brick-cocaine into a giant shredder. Pam Bouvier arrives and helps Bond escape and kill Dario by throwing him into the shredder. The two flee the base as it explodes. Sanchez also escapes, with four tanker trucks full of the cocaine/gasoline mixture and his Stinger missiles, and Bond pursues them by plane with Bouvier at the controls. In the course of a stunt-filled chase, Bond destroys three of the four trucks and kills many of Sanchez' men. An irate Sanchez kills Truman-Lodge (Anthony Starke) in exasperation. Bond and Sanchez fight aboard the final remaining tanker, which ends up out of control and then rolls down a hillside. Sanchez, soaked in gasoline, mocks Bond (who is injured from the fall), telling him that he could have "had everything", and prepares to kill him with a machete. Bond distracts him by asking him if he wants to know why he destroyed his drug empire. Bond produces his cigarette lighter - the Leiters' gift for being the best man at their wedding - and sets the villain afire. Sanchez, burning alive, stumbles into the wrecked tanker truck's cistern, causing its gasoline to ignite. Bond flees before the massive explosion. Pam arrives driving one of the two remaining trucks and drives them back to Isthmus City. That night, a party is held at Sanchez's former residence. Bond receives a call from Leiter telling him that M is offering him his job back. Later in the party, Bond chooses to reject Lupe's advances, suggesting the country's president (Pedro Armendariz Jr.) as a better match, and romances Pam Bouvier instead.

15. Goldeneye (1995): In 1986, MI6 agents 007 (James Bond, played by Pierce Brosnan) and 006 (Alec Trevelyan, played by Sean Bean), infiltrate an illicit Soviet chemical weapons facility at Arkhangelsk and plant explosive charges. Trevelyan is apparently captured and shot dead by Colonel Arkady Ourumov (Gottfried John), but Bond steals an airplane and escapes from the facility as it explodes. Nine years later (1995), Bond arrives in Monte Carlo to follow Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), a suspected member of the Janus crime syndicate, who has formed a suspicious relationship with a Canadian Navy admiral. She murders the admiral to allow Ourumov (now a General) to steal his identity. The next day, they steal a prototype Eurocopter Tiger helicopter that can withstand an electromagnetic pulse, despite Bond's efforts to stop them. They fly it to a bunker in Severnaya, where they massacre the staff and steal the control disk for the dual GoldenEye satellite weapons. The two program one of the GoldenEye satellites to destroy the complex with an electromagnetic pulse, and escape with genius programmer Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming). The pulse also destroys three Russian MiG-29 aircraft dispatched to check on the facility; causing one to crash into the complex, utterly devastating it. Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), the lone survivor, contacts Grishenko and arranges to meet him in St. Petersburg, where he betrays her to Janus. In London, M (Judi Dench) assigns Bond to investigate the attack due to circumstantial evidence. She also tells Bond to not go out for revenge against Ourumov when he is found (for Trevelyan's death) and he flies to St. Petersburg to meet CIA agent Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker). He suggests Bond meet Valentin Zukovsky, (Robbie Coltrane), a Russian Mafia head and business rival of Janus. After Bond gives him a tip on a potential heist, Zukovsky arranges a meeting between Bond and Janus, who reveals himself as Trevelyan. A descendant of those Cossack clans who did collaborate with the Nazi forces in WWII, Trevelyan faked his death, having vowed revenge against Britain for their involvement in his parents' deaths. He ties Bond up with Simonova in the Tiger helicopter programmed to self-destruct, from which the two escape using its ejection system. They are immediately arrested by the Russian police and interrogated by the Russian Minister of Defence, Dmitri Mishkin (Tchéky Karyo). Just as Simonova reveals the existence of a second satellite and Ourumov's involvement in the massacre at Severnaya, Ourumov bursts into the room, shooting Mishkin and dragging Simonova into a car. Bond steals a T-55 tank and pursues Ourumov through St. Petersburg to Janus' armoured train, where he kills Ourumov as Trevelyan escapes, locking Bond in the train with Simonova. As the train's self-destruct countdown begins, Bond cuts through the floor with a laser watch while Simonova locates Grishenko's satellite dish in Cuba using a computer. The two escape just before the train explodes. In Cuba, Bond and Simonova fly a plane over the jungle before they are shot down. As they stumble out of the wreckage, Onatopp rappels down from a helicopter and attacks Bond. As she has Bond in a stranglehold, he manages to use her weapon to shoot the helicopter down. Still attached to the rappel cord, Onatopp is crushed against a tree and dies. Minutes later, he and Simonova watch a lake being drained of its water, uncovering the dish. They infiltrate the control station, where Bond is captured. Trevelyan reveals his plan to steal money from the Bank of England before erasing all of its financial records with the remaining GoldenEye, concealing the theft and destroying Britain's economy. Meanwhile, Simonova programs the satellite to initiate atmospheric reentry and destroy itself. As Trevelyan captures Simonova and orders Grishenko to save the satellite, Bond triggers an explosion with his Parker Jotter pen grenade provided by Q, and escapes to the antenna cradle. Bond sabotages the antenna, preventing Grishenko from regaining control of the satellite, before turning and facing Trevelyan. Bond pushes Trevelyan off the antenna and into the dish before escaping aboard a helicopter commandeered by Simonova. The cradle collapses, crushing Trevelyan. Meanwhile on the surface, Bond and Simonova are rescued by Wade and a platoon of U.S. Marines.

16. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997): MI6 sends James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) into the field to spy on a terrorist arms bazaar on the Russian border. Via television, MI6 and the British military identify several wanted men, including American "techno-terrorist" Henry Gupta (Ricky Jay), who is buying a GPS encoder made by the American military. Despite M's (Judi Dench) insistence that Agent 007 finish his reconnaissance, the British Admiral Roebuck (Geoffrey Palmer) launches a missile attack on the arms bazaar. Bond then discovers there are two Soviet nuclear torpedoes mounted on an L-39 Albatros, the destruction of which would cause potential local radioactive contamination. With the missile already in flight and unable to be aborted, Bond hijacks the L-39 jet and flies it away from the arms bazaar, defeating a pursuing L-39 and a hostile co-pilot by ejecting the co-pilot into the other aircraft. Despite the missile destroying most of the terrorists and weaponry, Gupta escapes with the encoder. Media baron Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), head of the Carver Media Group Network (CMGN), begins his plans to use the encoder to provoke war between China and the United Kingdom. As the existing Chinese leadership is not receptive to giving Carver Media Group Network exclusive broadcast rights in their country, Carver wants to use a war to eliminate them in favor of politicians more friendly to his plans. Meaconing the GPS signal using the encoder, Gupta sends the frigate HMS Devonshire off-course in the South China Sea, where Carver's stealth ship and its crew plan to steal a number of its missiles. Carver's henchman, Stamper (Götz Otto), sinks the frigate with a sea drill and shoots down a Chinese J-7 fighter jet sent to investigate the British presence, and then the men aboard the stealth ship kill the Devonshire's survivors with Chinese weaponry. Thinking they have been attacked by the Chinese, Admiral Roebuck deploys the British Fleet to recover the frigate, and possibly retaliate, leaving M only forty-eight hours to investigate its sinking. M sends Bond to investigate Carver after Carver Media releases news with critical details hours before these have become known, and MI6 noticed a spurious signal from one of his CMGN communications satellites when the frigate was sunk. Bond travels to Hamburg and seduces Carver's wife, Paris (Teri Hatcher), an ex-girlfriend; the information she tells Bond helps him sneak into Carver's newspaper headquarters and steal back the GPS encoder. When Carver learns of it, he orders Paris and Bond killed. Paris is killed by Dr. Kaufman (Vincent Schiavelli), but Bond escapes in his Q division car a BMW 750i. Bond then goes to the South China Sea to investigate the wreck, discovering one of the missiles missing. He and Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh), a Chinese spy on the same case, are captured by Stamper and taken to the CMGN Vietnam bureau, but they escape and begin collaborating. They contact the Royal Navy and the People's Liberation Army Air Force (Red Chinese air force) to explain what is happening, then find and board Carver's stealth ship in Ha Long Bay to prevent him firing the stolen British cruise missile at Beijing. During the battle, Wai Lin is captured. Bond captures Gupta to use as his own hostage, but Carver kills Gupta, claiming he has "outlived his contract". Bond gets them out of it by setting off an explosive, damaging part of the ship and exposing it on radar, enabling the Royal Navy to attack it. While Wai Lin heads to disable the engines, Bond leads a large battle to the stolen missile against the crew, and Stamper. Carver is killed by his own sea drill after trying to kill Bond on his own. As Bond begins to start the process of destroying the warhead, Stamper shows that he has Wai Lin hostage. A fight ensues when he tries to drown her. Bond traps him in the missile firing mechanism and leaves him to die, while saving Wai Lin as the stealth ship is destroyed by the missile. Bond and Wai Lin survive amidst the wreckage as HMS Bedford searches for them.

17. The World Is Not Enough (1999): The pre-title sequence finds Bond (Pierce Brosnan) at a Swiss bank in Bilbao, Spain, retrieving a large sum of money that belongs to Sir Robert King, a British oil tycoon and personal friend of M. In addition to claim the money, Bond decides to find the truth about the death of his partner 0012 and tries to question the banker, but the latter is murdered by his assistant Giulietta da Vinci (Maria Grazia Cucinotta) before he can talk. After the killing of another bank assistant, Bond escapes lest he be surprised in the premises by the Basque police. Upon arrival in London, King (David Calder) is killed by a bomb inside MI6 Headquarters; the recovered money had been rigged to explode, detonated by King's lapel pin. Bond immediately hastens to catch the perpetrator—the cigar girl from the Swiss Bank in Bilbao—in a boat on the Thames. The chase ends at the Millennium Dome, where the assassin attempts to escape via hot air balloon. Bond offers MI6's protection in return for her cooperation, but she refuses and detonates the balloon, killing herself in the process. Bond lets go of the safety line, falling a short distance onto the dome and sustaining a dislocated collarbone as he tumbles down the side. After attending King's funeral in Scotland, Tanner (Michael Kitchen) informs Bond that he is off active duty until he is cleared by a physician. Bond earns his reinstatement in classic Bond fashion (having sex with his female doctor), then sets out to learn who was behind King's assassination. He traces the recovered money to Renard, a KGB agent-turned-terrorist. Following an earlier attempt on his life by MI6, Renard was left with a bullet lodged in his brain; the bullet is gradually killing off Renard's senses, effectively making him immune to pain, although the bullet will eventually kill him. M assigns Bond to protect King's daughter, Elektra (Sophie Marceau); as Renard previously abducted and held Elektra for ransom, MI6 believes that he is targeting her a second time. Bond flies to Azerbaijan, where Elektra is overseeing the construction of an oil pipeline which will travel through the Caucasus, from the Caspian Sea to Turkey. During a tour of the pipeline's proposed route in the mountains, Bond and Elektra are attacked by a hit squad in armed, paraglider-equipped snowmobiles. After fending off the hit squad, Bond visits a casino owned by his acquaintance, Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane), to acquire information about Elektra's attackers; he discovers that Elektra's head of security, Davidov (Ulrich Thomsen), is secretly in league with Renard (Robert Carlyle). After spending a night with Elektra, then stowing away in Davidov's car to a nearby airstrip, Bond kills him and boards a plane bound for a Russian ICBM base in Kazakhstan. There, Bond poses as Russian nuclear scientist Mikhail Arkov (Jeff Nuttall) to enter the silo and find out why Renard's men are there. He is tailed closely by Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards), an American nuclear physicist who is suspicious of his identity. Inside the silo, Bond watches as Renard removes the GPS locator card and a half quantity of weapons-grade plutonium from a bomb. Before Bond can kill him, Jones blows his cover and Renard steals the bomb and flees, leaving everyone to die in the booby-trapped missile silo. Bond escapes the exploding silo with Jones in tow, but not before retrieving the locator card. Back in Azerbaijan, Bond discloses to M that Elektra may not be as innocent as she seems, and hands her the locator card as proof of the theft. The pair are interrupted by a surprise attack on the pipeline: the pilfered bomb from Kazakhstan is attached to an observation rig heading toward the pipeline's oil terminal. Bond and Jones enter the pipeline, ahead of the bomb, on a separate rig. In the process of defusing it, Jones discovers that half of the plutonium is missing. Bond, realizing they have been duped, instructs her to jump clear of the rig and wait for the explosion of the bomb. In the wake of the explosion, Bond radios in and learns that M has been abducted. Elektra and Renard rendezvous at Maiden's Tower in Istanbul, where he exchanges the remaining half of plutonium. In return, Elektra presents a gift of her own: M, imprisoned in a small cell. Renard sets an alarm clock a few feet from M, promising she will die next day at noon. That night, Bond accosts Zukovsky at his caviar factory in the Caspian Sea, believing he is working for Elektra. As Bond and Jones interrogate him, the factory is suddenly assailed by Elektra's helicopters, confirming Bond's suspicion. Zukovsky insists their arrangement was in exchange for a Victor III class submarine, currently being captained by Zukovsky's nephew, Nikolai. If Renard were to insert the stolen plutonium into the submarine's nuclear reactor, the resulting meltdown would level Istanbul, sabotaging the Russians' oil pipeline in the Bosporus. Elektra's pipeline is set to go around the ruins of Istanbul, dramatically increasing the value of her own oil. After poisoning Captain Nikolai and his crew, Renard and his men seize their submarine and begin processing the plutonium. M, still carrying the locator card, snatches the alarm clock and uses its battery to power the card's transmitter, revealing her location to Bond. No sooner does Bond detect her signal than Zukovsky's underling, Mr. Bullion (Goldie), leaves behind an explosive to kill him. Bond and Jones emerge unscathed, but are captured by Bullion and several of Elektra's henchmen, who leave Zukovsky for dead. Before leaving, Renard gives Nikolai's captain's cap to Elektra as a farewell gift. Bond is restrained in an ancient Spanish torture device, the garotte, while Jones is taken aboard the submarine. An injured Zukovsky storms into the room where Elektra is torturing Bond, demanding to know where his nephew is. Bond gestures to the table on which Elektra has placed Nikolai's cap; Zukovsky, realizing Nikolai is dead, is fatally shot by Elektra. With his dying breath, Zukovsky uses his cane—a concealed gun—to shoot at one of Bond's restraints, freeing him. Bond chases after Elektra, pausing momentarily to release M, then shoots Elektra dead after she refuses to call off the plan. Afterwards, Bond dives after the submarine, and boards it. Once onboard, Bond has a brief battle with Renard's men and, in the confusion, causes the submarine to dive rather than surface. The submarine hits bottom, driving its nose into the sea floor and causing its hull to crack. Bond catches up to Renard, who is busy shoving the tip of a plutonium rod into the reactor. Bond hoists himself up to the pressure release, then reconnects the pressure hose and causes the reactor to backfire, impaling Renard with the rod. Bond and Jones escape using a torpedo tube, leaving the flooded reactor to detonate safely underwater. That evening, Bond and Jones enjoy some champagne and intimate time together in Istanbul. M, along with the new Q (John Cleese) and others in the Secret Service, spot the two of them in bed together with a thermal imaging camera.

By Richard Moody

For Desmond Llewellyn (1914 -1999)

Bon Scott Of AC/DC (1946 - 1980) 30th Anniversary

2010-02-19T08:03:00.000-08:00

Youth

Ronald Belford Scott was born on 9 July 1946 at the Fyfe Jamieson Maternity Hospital, Forfar, Scotland to Charles and Isabelle Scott, and grew up in Kirriemuir. A younger brother Derek was born in 1949. The Scott family emigrated from Scotland to Australia in 1952 where they initially lived in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine. It was at Sunshine Primary School that he received his nickname; there was already a classmate with the name Ronald and as he had recently arrived from Bonnie Scotland he was dubbed "Bon" and the name stuck. A second brother, Graeme, was born in 1953.In 1956, the family moved to Fremantle, Western Australia and Bon joined the associated Fremantle Scots Pipe Band, learning the drums. He dropped out of school at the age of 15 and spent a short time in Fremantle Prison's assessment centre and nine months at the Riverbank Juvenile Institution relating to charges of giving a false name and address to the police, having escaped legal custody, having unlawful carnal knowledge and stealing twelve gallons of petrol. He attempted to join the Australian Army but was rejected for being deemed as "socially maladjusted."

Early Career

After working as a postman, bartender and truck packer, Scott started his first band, The Spektors, in 1964 as drummer and occasional lead singer. Two years later the Spektors merged with another local band, The Winstons, and formed The Valentines, in which Scott was co-lead singer with Vince Lovegrove. The Valentines recorded several songs written by George Young of The Easybeats including "Every Day I Have to Cry" which made the local top 5. In 1970, after gaining a place on the National Top 30 with their single "Juliette", the Valentines disbanded due to artistic differences after a much-publicised drug scandal. Scott moved to Adelaide in 1970 and joined the progressive rock band Fraternity. Fraternity released the LPs Livestock and Flaming Galah before touring the U.K. in 1971, where they changed their name to "Fang". During this time they played support slots for Status Quo and Geordie, whose front man, Brian Johnson, became the lead singer of AC/DC after Scott's death. In 1973, just after returning to Australia from another tour of the UK, Fraternity went on hiatus. In this period, Scott began singing in a band named "Mount Lofty Rangers" which was formed by other ex-Fraternity members. However, after leaving a rehearsal with Mount Lofty Rangers, Scott suffered serious injuries from a motorcycle accident and subsequently left the band. Fraternity however, later reformed and replaced Scott with Jimmy Barnes.

With AC/DC

In 1974 Scott was working as a driver and general hand in Adelaide. He then met the touring members of AC/DC, including brothers Angus and Malcolm Young. At that time, AC/DC's lead singer was Dave Evans, but soon the Young brothers decided that Evans was not a suitable frontman for the group as they felt he was more of a glam rocker like Gary Glitter. Scott, who had become the band's driver, expressed an interest in becoming their drummer, but the band kept telling him they didn't need a drummer, they needed a singer. Bon Scott replaced Dave Evans as the lead singer of AC/DC in September 1974. With the Young brothers as lead and rhythm guitarists, drummer Tony Currenti (see AC/DC lineups) and George Young as a temporary bassist, AC/DC released High Voltage, their first LP in Australia in February 1975. Within a few months Currenti was replaced by Phil Rudd and Mark Evans was hired as a permanent bassist, and AC/DC began recording their second album T.N.T., which was released in Australia in December 1975. The first AC/DC album to gain international distribution however was a compilation of tracks from the first two albums, also entitled High Voltage, which was released in May 1976. Another studio album, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap was released in the same year, but only in Australia; the international version of the album was released in November 1976 in the U.K. and in March 1981 in the U.S., with a different tracklisting. In the following years, AC/DC gained further success with their albums Let There Be Rock and Powerage. The 1978 release of Powerage marked the debut of bassist Cliff Williams (who had replaced Mark Evans), and with its harder riffs, followed the blueprint set by Let There Be Rock. The album was the last produced by Harry Vanda and George Young with Bon Scott on vocals and is claimed to be AC/DC's most underrated album. Only one single was released for Powerage — "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation" — and gave AC/DC their highest chart position at the time, reaching #24. An appearance at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow during the Powerage tour was recorded and released as If You Want Blood You've Got It. The band's sixth album, Highway To Hell, was produced by Robert "Mutt" Lange and was released in 1979. It became AC/DC's first LP to break the U.S. top 100, eventually reaching #17, and it propelled AC/DC into the top ranks of hard rock acts.

Death

On 19 February 1980, Bon Scott, 33 at the time, passed out after a night of heavy drinking in a London club called the Music Machine (hosted at the Camden Palace, currently known as the KOKO). He was left to sleep in a car owned by an acquaintance named Alistair Kinnear, at 67 Overhill Road in East Dulwich, South London. The following afternoon, Kinnear found Scott lifeless, and alerted the authorities. Scott was rushed to King's College Hospital in Camberwell, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Pulmonary aspiration of vomit was the cause of Scott's death, and the official cause was listed as "acute alcohol poisoning" and "death by misadventure". Scott was cremated and his ashes were interred by his family in Fremantle, Western Australia, the city to which they had moved when he was six. Inconsistencies in media accounts of Scott's death (incorrect spelling of Alistair Kinnear's first name, amongst others) have been cited in conspiracy theories, which suggest that Scott died of a heroin overdose, or was killed by exhaust fumes redirected into the car, or that Kinnear did not exist. Additionally, Scott was asthmatic, and the temperature was below freezing on the morning of his death. Ozzy Osbourne states in the documentary Don't Blame Me that Scott actually died of hypothermia. The coroner had no such doubts based on the medical facts. Shortly after Scott's death, the remaining members of AC/DC briefly considered quitting. However, it was eventually decided that Scott would have wanted them to continue and, after the blessings of Bon's family, the band hired Brian Johnson as the new vocalist. Angus Young stated in an interview with VH1 that Scott's mother, whom all the band members personally knew, heartily approved of the band continuing, and felt that it was the only way to properly remember her son and their bandmate. Five months after Scott's death, AC/DC recorded Back in Black as a tribute to him with two tracks from the album, "Hells Bells" and "Back in Black", dedicated to his memory. The French rock band Trust wrote their hit song "Ton dernier acte" ("Your last act") in memory of Scott in 1980. Ozzy dedicated "Suicide Solution" to him. This song is known for alleged subliminal messages about suicide, but Ozzy stated it was only a tribute to the singer. Scott's ashes were interred in Fremantle Cemetery and his grave site has become a cultural landmark; more than 28 years after Scott's death, the National Trust of Australia decreed his grave important enough to be included on the list of classified heritage places. It is reportedly the most visited grave in Australia. On 9 July 2006, the plaque was stolen from the site.

By Richard Moody

Year Of The Tiger 8.02.2010 By Group 1

2010-02-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

By Richard, Nadeem, Akua & Luke

Richard Moody's Favorite Childhood TV Shows

2010-01-16T09:45:00.001-08:00

1. The Addams Family (1964): The Addamses are a close-knit extended family with decidedly macabre interests. They all have supernatural abilities, although no rationale for their powers is ever explicitly given.The very wealthy, endlessly enthusiastic Gomez Addams is madly in love with his refined wife Morticia. Along with their two children, Wednesday and Pugsley, Uncle Fester and Grandmama, they reside in an ornate, gloomy, Second Empire style mansion, attended by their servants, Lurch, the towering butler, and Thing, a hand that usually appears out of a small wooden box. Occasionally, episodes would feature relatives or other members of their weird subculture, such as Cousin Itt or Morticia's older sister, Ophelia. Much of the humor derives from their "culture clash" with the rest of the world. They invariably treat normal visitors with great warmth and courtesy, even though their guests often have evil intentions. They are puzzled by the horrified reactions to their good-natured, if extremely bizarre behavior, since they are under the impression that their tastes are shared by most of society. Contrarily, they view "conventional" tastes with generally tolerant suspicion. For example, Fester once cites a neighboring family's meticulously maintained petunia patches as evidence that they are "nothing but riff-raff."The tone was set by series producer Nat Perrin, close friend of Groucho Marx and writer of several Marx Brothers films. Perrin created story ideas, directed one episode, and rewrote every script. Much of the dialog is his (albeit uncredited). As a result, Gomez, with his sardonic remarks, backwards logic, and ever-present cigar (pulled from his breast pocket already lit), has been frequently compared to Groucho Marx. In addition, the series often employed the same type of zany satire and screwball humor seen in the Marx Brothers films. It lampooned politics ("Gomez, The Politician" and "Gomez, The People's Choice"), the legal system ("The Addams Family in Court"), Beatlemania ("Lurch, The Teenage Idol"), and Hollywood ("My Fair Cousin Itt").

2. Bewitched (1964): A young-looking witch named Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) meets and marries a mortal named Darrin Stephens (originally Dick York, later Dick Sargent). While Samantha pledges to forsake her powers and become a typical suburban housewife, her magical family disapproves of the mixed marriage and frequently interferes in the couple's lives. Episodes often begin with Darrin becoming the victim of a spell, the effects of which wreak havoc with mortals such as his boss, clients, parents, and neighbors. By the epilogue, however, Darrin and Samantha most often embrace and confound the devious elements that failed to separate them. The female witches have names ending with the soft "-a" sound (with one exception, "Elspeth," in season 4 episode 15). Their male counterparts are known as "warlocks." The witches and warlocks are very long lived; while Samantha appears to be in her twenties, many episodes suggest she is actually hundreds of years old. To keep their society secret, witches avoid showing their powers in front of mortals other than Darrin. Nevertheless, the perplexing unexplainable effects of their spells and Samantha's attempts to hide their supernatural origin from mortals drive the plot of most episodes. Witches and warlocks usually use physical gestures along with their magical spells, and sometimes spoken incantations. Most notably, Samantha often "twitches" her nose to perform a spell. Modest but effective special visual effects are accompanied by music to highlight the magic.

By Richard Moody, Tanya Ross & Greg Ross

3. The Muppet Show (1976): Since 1969, Sesame Street had given Jim Henson's creations exposure; however, Henson began to perceive that he was pigeonholed as a children's entertainer. He sought to create a program that could be enjoyed by young and old. Two specials were produced and aired that are considered pilots for The Muppet Show. Neither led to the sale of a prime-time network series. However, the prime-time access rule had just been enacted, which took the 7:30 to 8pm ET slot from the networks and turned it over to their affiliates. CBS suggested it would be interested in Henson's proposal as a syndicated series it could purchase for its owned-and-operated stations, to run one night a week in that time slot.Lew Grade, head of the British commercial station ATV, offered a deal to Henson that would see his show produced at the ATV studios in Elstree, England. ATV would network the show to other ITV stations in the United Kingdom, and its distribution arm, ITC Entertainment, would sell the show in the United States and around the world. Henson put aside his misgivings about syndication and accepted.At first, signing guests was a challenge and producers had to call on their personal contacts. The breakthrough was the appearance of the ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev. His appearance on such an unusual show generated such positive publicity that the series became one of the sought-after productions to appear in. The Muppet Show premiered in 1976 and finally, after five years and 120 episodes, it went off the air in 1981 because of Henson's desire to move on to other projects and the sale of ATV's Elstree studios.

By Scott Moody

Richard, James & Ben Favourite Paul Newman Films

2010-01-16T09:40:00.001-08:00

1. The Hustler (1961): Small-time pool hustler "Fast Eddie" Felson (Paul Newman) travels cross-country with his partner Charlie (Myron McCormick) to challenge the legendary player "Minnesota Fats" (Jackie Gleason). Arriving at Ames, Fats's home pool hall, Eddie declares he will win $10,000 that night. Fats arrives and he and Eddie agree to play for $200 a game. After initially falling behind, Eddie surges back to being $1,000 ahead, and suggests raising the bet to $1,000 a game; Fats agrees. He sends out a runner, Preacher (Stefan Gierasch) to Johnny's Bar, ostensibly for a bottle of whiskey, but really to get professional gambler Bert Gordon (George C. Scott) to the hall. Eddie gets ahead $11,000 and Charlie tries to convince him to quit, but Eddie insists the game will end only when Fats says it is over. Fats agrees to continue after Bert labels Eddie a "loser." After 25 hours and an entire bottle of bourbon, Eddie is ahead over $18,000, but loses it all along with all but $200 of his original stake. At their hotel later, Eddie leaves half of the remaining stake with a sleeping Charlie and leaves. Eddie stashes his belongings at the local bus terminal, where he meets Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie), an alcoholic "college girl" who walks with a limp. He meets her again at a bar. They go back to her place but she refuses to let him in, saying he is "too hungry." Eddie moves into a rooming house and starts hustling for small stakes. He finds Sarah again and this time she takes him in, but with reservations. Charlie finds Eddie at Sarah's and tries to persuade him to go back out on the road. Eddie refuses and Charlie figures out he plans to challenge Fats again. Eddie realizes that Charlie held out his percentage and becomes enraged, believing that with that money he could have rebounded to beat Fats. Eddie dismisses Charlie as a scared old man and tells him to "go lie down and die" by himself. At Johnny's Bar, Eddie finds a poker game where Bert is sitting and Eddie loses $20. After the game, Bert tells Eddie that he has talent as a pool player but no character. He figures that Eddie will need at least $3,000 to challenge Fats again. Bert calls him a "born loser" but nevertheless offers to stake Eddie in return for 75% of his winnings. Eddie refuses. Eddie hustles a local pool shark, who breaks Eddie's thumbs. Sarah cares for him and tells him she loves him, but he cannot say the words. When his thumbs heal, Eddie agrees to Bert's terms, deciding that a "twenty-five percent slice of something big is better than a hundred percent slice of nothing." Bert, Eddie and Sarah travel to Louisville, Kentucky for the Kentucky Derby, where Bert arranges a match for Eddie against a wealthy local socialite named Findley (Murray Hamilton). The game turns out to be billiards, not pool. Eddie loses badly and Bert refuses to keep staking him. Sarah pleads with Eddie to leave with her, saying that the world he is living in and its inhabitants are "perverted, twisted and crippled;" he refuses. Seeing Eddie's anger, Bert agrees to let the match continue at $1,000 a game. Eddie comes back to win $12,000. He collects his $3,000 share and decides to walk back to the hotel. Bert arrives first and subjects Sarah to a humiliating sexual encounter. After, she scrawls PERVERTED, TWISTED and CRIPPLED in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. Eddie arrives back at the hotel to learn that she has killed herself. Eddie returns to challenge Fats again, putting up his entire $3,000 stake on a single game. He wins game after game, beating Fats so badly that Fats is forced to quit. Bert demands a share of Eddie's winnings and threatens Eddie over the issue, but Eddie, invoking the memory of Sarah, shames Bert into giving up his claim. However, Bert warns Eddie never walk into a big-time pool hall again.

2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969): Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford), the leaders of the Hole in the Wall Gang, are planning another bank robbery. As they return to their hideout in Hole-in-the-Wall, they find out that the gang has selected a new leader, Harvey Logan (Ted Cassidy). He challenges Butch to a knife fight, which Butch wins, using a ruse. Although Logan is defeated, Butch quickly embraces Logan's idea to rob the Union Pacific Flyer twice, agreeing with Logan that the second robbery would be unexpected and likely to involve even more money than the first. The first robbery goes very well and the marshal of the next town (Kenneth Mars) cannot manage to raise a posse. Butch and Sundance listen to his attempts from mere yards away, enjoying themselves on the balcony of a nearby brothel. Sundance's lover, Etta Place (Katharine Ross), is introduced; both men vie for her attention as she also goes bike-riding with Butch during a dialogue-free musical interlude, accompanied by the Oscar-winning song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." The second robbery goes wrong. Not only does Butch use too much dynamite to blow the safe, but a second train arrives, which is carrying a posse that has been specially outfitted by E. H. Harriman to hunt Butch and Sundance. The gang flees in multiple directions, with the posse following Butch and Sundance. They try hiding in a brothel but are betrayed. They try riding double on a single horse in the hope that the posse will split up, but that fails. They then try to arrange an amnesty with the help of the friendly Sheriff Bledsoe (Jeff Corey). But he tells them they have no chance of getting one, and that they will be hunted down until they are killed by the posse. Still on the run the next day, they muse about the identities of their pursuers. They fixate on Lord Baltimore, a famous Indian tracker, and Joe Lefors, a tough, renowned lawman, recognized at a distance by his white skimmer, or straw hat. After reaching the summit of a mountain, they find themselves trapped on the edge of a canyon. They decide to jump into the river far below, even though Sundance cannot swim and would prefer to fight. Later they arrive at Etta's house and learn that the posse has been paid to stay together until they kill the two of them. They decide it is time to leave the country and head to Bolivia, a destination Cassidy had spoken about earlier. They head to New York, then board a passenger ship, eventually arriving by train in a small Bolivian village. Sundance already resents the choice. Their first attempted bank robbery stops before it gets off the ground, as they are unable to speak Spanish. Etta teaches them the words they need. Their next robbery is clumsily executed, as Butch still needs his cribsheet. After more robberies, the duo, now known as the Bandidos Yanquis, are sought by the authorities all over Bolivia. In spite of their success, their confidence drops one evening when they see a man wearing a white straw hat on the other side of the street, and fear that Lefors is once again after them. Butch suggests going straight, so as to not attract Lefors's attention. They get their first honest job as payroll guards in a mine, directed by an American named Garris (Strother Martin). However, on their first working day, they are attacked. Garris is killed, and Butch and Sundance are forced to kill the Bolivian robbers, the first time Butch kills anyone. They decide to return to robbery. That evening, Etta decides to leave them, sensing that their days may be numbered. A few days later, Butch and Sundance attack a payroll mule train in the jungle, taking the money and the mule. When they arrive in the nearest town San Vicente, a stable boy recognizes the brand on the mule's backside and alerts the local police. While Butch and Sundance are eating at a local eatery, the police arrive and a climactic gun battle begins scaring away the nearby people. The two of them find shelter in a nearby empty house, but they're soon low on ammunition. Butch makes a run to the mule to fetch the rest of the ammunition while Sundance provides cover fire, but during his return they are both wounded. While tending to their wounds in the house, about 100 soldiers of the Bolivian cavalry arrive and surround the place. The pair, unaware of the cavalry's arrival, discuss their next destination, with Butch pushing the English-speaking and wide-open continent of Australia. Butch tells Sundance that when they get outside and get to their horses to remember one thing. Before he can say it, Butch asks Sundance if he saw Lefors "out there". Sundance says that he did not and Butch replies "For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble." The film ends with a freeze frame sepia tone shot of the pair exiting the house firing their guns, while a voice is heard ordering: "¡Fuego!" (Spanish for "Fire!") accompanied by the sound of dozens of rifles being fired in three consecutive volleys.

3. The Sting (1973): (See Below)

The Players (0 min)

At the opening, after a 1930s-era Universal logo complete with bejeweled circling globe adorned with the text, "A Universal Picture," the movie credits the actors with extracts from the movie, in a style reminiscent of films from the 1930s.Johnny Hooker (Redford) is a small-time con man (a "grifter") from Depression-era Joliet, Illinois. Hooker and his accomplices Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones) and Joe Erie (Jack Kehoe) manage to swipe $11,000 in cash from an unsuspecting victim (a "mark"). In the wake of this apparent success, Luther tells Johnny that he's retiring from his life of crime and moving to Kansas City, Missouri to work in a "mostly legal" business with his brother-in-law. He advises Hooker to seek out an old friend, Henry Gondorff, in Chicago, who can teach him the art of the 'big con'.Unfortunately for the three con artists, the mark they robbed was a numbers racket courier named Mottola (James Sloyan), transporting the money to Chicago for crime boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw). Corrupt Joliet police Lieutenant William Snyder (Charles Durning) confronts Hooker, demanding a $2,000 cut of the $11,000 and revealing Lonnegan's involvement. Realizing that he and his partners are in danger, Hooker pays Snyder in counterfeit bills, having already spent and gambled away all of his share of the money. Hooker goes to warn Coleman, but he arrives too late to save him from Lonnegan's hit men. With nowhere else to turn, Hooker flees to Chicago to ask Gondorff for help in avenging Coleman's murder. Note: The film is divided into seven sections, each introduced with a title card accompanied by music. The titles are used to structure this synopsis.

The Set-Up (24th min)

Gondorff (Paul Newman) is a seemingly broken-down con artist on the run from the FBI, living in the back of an amusement park that doubles as a tavern and brothel. He's initially reluctant to take on Lonnegan because "revenge is for suckers," and also because the New York gangster/banker has a reputation for ruthlessly killing his enemies. Gondorff nevertheless agrees to help Hooker run a sting on Lonnegan, since he's touched when Hooker says that he'll take Lonnegan on anyway "because I don't know enough about killin' to kill him." Since Lonnegan is a shrewd man of few vices ("Doesn't drink, doesn't smoke and doesn't chase dames") and won't be taken in by a simple confidence scheme (he is a banker and knows the market), Henry resurrects an elaborate ruse that involves casting Hooker as the inside man in an off-track betting scam known as "the wire." The con men believe that this is ideal, since "the wire" is considered an out-of-date scam, and therefore unlikely to be recognized. A large number of con artists are required to create the atmosphere of the betting parlor; they are recruited from the drinking den of Duke Boudreau (played by Jack Collins), where they congregate.

The Hook (40th min)

First, Gondorff's lover and partner in crime, Billie (Eileen Brennan), picks Lonnegan's wallet aboard the famous 20th Century Limited train en route from New York to Chicago. Gondorff poses as boorish Chicago bookie "Shaw" and buys his way into Lonnegan's private high-stakes poker game on the train with the latter's own money. He bursts into the game late, feigning drunkenness and insulting and taunting the other players. Gondorff, a cardsharp, and brilliant cheater, wins the first few hands and, through "Shaw"'s obnoxious behavior, goads Lonnegan into cheating with a cold deck to "bust that bastard bookie in one play." Anticipating this, Gondorf out-cheats a shocked Lonnegan, who loses $15,000 in a single hand and, without his wallet, cannot immediately pay the debt. Surrounded by a table full of upper-crust (and purportedly legitimate) business magnates, Lonnegan cannot call Gondorff on his cheating, since he only knew Gondorff cheated because he cheated as well.Gondorff tells Lonnegan that he will "send a boy" to his room to collect the money, who turns out to be Hooker, posing as a disgruntled employee of Shaw's, and calling himself "Kelly."

The Tale (67th min)

"Kelly" plays on Lonnegan's desire for revenge by asking for his help to break Shaw and take over his business. Johnny convinces Lonnegan that he has a partner in the Chicago Western Union office (portrayed at a meeting by "Kid Twist," played by Harold Gould), and that he can use this connection to win large sums of money in Shaw's off-track betting (OTB) establishment by past-posting. All of this, including the OTB parlor itself, is really an immense hoax crafted solely for hoodwinking Lonnegan: the supposed play-by-play comes from a surplus tickertape wire, which an accomplice in the back ("J.J.," played by Ray Walston) reads into a microphone to make it sound as if it were live on the radio; meanwhile, Erie manages to prove his own worth as a con man, posing as a regular gambler to help convince Lonnegan of the reality of the place. Lonnegan's "tip" horse wins, of course, and Hooker and Gondorff hope that it convinces Lonnegan to bet a large amount on his next attempt, but Lonnegan is cautious, and "wants to see it again", resulting in "The Shut Out", below, on his second attempt.

The Wire (83rd min)

In addition to luring Lonnegan into this con (as Kelly), and eluding the assassins Lonnegan has sent to kill him (as Hooker), Johnny must continually avoid Snyder, who has followed him to Chicago, looking for either his cut of the original $11,000 or revenge on Hooker for cheating him. Snyder's efforts are derailed when FBI agents make their presence known to him and Hooker. Snyder is brought into a warehouse serving as a front for FBI operations. Special agent Polk is discussing strategy with another agent in the foreground, heard plainly by the film audience though not necessarily by Snyder at first. Snyder observes while special agent Polk coerces Hooker into helping them capture Gondorff (by threatening to arrest and prosecute Luther's widow), but agrees to let the con be completed first. Snyder is to be part of that operation also.

The Shut-Out (93rd min)

Meanwhile, Hooker begins a romance with a local waitress named Loretta. Unbeknownst to Hooker, Lonnegan has grown frustrated with his men's inability to find and kill Hooker, so he arranges for a professional killer, "Salino," to finish the job. (Not having previously met Hooker, Lonnegan is unaware that Hooker and "Kelly" are the same person). A mysterious figure with black leather gloves is soon seen following and observing Hooker. The title of this act comes from "shutting out" Lonnegan from the betting window when he intends to place a bet much bigger than the phony wire set-up can cover, so the window is closed as the race begins, just as Lonnegan is stepping up to bet. His intended horse does "win", however, further convincing him of the effectiveness of the method.

The Sting (112th min)

All the pieces of the elaborate puzzle come together on the morning of the sting that is planned to swindle Lonnegan. Various players are seen making preparations for the day. Then the action begins:‎
• After Hooker spends the night with Loretta, he wakes up alone and begins walking to work. He sees Loretta coming toward him, but not the black-gloved man behind him, aiming a gun in his direction. The bullet hits Loretta in the forehead and kills her instantly. It turns out that the hired killer was "Loretta Salino", who was carrying a concealed gun and preparing to kill Hooker at that moment. The gloved man, hired by Gondorff to protect Hooker, drives him to work. The reason Loretta had not killed him in her room is that the nosy old lady next door had seen Hooker go into her room.
• After getting word from Kid Twist to "place it" on a particular horse, Lonnegan brings a briefcase containing a half-million dollars to bet on the horse to win. Lonnegan/Gondorff argues that the bet is too large, for which Lonnegan calls him a "gutless cheat." Shaw/Gondorff, feigning stung pride, accepts the bet.
• Kid Twist (in his Western Union persona) arrives and quietly asks Lonnegan how it's going. Lonnegan smugly informs him that he has a half-million on the horse to win. Kid Twist feigns shock and tells him he was supposed to bet on the horse to "place", as it's going to finish second. The panicked Lonnegan rushes to the window and demands his money back from mild-mannered con man "Fast Eddie" Niles (played by John Heffernan), who argues that, as the race has (supposedly) begun, it is against the rules.
• Just then the FBI and Snyder burst in and order everyone to freeze. In the noise and the chaos, Polk steps up to Shaw/Gondorff and quietly (compared with the ambient noise in the room) says, "Hello, Henry — it's been a long time."
• Polk then gestures to Hooker and says, "You can go," revealing to all that Hooker had betrayed Gondorff to the FBI. Hooker starts walking toward the door, but Gondorff pulls a gun and shoots him in the back; Polk then shoots Gondorff in the gut and orders Snyder to get Lonnegan out of there. Lonnegan realizes that, for the sake of his reputation, he can't be involved in this incident, but he's conflicted, because he's left a half-million dollars inside, as he tries to explain to Snyder while the detective whisks him away.
• With Lonnegan and Snyder safely away, Polk leans over Hooker's body and says, "He's gone!" Hooker opens his eyes and gets up, as does Gondorff, to the cheers and laughter of the rest of the group. Not only have Lonnegan and Snyder been "stung", so has the film audience. Gondorff expresses as much as "Polk" helps him up: "Nice con, Hickey. I thought you were Feds myself, when you first came in." Hooker and Gondorff then proceed to nonchalantly walk out of the alley way, as the rest of the players and members of the Sting strip the room of its contents before Snyder and/or Lonnegan and his men can come back to retrieve the money.
• As Hooker leaves, Gondorff offers him his share of the take. Hooker refuses, saying "Na, I'd only blow it".

4. The Color of Money (1986): In the book version of the sequel, Felson is no longer a professional pool player, but now owns a pool hall. He takes up a cue again to go on tour versus Minnesota Fats -- the fictional character from The Hustler, not the real-life Rudolph "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone -- for a cable TV sports show. Eddie finds he must cope with becoming skilled at the now-prevalent game of nine-ball, as opposed to straight pool, which he had mastered decades earlier. While losing to Fats, he regains some of his lost competitiveness and pride. In the film version, Felson is a liquor salesman. He misses the action and goes back on the road as a stakehorse for a skilled but unfocused protégé, Vincent, travelling with the latter's manipulative girlfriend, Carmen. Eddie teaches them how to hustle significant amounts of money. But he also becomes increasingly frustrated with them and with himself, until an explosive falling-out results in a parting of the ways. Eddie resumes competitive play himself, first hustling on "the road" and later in the professional tournament circuit, eventually coming head-to-head across the table with the now-successful (and far more treacherous) Vincent. Eddie wins their match, only to find out that Vincent lost deliberately, having had money riding against himself. Vincent gives Eddie $8,000 as a cut from the bet. Eddie procedes to forfeit his next match and give the money back to Vincent. He requests a private rematch, but states that if he doesn't beat Vincent now, he will in the future because, after all, "I'm back." Subplots involve antagonism with a cocaine-abusing pool hustler named Julian; an up-and-down romance Eddie is having with a bar owner, Janelle, and sexual tension between Carmen and Eddie. Only minor references are made to the original movie (a returned character, Eddie's nickname, his formerly being shut out of the pool-hustling sphere, his preferred brand of whiskey, J.T.S. Brown, etc.), and Fats is not mentioned in the story.

By Richard Moody, James Conlon & Ben Lindley

Richard Moody's Mixture Of Favorite Movies

2010-01-16T09:36:00.000-08:00

1. The Emperor’s New Groove (2000): Kuzco (David Spade) is the self-centered teenaged emperor of a mountainous jungle nation. One day, he summons Pacha (John Goodman), the headman of a nearby village, to inform him that he is building his summer home, Kuzcotopia, on the site of Pacha's home. Pacha attempts to protest, and is dismissed. Kuzco's ancient, power-hungry advisor Yzma (Eartha Kitt) and her easily-distracted lackey Kronk (Patrick Warburton) then attempt to poison Kuzco so that she can take control of the empire. However, the attempt is flawed, as the supposed poison turns out to be a potion which turns Kuzco into a llama. After knocking Kuzco unconscious, Yzma orders Kronk to dispose of him, but conscience-stricken Kronk loses the sack holding Kuzco. Kuzco ends up in Pacha's village, and after discovering that he has been changed, demands that Pacha help him return to the palace. Rebuffed, Kuzco attempts to return on his own and ends up surrounded by a pack of jaguars, only to be saved when Pacha has a change of heart. Pacha offers a deal to Kuzco—that he will help Kuzco if Kuzco will build his summer home elsewhere; Kuzco pretends to agree but only truly begins to change after the pair of them must work together to survive the collapse of a rope bridge. Yzma assumes command of the nation, but when Kronk reveals he never killed Kuzco, the two search the jungle for him. Kuzco, Pacha, Yzma, and Kronk finally arrive at the same roadside diner, where Kuzco is glad to see Yzma until he overhears that she is out to kill him. He and Pacha realize the only way to prevent this is to return to Yzma's laboratory and find a potion to return Kuzco to normal. A race between Kuzco, Pacha, Yzma and Kronk begins, with the latter pairing finally getting hit by lightning and falling into a chasm. Kuzco and Pacha arrive at the laboratory but find, inexplicably, that their pursuers somehow got there first. Kronk changes sides after a vicious tongue-lashing from Yzma, and gets dropped down a trapdoor. Yzma summons the palace guards, forcing Kuzco and Pacha to grab all of the transformation potions they can and flee. After trying several formulas that convert Kuzco to other animals, and then back to a llama, they escape the guards (but not Yzma) and find they are down to only two vials. Yzma accidentally steps on one of the two, turning herself into a tiny kitten. She still almost manages to obtain the antidote, but is thwarted by the sudden reappearance of Kronk. Kuzco becomes human again and sets out to redeem himself, building Kuzcotopia on the hill next to Pacha's home. Meanwhile, outdoorsman Kronk becomes a scout leader, with kitten-Yzma forced to be a member of the troop

2. Dinosaur (2000): The film revolves around the life of an Iguanodon named Aladar who is taken from his nest as an egg and after a long and precarious flight via a Pteranodon, his egg lands on Lemur Island where he is adopted by the family of lemurs; consisting of Plio, her father Yar, and her son, Zini. Years on, Plio has had a daughter named Suri and the family takes part in mating season which Zini fails to accomplish and goes without a mate. Moments after the mating season ends, a huge meteorite destroys the island and leaves only Aladar and his closest family members alive. The family move on and come across a herd of various dinosaurs, led by igunandon Kron and his lieutenant Bruton. Other herd members include elderly Brachiosaurus Baylene, Styracosaurus Eema, dog-like Ankylosaurus Url, and Kron's younger sister Neera.
Aladar and the lemurs accompany the herd across a desert to reach a nearby breeding ground the herd has visited before. However, they are stalked by Velociraptors and later Carnotaurus, referred to as "Carnotaurs" in the film. The herd stops at a lake that appears to be dried up, but the water is revealed to be underground, by Aladar hearing it underneath because he had been trying to get Baylene and Eema across. Carnotaurs attack, sending the herd into a panicked flurry. Aladar, the lemurs, Eema, Baylene, Url and Bruton are all left behind and regroup in a series of caves. The Carnotaurs attack them, but Bruton sacrifices himself to allow the others to flee, one of the Carnotaurs killed in the process. The group flee to the back of the caverns, then smash down a wall to reveal a path straight into the breeding ground. Eema spots that the usual entrance has been blocked off, prompting Aladar to find Kron and the rest of the herd. Kron, Neera and the herd are on the other side of the blocked off entrance, Kron ordering that the herd climb impossibly over the wall. Aladar arrives and suggests the route through the caves due to a sheer drop on the other side that would kill the herd, which Kron objects to and accuses Aladar of stealing his role as leader. The two fight until Neera steps in and defends Aladar, deciding to go with him and the herd through his route. The surviving Carnotaur appears, causing the herd to go into a panic. Aladar convinces the herd that the only way they can survive is by standing together. They fend off the Carnotaur and get past it, but the Carnotaur then notices Kron, who had refused to follow Aladar, and decided he would climb the wall to get to the nesting grounds. The Carnotaur begins to chase Kron down. Neera notices this, and rushes to try to aid her brother, soon followed by Aladar. In the fight that ensues, Kron is fatally wounded by the Carnotaur. Aladar forces the Carnotaur onto a cliff edge that collapses, sending it plummeting to its death. Neera comes to Kron but it is too late. The herd reaches the breeding ground, led by Aladar. Aladar and Neera have children as well as the rest of the herd, and the lemurs find more of their kind.

3. Bedazzled (2000): Elliot Richards (Brendan Fraser) is a geeky and overeager young man working a dead-end job in a San Francisco call-center. He has no real friends, other than his co-workers who manipulate him for their own amusement, knowing he'll do anything for acceptance. He has a crush on his colleague, Alison Gardner (Frances O'Connor), but lacks the courage to ask her out. After Elliot is ditched at a bar while trying to talk to Alison, he says that he would give anything for Alison to be with him. Satan (Elizabeth Hurley), in the form of a beautiful woman, hears this wish and offers Elliot a contract. She will give Elliot seven wishes, and in return Elliot will give her his soul. As might be expected of a bargain with Satan, there is a catch to the deal. No matter what Elliot asks for himself, Satan grants each of his wishes, but each time also giving him something he didn't ask for.

• As a test wish, he wishes for a McDonalds Big Mac and a Coke. Satan takes him to McDonalds and places the order on his behalf. Elliot has to pay for it, because as the saying goes, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch." After taking Elliott to her nightclub in Oakland in her black Lamborghini Diablo, Satan gets Elliott to sign her substantial contract, and delivers his further wishes:
• As his first wish, he wishes to be rich and powerful, with Alison as his wife. Satan makes him a Colombian Drug Lord whose wife despises him and is having an affair with her language tutor Raoul who was secretly working with Elliot's business partners to take Elliot's place in business. Satan points out that he never wished for Alison to be in love with him.
• Secondly, he wishes to be emotionally sensitive, but Satan deliberately makes him so sensitive he spends much of his time crying at how beautiful the world is. Alison then contradicts herself and says she wants to be with a man who is strong and shallow and soon leaves Elliot for another man which is strong, rude and completely different from romantic and emotionally sensitive Elliot.
• For the third wish, wishes to be a superstar athlete who would be a magnet for girls. Satan makes him an unstoppable seven-foot-plus tall basketball star, but also gives him an extremely small penis and equally low IQ (as evidenced by a limited vocabulary), which causes Alison to lose interest in him.
• As his fourth wish, he wishes to be intelligent, witty and well-endowed. Satan grants this by making him a famous writer with whom Alison immediately falls in love. When they arrive to Elliot's place to make love it is revealed that Elliot is actually gay, living with a male partner.
• Lastly, he wishes to be President of the United States to try to do the world some good. Satan, however, makes him Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre on the night of his assassination.

In each wish, his co-workers are his nemeses, thwarting each one.

After each wish is renounced (by dialing 666 on a pager), Elliot returns for a meeting with Satan in which she blames him for not being specific enough in his desires and prompts him to try again. These meetings take place in a variety of locations, with Satan each time in a different role, in which she carries out a variety of everyday evil acts - dismissing a class full of students from their lesson without any homework other than to remember not to take any interest in being educated, swapping the medication on a hospital trolley for candy (although she explains that those were placebos), forcing parking meters to expire, and writing tickets for parked cars. The roles she plays (teacher, nurse, police officer, cheerleader) can be viewed as objects of typical male sexual fantasies. In one of the deleted scenes she also wears a French maid outfit. Eventually he goes back to work, taking time to think on what would be best to do with the two last wishes. Appearing to him once more, Satan points out that on their first meeting he asked for a Big Mac and Coke, although she explicitly stated earlier on that it was a mere test wish and did not count. This counts against his total, leaving just one wish remaining. Elliot finally loses patience with Satan and storms out of his office. He visits a church looking for God's help, where he briefly confesses to a priest who seems sympathetic. However the priest, upon being asked whether he thinks asking Satan for a Big Mac and Coke counts as a wish, has Elliot arrested. The sergeant decides to book him, and Satan, now dressed as a police officer, throws him in a cell, telling him that she really does like him, and it wouldn't hurt to have her as a friend. In prison, Elliot's cellmate (Gabriel Casseus, as an angel) tells him that he cannot possibly sell his soul as it belongs to God, "that universal spirit that animates and binds all things in existence" and although Satan may try to confuse him, in the end he will realise who he truly is, and what his purpose is. Mistakes are to be expected, but with an open heart and mind, eventually he'll get it right. Elliot questions the man as to his identity, but the response is simply "a really good friend". Elliot returns to Satan and asks her to cancel their contract. When Satan refuses, Elliot states that he will not use up his final wish. Satan angrily teleports both Elliot and herself to her domain, Hell, where she transforms first into a black horned monster, then into an enormous giantess, who is much bigger than the terrified Elliot in comparison. When Satan pushes him to make a final wish, Elliot blurts out that he wishes that Alison could have a happy life. Satan heavily sighs and Elliot falls into the depths of Hell. Elliot wakes up on a marble staircase, wondering if it is Heaven. Satan tells him that it is merely a courthouse and that, by the terms of his contract, a selfless wish voids the entire deal, so he gets to keep his soul. Before they part ways Elliott admits that despite her manipulation of him he has come to like Satan and regards her as a best friend, something she does not object to. She simply says that Heaven and Hell can be found on Earth; it is up to humans to choose. Elliot finally approaches Alison directly and asks her out, only to find that she is already dating somebody. He accepts this with good grace and continues with his life, but with a better understanding of who he is and renewed confidence. Later he is confronted by Bob, one of his "friends" at the office, who makes fun of his former attempts to be cool. Elliot finally loses his temper and grabs Bob by the shirt, but lets him go, simply saying "Nice talking to you." A threatening look sends his other coworkers scurrying. At home, he soon meets a new neighbor, Nicole Delarusso, with a striking resemblance to Alison personality traits and dressing styles similar to his. He offers to help her unpack and they presumably begin a relationship (though it is hinted that this is Satan's doing). While the two are walking along the boulevard, Satan and the cellmate, both dressed in white, are seen playing a friendly game of chess (Satan, true to form, tries to change the pieces while the man watches Elliot and Nicole), confirming some kind of bond between the two. The movie closes to the lyrics of "Change Your Mind" by Sister Hazel, and reveals that Elliot 'drinks from the carton', and Nicole 'hogs the covers'.

4. The Flintsones: Viva Rock Vegas (2000): Fred Flintstone (Mark Addy) and Barney Rubble (Baldwin) share a trailer while trying (unsuccessfully) to find girlfriends. They meet a little green alien called the Great Gazoo, who was exiled to Earth by his species in order to study the human mating and reproduction cycle (his own people reproduce asexually). Gazoo, whom only Fred and Barney can see, decides to follow Fred and Barney to gather information, even though his superior knowledge and personality annoys them. Wilma, meanwhile, is living in a mansion with her wealthy parents. Her control-freak mother, Pearl, thinks that her daughter's wish to do common things such as bowling are silly and wants her to marry rich smooth casino-owner Chip Rockfeller. After a fight with her mother, Wilma angrily storms out of the house and goes to a Bronto Burger King in Bedrock, where she is waited on by Betty. Betty mistakenly thinks that Wilma is a "caveless" person and offers to share her apartment with her. Wilma is also given a job at the restaurant. When Fred and Barney go to the restaurant for dinner, they are smitten with the girls and manage to talk them into going to a carnival with them. Fred goes with Betty and Barney goes with Wilma, but they later exchange girls. Wilma later takes Fred, Barney, and Betty to her father's birthday party, where Fred intends on proposing to Wilma. Once they get there, they are all shocked to find out that Wilma comes from a very wealthy family, when they all thought that she was poor, and Fred changes his mind about proposing to her after he meets Chip and realizes what he is up against. Fred and Barney humiliate themselves and Wilma at the dinner, but Wilma tells everyone that she is proud to be friends with them and they walk out of the mansion. Chip, however, devises a plan to get Wilma back by inviting the foursome to stay at his resort in Rock Vegas, believing that Fred will become caught up in gambling and Wilma will leave him. The four of them enjoy the start of their trip. Chip gives them a huge comfortable suite at his resort, and access to the pool, and spa treatment for Wilma and Betty. Fred decides to start gambling, but never bets any high amount. Chip and his girlfriend Roxie are visited by two men who reveal that Chip owes their boss a lot of money. Chip tells them that he will soon be married to Wilma and will use her family's money to pay off his debt, and Gazoo witnesses the entire conversation. Chip then invites Fred to play poker with the high rollers, and make more money, but Barney tries to prevent Fred from agreeing. Chip then tells Barney about the All-You-Can Eat buffet, and gets Roxie to seduce him into escorting her there. Fred gets caught up in gambling that he forgets that he and Barney were supposed to meet Wilma and Betty for dinner. While looking for Barney, Betty sees him wiping cream off of Roxie's chest and mistakenly believes he is touching her breast. She begins crying by a fountain and is approached by Mick Jagged, who is attracted to her. She tells him that her boyfriend was cheating on her and he comforts her, then invites her to go out on a date with him, which she accepts. Fred and Wilma get into an argument over Fred's obsession with gambling and Wilma breaks up with him. Chip then arranges to have Fred lose all of the money he won so he will be left with nothing. Wilma is walking around the resort and runs into Chip and she tells him about her breakup with Fred. He then tells her that there have been burglaries around the hotel and keeps her pearls in a safe. Fred, who has lost all his money, goes to Chip for help, and Chip puts Wilma's pearls in Fred's pocket. He then announces to the entire resort that someone has stolen the pearls, and tells Fred to empty his pockets, and shows all of the guests that Fred has the pearls. Security comes to arrest Fred and Barney as well when he tries to help Fred. Wilma and Chip get back together. While in prison, Fred and Barney are visited by Gazoo, who tells them about Chip's plan to use Wilma's wealth to pay his debt. Then once they think that they can not stop him, they realize that Barney can slip through the bars and he steals the guard's keys and unlocks the cell. The two disguise themselves as dancers and accidentally run into Jagged's dressing room and see Betty. Barney tells Betty he loves her, and they get back together. Chip proposes to Wilma just as Jagged comes on stage to sing, but once he turns around, it is revealed to be Fred. He sings to Wilma, and she realizes that she still loves him. He comes off stage and confesses his love for her and proposes to her. She rejects Chip and agrees to marry Fred. Fred and Wilma get married in the Rock Vegas Chapel of Love. Mick Jagged sings "Viva Rock Vegas" at a party. Wilma throws back her bouquet of flowers and Betty catches it and looks at Barney with a smile on her face and they kiss.

5. The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000): In 1964 saw the cancellation of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and life became rather miserable and melancholy for Rocky (voiced by June Foray) and Bullwinkle (voiced by Keith Scott). Rocky lost his ability to fly, their home Frostbite Falls was thrown into a deforestation of environmental issues and the two received rather cheap paychecks for re-runs of their old show. Even the show's old narrator (voiced by Keith Scott) has been forced to move in with his mother (voiced by June Foray) where he narrates the events of his own life. However, for the old villains of the show, Fearless Leader, Boris Badenov (both voiced by Keith Scott) and Natasha Fatale (voiced by June Foray), things seem to be looking up for them. After the Iron Curtain literally falls on them, and their country of Pottsylvania is freed from their dictatorship, the villains dig underground, popping up in a television set in Phoney Picture Studios in Los Angeles where they goad an executive Minnie Mogel (Janeane Garofalo) into producing the new Rocky and Bullwinkle Movie. She signs a contract and pulls it out of the television, bringing the villains with it who become live action characters. Six months on, FBI Director Cappy Von Trapment (Randy Quaid) and bungling but beautiful agent Karen Sympathy (Piper Perabo) visit President Signoff (James Rebhorn) at the White House, showing him that every single block of American cable programming has been bought by Fearless Leader (portrayed by Robert De Niro) and formed into a single network called RBTV - or Really Bad Television. Cappy explains that the television programmes will be so terrible, that they can "zombify" the entire country and make them vote Fearless Leader as the new President of the United States. Cappy sends Karen to summon Rocky and Bullwinkle from the cartoon world to save the country. She succeeds using a special green lighthouse, which she uses to literally greenlight them, summoning Rocky, Bullwinkle and the unseen Narrator to the lighthouse, Rocky and Bullwinkle becoming CGI characters, and the Narrator somehow turns invisible (seeing as how he is not even seen when they spin inside the bulb of the lighthouse). The trio head out across the country to save the day, but Fearless Leader hears of their return from a literal mole in the White House and he sends Boris and Natasha (portrayed by Jason Alexander and Rene Russo) to stop them. Armed with a truck of typical cartoon weaponry and a laptop called the CDI (Computer Degenerating Imagery) that can destroy cartoon characters, Boris and Natasha try to defeat the heroes with a safe, sticks of dynamite and a cannon, but the heroes steal their truck. Luckily, the villains locate a helicopter and secretly follow the heroes. Natasha, impersonating Karen, warns the state troopers of Oklahoma of their stolen truck. A trooper (John Goodman) arrests Karen and takes her to a woman's prison. Rocky and Bullwinkle continue on their own. Both are picked up by Martin (Kel Mitchell) and Lewis (Kenan Thompson), two students at Wossamotta U., Bullwinkle's old university where he was a football player. Bullwinkle heads to his old university to receive an "Honorary Mooster's Degree" after Boris and Natasha sent the university's chairman a money paycheque in Bullwinkle's name. Rocky spots Boris on a recently built water tower trying to kill Bullwinkle using the CDI, but the squirrel's old flying ability kicks in and he saves Bullwinkle's life. The crowd gathered to protest against Bullwinkle's degree are distracted by Rocky's heroics and applauds, although Bullwinkle (who has been gasbagging this whole time) mistakes them for liking his speech. The two leave Wossamotta U. using Martin and Lewis' convertible. Karen escapes from jail by tricking a lovestruck Swedish prison guard named Ole (Rod Biermann), leaving him waiting for her at a cinema while she drives off in his pickup truck. Boris and Natasha pursue Rocky and Bullwinkle through the city streets of Chicago. Boris and Natasha accidentally degenerating their helicopter with the CDI causing Boris and Natasha to land on a travelling mattress salesman (Billy Crystal). However, they rent a car from the Cheap-O Rent A Car Company. Rocky, Bullwinkle and Karen coincidentally are reunited only to be arrested by a bunch of policemen and put on trial with Judge Cameo (Whoopi Goldberg) presiding. Bullwinkle acts the lawyer which doesn't go well for Karen. Upon recognizing Rocky and Bullwinkle when she puts on her glasses, Judge Cameo freaks out and dismisses the case claiming to the prosecutor that "celebrities are above the law." Later, the trio of heroes buy an old bi-plane from Old Jeb (Jonathan Winters) and head back to New York, Boris and Natasha's attempts to stop them are thwarted by the car company employees. The two consider giving up their job and think about getting married and having children. Fearless Leader calls them and they lie that they killed Rocky and Bullwinkle. The bi-plane the heroes are in begins to lose altitude due to too much weight. Rocky airlifts Karen to New York while Bullwinkle flies the bi-plane to Washington DC to address Signoff about the deforestation of Frostbite Falls. Rocky and Karen break into the RBTV headquarters but are captured when they try to stop Fearless Leader. They are soon turned into vegetables, something of which was done to three other FBI agents (portrayed by Mark Holton, Doug Jones, and Jane Edith Wilson) previously. Meanwhile at the White House Bullwinkle, whom is revealed that his stupidity is immune to RBTV's zombificaton, is e-mailed to the RBTV building by Cappy at the White House. As Fearless Leader broadcasts to the American public to try and make himself President, pandemonium breaks around him as Bullwinkle pops out of a computer and disrupts the signal of the Quality Control, the device that is zombifying the American public. Rocky and Karen are restored to normal and fight the villains, defeating Boris and Natasha easily while Bullwinkle charges upon Fearless Leader, defeating him too. Bullwinkle broadcasts to the country, asking them to vote for whoever they want and for the winning candidate to replant the trees in Frostbite Falls. Karen destroys the Quality Control, freeing the country. Bullwinkle messes with the CDI to send thanks to Cappy, zapping the villains, sending them to the Internet forever. In the end, President Signoff wins the election, RBTV becomes Rocky and Bullwinke Television, Karen goes out with Ole to the cinema where they watch the Rocky and Bullwinkle Movie produced by Minnie Mogul. The Narrator is reunited with his mother, and Rocky and Bullwinkle's home has been restored. Bullwinkle concludes the film, remembering how they went to "New York to meet President Washington".

By Richard Moody & Tanya Ross

1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005): Charlie Bucket is a poor boy who lives near the Wonka Candy Company. The company's owner, Willy Wonka, has for long closed access to his factory due to problems concerning industrial espionage that led him to fire all his employees, among them Charlie's Grandpa Joe. One day, Wonka informs of a contest, in which Golden Tickets have been placed in five random Wonka Bars worldwide, and the winners will be given a full tour of the factory as well as a lifetime supply of chocolate, while one ticket holder will be given a special prize at the end of the tour. Wonka's sales subsequently skyrocket, and the first four tickets are found fairly quickly. The recipients are Augustus Gloop, a gluttonous German boy; Veruca Salt, a very spoiled English girl; Violet Beauregarde, a competitive gum chewer, and Mike Teavee, an arrogant television and video game addict. Charlie tries twice to find a ticket, but both bars come empty. After overhearing that the final ticket was found in Russia, Charlie finds a ten-dollar note, and purchases a Wonka Bar at a newsstand. At the exact moment it was revealed that the Russian ticket was forged, Charlie discovers the real fifth ticket inside the wrapper. Charlie first considers an offer of $500 for the ticket, but decides to keep it, and bring Grandpa Joe to accompany him on the factory tour. Charlie and the other ticket holders are greeted by Wonka outside the factory, who then leads them into the facility. During the tour, each of the bad children disobey Wonka's orders after being tempted by something related to their individual character flaws, and suffer various consequences: Augustus is sucked up a chocolate extraction pipe after falling into a chocolate river from which he was drinking, Violet is turned into an oversized blueberry after chewing unstable three-course-meal gum, Veruca is pushed into a garbage chute by worker squirrels after she tries to take one as a pet, and Mike is shrunk with a teleporter that he uses on himself. Wonka's employees, the Oompa-Loompas sing a song of morality after each elimination. The children later leave the factory with an exaggerated characteristic or deformity related to their demise – Augustus covered in chocolate, Violet blue-colored, Veruca covered in garbage and Mike overstretched. Wonka then invites Charlie to come live and work in the factory with him, and reveals that the purpose of the Golden Tickets and the tour was to make the "least rotten" child the heir of the factory itself. The only catch is that Charlie must leave his family behind, because Wonka believes family is a hindrance while a chocolatier needed creative freedom – a philosophy Wonka developed due to his dentist father, Dr. Wilbur Wonka, denying his son candy because of the potential risk to his teeth. After sneaking over a piece of candy, Wonka was instantly hooked, and ran away to follow his dreams. As his family is the most important thing in his life, Charlie refuses Wonka's offer. Charlie and his family are living contently a while later, however Wonka is too depressed to make candy the way he used to, and turns to Charlie for advice. Charlie decides to help Wonka confront and reconcile with his estranged father; Wonka finally realizes the value of family, while his father learns to accept his son for who he is, and not what he does. In the end, Charlie has the chocolate factory, and Wonka has patched up with his family.

2. Alice In Wonderland (2010): A retelling of Lewis Carroll's original story, the movie has Alice Kingsley, now 19, attending a party at a Victorian estate, only to find she is about to be proposed to marriage by a rich suitor in front of hundreds of snooty society types. She runs off, following a white rabbit into a hole and ending up in Wonderland, a place she visited many years before, though she doesn't remember it. The White Rabbit claims to have come back for Alice because she is the only one who can slay the Jabberwock, the beast who guards the Red Queen's empire. Alice remains completely unaware of why she is in Wonderland, and is confused about the fact that she had once visited Wonderland years before. She then embarks — assuming both large and small sizes — on an adventure of self discovery and to save Wonderland from the Red Queen's reign of terror with the help of her Wonderland friends.

By Richard Moody & Bill Ross

1. Wallace & Gromit in the Curse Of The Were-rabbit (2005): Tottington Hall's annual Giant Vegetable Competition is approaching. The winner of the competition will win the Golden Carrot Award. All are eager to protect their vegetables from damage and thievery by rabbits until the contest, and Wallace and Gromit are cashing in by running a vegetable security and humane pest control business, "Anti-Pesto". However, they are faced with two problems: the first is Wallace's growing weight and the second is inadequate space for the captured rabbits. Wallace comes up with an idea — use his Mind Manipulation-O-Matic machine to brainwash the rabbits, allowing them to run freely without harming everyone's gardens. While performing the operation, he kicks the switch and something goes terribly wrong, leaving them with a semi-intelligent rabbit who (in a slow metamorphosis) starts to behave like Wallace (down to his fondness for cheese) and whom Wallace names "Hutch". Soon the town is threatened by the "Were-Rabbit", a giant rabbit-like monster which eats vegetables of any size. During a chaotic yet hilarious town meeting, Anti-Pesto enters into a rivalry with Lord Victor Quartermaine to capture the Were-Rabbit and to win Lady Tottington's heart. After the first night of the Were-Rabbit, the townsfolk start to argue about what to do. After a hectic night-time chase, Gromit discovers that the Were-Rabbit (whom he assumed was Hutch at first) is, in fact, Wallace, suffering from the effects of the accident with the Mind Manipulation-O-Matic having caused him and Hutch to each take on aspects of the other; Hutch even displays Wallace's knack for inventions and regularly repeats some of Wallace's old phrases. Victor corners Wallace during the night, jealous of Lady Tottington's growing fondness for him because of his humane practice of pest control (whereas Victor thinks it's more effective to shoot and kill them). But then Wallace falls into the path of moonlight and transforms. Victor, having identified the Were-Rabbit, goes to Reverend Clement Hedges and gains access to "24-carrot" gold bullets - supposedly, the only things capable of killing a Were-Rabbit. During the final showdown, Victor and his dog Philip capture Gromit, who subsequently escapes and decides to make the ultimate sacrifice by using the marrow he had been growing for the competition as bait for Wallace who, in his rabbit form, has burst in upon the vegetable contest, causing panic. Victor tries to shoot what is apparently the monster, but Gromit is one step ahead of him, using a rabbit costume he and Wallace had created prior to the discovery of the Were-Rabbit's true nature as a trap. Unfortunately, the marrow cannot keep Wallace's attention as Victor tries to take the golden carrot award from a distressed Lady Tottington (The only vaguely bullet-like object left to him after he exhausted the gold bullets provided by the vicar). Wallace ascends to the rooftops, holding a screaming Lady Tottington in his hand. Discovering his identity, she promises to protect him, only to be interrupted by Victor. Meanwhile, in a mid-air dogfight in toy aeroplanes, Philip chases after Gromit. Gromit forces his foe out of the air in a fiery crash and explosion - but Philip manages to hold on to Gromit's plane and the two grapple with each other. The fight rages on and in the end, Gromit releases Philip, ironically, through the bomb doors and into a bouncy castle. On the roof of Tottington Hall, Gromit's toy biplane circles Wallace, who clings onto the flagpole at the top of the building for dear life. Victor, wielding the Golden Carrot trophy inside a blunderbuss he finds at an antiques table at the fair, tries one last time to shoot Wallace, but Wallace is saved by Gromit, who grabs onto a rope from a flagpole and swings his plane into the path of the improvised bullet. The enraged Victor throws down the blunderbuss and stamps on it screaming out "Potty poo!" Unfortunately, since it is a toy plane not intended for flying, when Gromit accidentally lets go of the rope, the plane begins to descend rapidly. Wallace jumps from the flagpole and catches the plane, thereby breaking Gromit's fall into the cheese tent below. Victor gloats, but is knocked unconscious by Lady Tottington, using a giant carrot. He falls into the tent too, where Wallace lies unconscious and seemingly dying of his injuries. To protect Wallace from the angry mob outside, Gromit dresses Victor up as the monster (using a marionette he used earlier as a lure for the Were-Rabbit), and throws him out of the tent. Philip, believing Victor to be the beast, bites his master, and the angry mob chases Victor away. Gromit and Tottington tend to Wallace who, seconds later, breathes his last and morphs back into his human form. Gromit, the rabbits, and Lady Tottington are saddened by their loss, but Gromit is able to revive Wallace with a slice of Stinking Bishop cheese. Gromit, for his bravery and his "brave and splendid marrow", was awarded the (now somewhat battered) competition trophy, and Lady Tottington turns Tottington Hall into a wildlife refuge where all the rabbits, including Hutch, can live in peace.

By Richard Moody, Greg Ross & Tanya Ross

Wallace and Gromit's 20th Anniversary

2009-12-29T04:46:00.000-08:00

It may be a huge technology company with its headquarters in sunny California, but that hasn't prevented search giant Google from celebrating the birthday of Lancashire's most famous animated inventor - and his trusty pooch.
Today's offering, the latest in a series of doodles displayed on the Google homepage which have celebrated such disparate events as the anniversary of Paddington bear and the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, commemorates the 20th birthday of animator Nick Park's creations.
The pair, who have starred in such globally recognisable hit animations as The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave and A Matter of Loaf and Death, reached the apex of their popularity with The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, a full-length feature which was honoured in 2006 with the Oscar for Best Animated Film. Their first appearance was in A Grand Day Out, which saw the pair travel to the moon in a rocket created by Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) and his canine sidekick over a bank holiday weekend.

By Richard Moody

Richard Moody's Complete Childhood 2 Mixture Of DVD's

2009-12-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

1. Bartok: The Magnificent (1999): Russia is being terrorized by an evil witch known as Baba Yaga (voiced by Andrea Martin); the only one who is not afraid of her is Bartok the Magnificent (voiced by Hank Azaria). Bartok, an albino bat, has just arrived in Moscow and is impressing everyone with his performances, including Tsarevich Ivan Romanov (voiced by Phillip Van Dyke). However, one person is not impressed; Ludmilla (voiced by Catherine O'Hara) finds Bartok annoying and naive. After Bartok's show, a violent bear suddenly attacks. Bartok saves everyone by stunning the bear with dust and then knocks him over and traps him in a wagon. Delighted with Bartok's bravery, everyone around him rewards him with gold, including Prince Ivan, who gives him a royal ring, much to the displeasure of Ludmilla, who reminds him that the ring is only for members of the Romanov family, not commoners. She asks that he take the ring back, but Ivan disagrees, saying it is time for a change. Ludmilla, seeing that she cannot dissuade him, reluctantly allows it and they leave. Ludmilla is still upset that Ivan has given a ring to a commoner, especially since it was a street performer, and believes it will encourage them. Ivan retorts that that was his intention and Vol, Ivan's friend, agrees that Bartok was funny. Ludmilla, on the other hand, believes that Ivan needs to respect his duty to the crown, which incites Ivan, who is tired of listening to her, to say that he will do as he pleases and it is she who must respect the crown. Meanwhile, Bartok is counting the money he received when the bear wakes up and scares him. It turns out Bartok's amazing rescue was just another act - the bear is Zozi (voiced by Kelsey Grammer), Bartok's partner in business. Zozi is apprehensive about Ivan's ring and agrees with Ludmilla, that the ring should be returned. Bartok stubbornly refuses to give it back since it was a gift. Back in Moscow, Ivan is kidnapped by Baba Yaga, which leads to an immediate investigation. Ludmilla finds an iron tooth (Baba Yaga has iron teeth) and informs the people what has transpired. When she asks for someone brave enough to rescue Prince Ivan, two children (voiced by Kelly Marie Berger and Zachary B. Charles) nominate Bartok. Bartok and Zozi are on their way to St. Petersburg when Zozi spots the Cossacks coming after them. The pair become worried because they assume that Ludmilla wants Ivan's ring returned. Bartok tries to conceal his identity, but is brought before the people, who explain that Ivan has been taken by Baba Yaga and they are relying on him to rescue their prince. Bartok reluctantly accepts and he and Zozi head to the Iron Forest to confront Baba Yaga and save Prince Ivan. They find Baba Yaga's hut, but must answer a riddle to enter. When the riddle is answered, Baba Yaga successfully captures Bartok and explains that to save Ivan, Bartok must gather three items from the forest: Piloff, Oblie's Crown, and the Magic Feather. However, these tasks aren't very easy: He gathers the objects demanded, but Baba Yaga still needs something from Bartok himself. He offers everything he can think of, including a hair from his own head, but Baba Yaga rejects everything and bursts out laughing. Bartok, outraged, begins to yell and upsets Baba Yaga by accusing her of lying, cheating and claiming everyone hates her. After he talks to her, she starts crying and Baba gets the most important ingredient: tears which are from Bartok's heart. She makes a magic potion from the items she had Bartok collect and reveals that she never took Prince Ivan and that the potion she madewas meant for Bartok himself. Bartok and Zozi return to town and lead Ludmilla and Vol (voiced by Diedrich Bader) up to the top of the tower where Ivan is imprisoned. However, when they arrive, Ludmilla locks Bartok and Vol up with Ivan and reveals she had Vol kidnap the prince (Vol misinterpreted her orders to get him out of the way as meaning to lock him up, when Ludmilla really wanted Ivan dead) while she framed Baba Yaga as part of her scheme to take the Russian throne. She steals Bartok's magic potion and leaves Bartok, Ivan, and Vol in a room filling with water. The potion doesn't work on Ludmilla as she expects and she transforms into an enormous, pink-purple, wingless, three horned, fire-breathing dragon. Upon this discovery, she begins to destroy Moscow. Bartok escapes thanks to Zozi, who then saves Prince Ivan and Vol. Bartok battles the dragon and tricks the dragon into climbing the tower and releasing the water. When it gets to the top, the tower starts to become unstable and causes the top of the tower to fall halfway on to the flooding streets with the Ludmilla/Dragon still on it. This was enough to put of the fire in the village. As the townspeople gather around the Ludmilla/Dragon's dead body, Zozi reveals that Bartok is a true hero...not because he stopped Ludmilla but Bartok showed Baba Yaga compassion. Bartok returns Ivan's ring and Baba Yaga appears, writing, "Bartok, The Magnificent" in the sky. Bartok and Piloff hug Baba Yaga and they leave waving goodbye to Bartok.

2. Van Helsing (2004): In Transylvania, 1887, Doctor Victor Frankenstein (Samuel West) brings to life the Frankenstein's monster (Shuler Hensley) with the aid of his deformed assistant Igor ( Kevin J. O'Connor), and financing from Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh). Dracula reveals he helped Frankenstein so he could use the Monster to bring his undead children to life. He kills Frankenstein when the latter refuses to help him. The Monster escapes to a windmill which is burnt down by a pursuing mob. The mob flees as Dracula and his brides arrive, mourning the loss of the Monster. One year later, legendary monster hunter Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) hunts Mr. Hyde (Robbie Coltrane) in Paris. Their confrontation results in Hyde's death whilst fighting atop Notre Dame. Van Helsing returns to the Vatican where he reports to the Knights of the Holy Order, who protect the world from the unholy. Van Helsing lost his memory and was taken in by the Vatican monks. Van Helsing's duty is to defeat evil creatures and bring them to the Order, but he prefers to kill them. The leader, Cardinal Jinette (Alun Armstrong), sends him to Transylvania to kill Dracula and prevent the last of the Valerious family from falling into purgatory; the family swore to kill Dracula nine generations ago and is unable to enter Heaven until they succeed. Jinette gives Van Helsing a torn piece of paper, with a Latin inscription that reads 'Deum ac ianuamimbeat aperiri' ('in the name of God, open this door'). It has an insignia that matches Van Helsing's ring. Van Helsing is joined by Carl (David Wenham), a technologically-savvy friar who provides Van Helsing with several anti-vampire weapons, such as a gas-powered crossbow. Arriving in Transylvania, the two meet Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), the last remaining Valerious family member, her brother Velkan (Will Kemp) having seemingly died whilst fighting a werewolf. They save her from Dracula's beautiful brides, Verona (Silvia Colloca), Aleera (Elena Anaya) and Marishka (Josie Maran), and Van Helsing kills Marishka. Anna takes the two back to her castle where Dracula once lived, and encounters Velkan, now a werewolf himself, and soon to be under Dracula's control. After Velkan flees, Van Helsing and Anna track him to Frankenstein's castle, finding Dracula attempting to give life to his children using Velkan as a substitute for the Monster. Anna frees Velkan but he becomes a werewolf again. Dracula confronts Van Helsing, recognizing him. While escaping, Van Helsing and Anna fall into a cave where they find Frankenstein's Monster alive. Van Helsing decides to take him to Rome so he can be protected. The brides and Velkan pursue the heroes who are in a carriage, but they use a decoy carriage full of explosives to kill Verona. Velkan is killed by Van Helsing, but has already bitten him; when the next full moon occurs, Van Helsing will become a werewolf. Anna is captured by Aleera and taken to Budapest. In Budapest, Van Helsing hides the Monster before he and Carl head off to save Anna. They rescue her but the Monster is captured. They return to Frankenstein's castle only to find all the equipment removed. At Anna's castle, Carl explains that Dracula was the son of Anna's ancestor. Dracula was murdered, but made a Faustian Bargain and was reborn to right the wrong. Carl explains that although Anna's ancestor made the vow, he couldn't kill his own son. Instead, he banished Dracula to an icy fortress from which he should not have been able to return, but the Devil gave him wings (the power to shapeshift). Which makes little sense, as he vowed to kill Dracula or else doom his family to purgatory. Had Dracula stayed at the icy castle, then he would never be killed. Anna's ancestor left clues in the castle, so that future generations would be able to kill Dracula. Carl also found a picture of a werewolf and vampire fighting, but is unable to explain it. Van Helsing finds a portal to Dracula's castle disguised as a wall map, completed using the paper that Van Helsing brought from Rome. They enter the portal, emerging on a cliff near Castle Dracula. They somehow manage to climb the cliff, even though it was supposedly impossible without wings. The trio encounter Igor and take him hostage. They also see the Monster being lifted to the laboratory, but are unable to free him. The Monster tells them that Dracula has a werewolf cure before he is lifted out of reach. Carl realizes the moving picture in Anna's castle showed that only a werewolf could kill Dracula. Dracula uses werewolves to do his bidding, but needs a cure in case they have the willpower to turn against him. Making his way to the laboratory, Van Helsing frees the Monster, then becomes a werewolf and is attacked by Dracula as a winged demonic bat. For some reason Dracula doesn't think to impose the werewolf cure on Van Helsing, even though thats why he made it. Anna and Carl retrieve the cure but are attacked by Aleera and Igor. Igor is knocked off a bridge to his demise. Aleera chases down Anna, but before she can bite her, Carl tosses a silver stake to Anna, who kills Aleera with it. Dracula reveals that Van Helsing is really Gabriel, the one who originally murdered him. He offers to restore Van Helsing's memories, but Van Helsing replies that some things are best forgotten and bites into Dracula's throat, killing him and his offspring. The werewolf Van Helsing kills Anna just as she injects him with the cure. Anna is cremated, and as her body burns, Van Helsing sees her and her family in Heaven, at peace thanks to Dracula's death. The Monster departs on a raft into the ocean, having been allowed a chance at life by Van Helsing and Carl.

By Richard Moody, Tanya Ross & Greg Ross

Richard Moody's Favourite Audiobook CDs

2009-12-03T13:14:00.000-08:00

1. A Christmas Carol (1843): In 1837, George Templeton Strong lamented the passing of Christmas in the "glorious antique style" of the rural baronial hall with its merriment, conviviality, and hospitality to high and low. Dickens provided vestiges of the old Christmas style in Carol with family feasts and fun but chose a setting of dreary city streets, unheated offices, and urban homes rather than the countryside manor house. The tale begins on Christmas Eve seven years after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner Jacob Marley. That night seven years later, the ghost of Jacob Marley appears before Scrooge and warns him that his soul will be bearing heavy chains for eternity if he does not change his greedy ways, and also predicts that a series of other ghosts will follow. Three Christmas ghosts visit Scrooge during the course of the night, fulfilling Marley's prophecy. The first, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to the scenes of his boyhood and youth which stir the old skinflint's gentle and tender side. The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to the home of his nephew Fred to observe his game of Yes and No and to the humble dwelling of his clerk Bob Cratchit to observe his Christmas dinner. The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, harrows Scrooge with dire visions of the future if he does not learn and act upon what he has witnessed. Crippled Tiny Tim does not die as the ghost foretold and Scrooge becomes a different man, treating his fellow men with kindness, generosity, and compassion, and gaining a reputation as a man who embodies the spirit of Christmas. Scrooge's redemption underscores the conservative, individualistic, and patriarchal aspects of Dickens's 'Carol philosophy' which depended on a more fortunate individual willingly looking after a less fortunate one who had demonstrated his worthiness to receive such attention. Government or other agencies were not called upon to effect change in an economy that created extremes of wealth and poverty but personal moral conscience and individual action in a narrow interpretation of the old forms of 'noblesse oblige' were expected to do so.

2. Around the World in Eighty Days (1873): The story starts in London on October 2, 1872. Phileas Fogg is a wealthy English gentleman who lives unmarried in solitude at Number 7 Savile Row, Burlington Gardens. Despite his wealth, which is of unknown origin, Mr. Fogg, whose countenance is described as "repose in action", lives a modest life with habits carried out with mathematical precision. As is noted in the first chapter, very little can be said about Mr. Fogg's social life other than that he is a member of the Reform Club. Having dismissed his former valet, James Foster, for bringing him shaving water at 84° Fahrenheit instead of 86°, Mr. Fogg hires the Frenchman Passepartout, who is about 30 years old, as a replacement. Later, on that day, in the Reform Club, Fogg gets involved in an argument over an article in The Daily Telegraph, stating that with the opening of a new railway section in India, it is now possible to travel around the world in 80 days. Fogg and Passepartout reach Suez in time. While disembarking in Egypt, they are watched by a Scotland Yard detective named Fix, who has been dispatched from London in search of a bank robber. Because Fogg matches the description of the bank robber, Fix mistakes Fogg for the criminal. Since he cannot secure a warrant in time, Fix goes on board the steamer conveying the travellers to Bombay. During the voyage, Fix becomes acquainted with Passepartout, without revealing his purpose. On the voyage, Fogg promises the engineer a large reward if he gets them to Bombay early. They dock two days ahead of schedule. During the ride, they come across a suttee procession, in which a young Parsi woman, Aouda, is led to a sanctuary to be sacrificed by the process of sati the next day by Brahmins. Since the young woman is drugged with the smoke of opium and hemp and obviously not going voluntarily, the travellers decide to rescue her. They follow the procession to the site, where Passepartout secretly takes the place of Aouda's deceased husband on the funeral pyre, on which she is to be burned the next morning. During the ceremony, he then rises from the pyre, scaring off the priests, and carries the young woman away. Due to this incident, the two days gained earlier are lost but Fogg shows no sign of regret. The travellers then hasten on to catch the train at the next railway station, taking Aouda with them. At Calcutta, they can finally board a steamer going to Hong Kong. Fix, who had secretly been following them, has Fogg and Passepartout arrested in Calcutta. However, they jump bail and Fix is forced to follow them to Hong Kong. On board, he shows himself to Passepartout, who is delighted to meet again his travelling companion from the earlier voyage. In Hong Kong, it turns out that Aouda's distant relative, in whose care they had been planning to leave her, has moved, likely to Holland, so they decide to take her with them to Europe. Meanwhile, still without a warrant, Fix sees Hong Kong as his last chance to arrest Fogg on British soil. He therefore confides in Passepartout, who does not believe a word and remains convinced that his master is not a bank robber. To prevent Passepartout from informing his master about the premature departure of their next vessel, Fix gets Passepartout drunk and drugs him in an opium den. In his dizziness, Passepartout still manages to catch the steamer to Yokohama, but neglects to inform Fogg. Fogg, on the next day, discovers that he has missed his connection. He goes in search of a vessel that will take him to Yokohama. He finds a pilot boat that takes him and Aouda to Shanghai, where they catch a steamer to Yokohama. In Yokohama, they go on a search for Passepartout, believing that he may have arrived there on the original boat. They find him in a circus, trying to earn the fare for his homeward journey. Reunited, the four board a steamer taking them across the Pacific to San Francisco. Fix promises Passepartout that now, having left British soil, he will no longer try to delay Fogg's journey, but rather support him in getting back to Britain as fast as possible (to have him arrested there). In San Francisco they get on a trans-American train to New York, encountering a number of obstacles along the way: a massive herd of bison crossing the tracks, a failing suspension bridge, and most disastrously, the train is attacked and overcome by Sioux Indians. After heroically uncoupling the locomotive from the carriages, Passepartout is kidnapped by the Indians, but Fogg rescues him after some soldiers volunteer to help. They continue by a wind-powered sledge over the snowy prairie to Omaha, where they get a train to New York. Once in New York, and having missed departure of their ship (the China) by 35 minutes, Fogg starts looking for an alternative for the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. He finds a small steamboat, destined for Bordeaux. However, the captain of the boat refuses to take the company to Liverpool, whereupon Fogg consents to be taken to Bordeaux for the price of $2000 per passenger. On the voyage, he bribes the crew to mutiny and take course for Liverpool. Against hurricane winds and going on full steam all the time, the boat runs out of fuel after a few days. Fogg buys the boat at a very high price from the captain, soothing him thereby, and has the crew burn all the wooden parts to keep up the steam. The companions arrive at Queenstown, Ireland, in time to reach London via Dublin and Liverpool before the deadline. However, once on British soil again, Fix produces a warrant and arrests Fogg. A short time later, the misunderstanding is cleared up—the actual bank robber had been caught three days earlier in Edinburgh. In response to this, Fogg, in a rare moment of impulse, punches Fix, who immediately falls to the ground. However, Fogg has missed the train and returns to London five minutes late, assured that he has lost the wager. In his London house the next day, he apologises to Aouda for bringing her with him, since he now has to live in poverty and cannot financially support her. Aouda suddenly confesses that she loves him and asks him to marry her, which he gladly accepts. He calls for Passepartout to notify the reverend. At the reverend's, Passepartout learns that he is mistaken in the date, which he takes to be Sunday but which actually is Saturday due to the fact that the party travelled east, thereby gaining a full day on their journey around the globe, by crossing the International Date Line. He did not notice this after landing in North America because the only phase of the trip that depended on vehicles departing less often than daily was the Atlantic crossing, and he had hired his own ship for that. Passepartout hurries back to Fogg, who immediately sets off for the Reform Club, where he arrives just in time to win the wager. Fogg marries Aouda and the journey around the world is complete.

3. Dracula (1897): The novel is mainly composed of journal entries and letters written by several narrators who also serve as the novel's main protagonists; Stoker supplemented the story with occasional newspaper clippings to relate events not directly witnessed by the story's characters. The tale begins with Jonathan Harker, a newly qualified English solicitor, journeying by train and carriage from England to Count Dracula's crumbling, remote castle (situated in the Carpathian Mountains on the border of Transylvania and Moldavia). The purpose of his mission is to provide legal support to Dracula for a real estate transaction overseen by Harker's employer, Peter Hawkins, of Exeter in England. At first enticed by Dracula's gracious manner, Harker soon discovers that he has become a prisoner in the castle. He also begins to see disquieting facets of Dracula's nocturnal life. One night while searching for a way out of the castle, and against Dracula's strict admonition not to venture outside his room at night, Harker falls under the spell of three wanton female vampires, the Brides of Dracula. He is saved at the last second by the Count, however, he wants to keep Harker alive just long enough to obtain needed legal advice and teachings about England and London (Dracula's planned travel destination was to be among the "teeming millions"). Harker barely escapes from the castle with his life. Not long afterward, a Russian ship, the Demeter, having weighed anchor at Varna, runs aground on the shores of Whitby, England, during a fierce tempest. All of the crew are missing and presumed dead, and only one body is found, that of the captain tied to the ship's helm. The captain's log is recovered and tells of strange events that had taken place during the ship's journey. These events led to the gradual disappearance of the entire crew apparently owing to a malevolent presence on board the ill-fated ship. An animal described as a large dog is seen on the ship leaping ashore. The ship's cargo is described as silver sand and boxes of "mould", or earth, from Transylvania.
Soon Dracula is tracking Harker's devoted fiancée, Wilhelmina "Mina" Murray, and her friend, Lucy Westenra. Lucy receives three marriage proposals in one day, from Dr. John Seward; Quincey Morris; and the Hon. Arthur Holmwood (later Lord Godalming). Lucy accepts Holmwood's proposal while turning down Seward and Morris, but all remain friends. There is a notable encounter between Dracula and Seward's patient Renfield, an insane man who means to consume insects, spiders, birds, and other creatures — in ascending order of size — in order to absorb their "life force". Renfield acts as a motion sensor, detecting Dracula's proximity and supplying clues accordingly. Lucy begins to waste away suspiciously. All her suitors fret, and Seward calls in his old teacher, Professor Abraham Van Helsing from Amsterdam. Van Helsing immediately determines the cause of Lucy's condition but refuses to disclose it, knowing that Seward's faith in him will be shaken if he starts to speak of vampires. Van Helsing tries multiple blood transfusions, but they are clearly losing ground. On a night when Van Helsing must return to Amsterdam (and his message to Seward asking him to watch the Westenra household is accidentally sent to the wrong address), Lucy and her mother are attacked by a wolf. Mrs Westenra, who has a heart condition, dies of fright, and Lucy apparently dies soon after. Lucy is buried, but soon afterward the newspapers report children being stalked in the night by a "bloofer lady" (as they describe it), i.e. "beautiful lady". Van Helsing, knowing that this means Lucy has become a vampire, confides in Seward, Lord Godalming and Morris. The suitors and Van Helsing track her down, and after a disturbing confrontation between her vampiric self and Arthur, they stake her heart, behead her, and fill her mouth with garlic. Around the same time, Jonathan Harker arrives home from recuperation in Budapest (where Mina joined and married him after his escape from the castle); he and Mina also join the coalition, who turn their attentions to dealing with Dracula. After Dracula learns of Van Helsing and the others' plot against him, he takes revenge by visiting—and biting— Mina at least three times. Dracula also feeds Mina his blood, creating a spiritual bond between them to control her. The only way to forestall this is to kill Dracula first. Mina slowly succumbs to the blood of the vampire that flows through her veins, switching back and forth from a state of consciousness to a state of semi-trance during which she is telepathically connected with Dracula. It is this connection that they start to use to deduce Dracula's movements. It is only possible to detect Dracula's surroundings when Mina is put under hypnosis by Van Helsing. This ability gradually gets weaker as the group makes their way to Dracula's castle. Dracula flees back to his castle in Transylvania, followed by Van Helsing's group, who manage to track him down just before sundown and destroy him by shearing "through the throat" with a knife and stabbing him in the heart also with a [knife]]. Dracula crumbles to dust, his spell is lifted and Mina is freed from the marks. Quincey Morris is killed in the final battle, stabbed by Gypsies who had been charged with returning Dracula to his castle; the survivors return to England. The book closes with a note about Mina's and Jonathan's married life and the birth of their first-born son, whom they name after all four members of the party, but refer to only as Quincey in remembrance of their American friend.

4. The War Of The Worlds (1898): The narrator is at an observatory in Ottershaw when explosions are witnessed on Mars, causing interest among the scientific community. Later a "meteor" lands on Horsell Common, southwest of London, close to the narrator's home in Woking, Surrey. He is among the first to discover that the object is a space-going artificial cylinder. When the cylinder opens, the Martians — bulky, octopus-like creatures the size of a bear — briefly emerge, show difficulty in coping with the Earth's atmosphere, and rapidly retreat into the cylinder. A human deputation moves towards the cylinder, but the Martians incinerate them with a heat-ray weapon, before beginning the construction of alien machinery. After the attack, the narrator takes his wife to Leatherhead to stay with relatives until the threat is eliminated. Upon returning home, he discovers the Martians have assembled towering three-legged "fighting-machines" armed with a heat-ray and a chemical weapon: "the black smoke". These Tripods easily defeat army units positioned around the crater and proceed to attack surrounding communities. Fleeing the scene, the narrator meets a retreating artilleryman, who tells him that another cylinder has landed between Woking and Leatherhead, cutting the narrator off from his wife. The two men try to escape together, but are separated at the Shepperton to Weybridge Ferry during a Martian attack on Shepperton. One of the Martian fighting machines is brought down in the River Thames by British artillery, causing its hot heat-ray equipment to almost boil the water as the narrator and countless others try to cross the river into Middlesex. More cylinders land across southern England, and a panicked flight out of London begins, including the narrator's brother. The torpedo ram HMS Thunder Child destroys two tripods before being sunk by the Martians, though this allows the ship carrying the narrator's brother and his two female travelling companions to escape. Shortly after, all organized resistance has ceased, and the Tripods roam the shattered landscape unhindered. Red weed, a fast growing Martian form of vegetation, spreads The narrator takes refuge in a ruined building shortly before a Martian cylinder lands nearby, trapping him with an insane curate he had originally met near Shepperton. The curate has been traumatized by the invasion and believes the Martians to be satanic creatures heralding the advent of Armageddon. For several days, the narrator desperately tries to calm the clergyman, and avoid attracting attention, while witnessing the Martians' daily routine, which includes feeding on humans by direct blood transfusion. The curate's evangelical outbursts finally lead the Martians to their hiding place, and while the narrator escapes detection, the clergyman is dragged away. The Martians eventually depart, and the Narrator heads towards Central London. En route he once again encounters the artilleryman who has plans to rebuild civilization underground, but the artilleryman's quixotic nature is shown by the slow progress of an unimpressive trench he has been digging. The narrator heads into a deserted London and finally decides to give up his life by rushing towards the Martians, only to discover they, along with the Red Weed, have succumbed to terrestrial pathogenic bacteria, to which they have no immunity. At the conclusion, the narrator is unexpectedly reunited with his wife, and they, along with the rest of humanity, are faced with a new and expanded universe as a result of the invasion. Over the landscape, aggressively overcoming the Earth's ecology, in much the same way as the Martians have overcome human civilization.

By Richard Moody, Liz Ross & Bill Ross

Richard Moody's Complete Childhood Christmas DVD

2009-12-03T13:10:00.001-08:00

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992): In this adaptation of the Christmas story narrated by Charles Dickens himself (played by Gonzo the Great) with the occasional commentary of Rizzo the Rat, it is Christmas Eve in 19th century London. The merriment is not shared by Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine), a surly money-lender who is more interested in profit than celebration. So cold to the season of giving is he that his book-keeping staff, including loyal employee Bob Cratchit (Kermit the Frog), has to plead with him just to have the day off work during Christmas by pointing out that Scrooge would have no customers on the holiday and that it would waste coal to sit alone in the office. Scrooge's nephew, Fred, arrives to invite his uncle to Christmas dinner and two gentlemen also come to Scrooge's offices, collecting money in the spirit of the season. Scrooge rebuffs his nephew and complains that it isn't worth looking after the poor, as their deaths will decrease the surplus population. Fred is shocked at his uncle's uncharitable and cold nature, but repeats his invitation, makes his own donation and departs. Later that evening, Scrooge finds himself face to face with the spirits of his former business partners, Jacob and Robert Marley (Statler and Waldorf) who have been condemned to shackles in the afterlife as payment for the horrible deeds they committed in life. They warn him that he will share the same fate, only worse, if he doesn't change his ways, and foretell the coming of three spirits throughout the night. Mr. Scrooge is first visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, a child-like spectre who takes Scrooge on a journey back through time to his youth. He recalls his early school days, during which he focused on his studies; meeting of a young woman named Belle (Meredith Braun), with whom he would later fall in love; and the final parting between Belle and Scrooge, despite Scrooge's protests that he would marry her as soon as he had enough money. Scrooge then meets the Ghost of Christmas Present, a large, festive spirit with a booming voice who lives only for the here and now. He gives Scrooge a glimpse into the holiday celebration of others, including Bob Cratchit and his family who, although poor, are enjoying Christmas together and reveling in the anticipation of the Christmas goose. The Spirit also shows Scrooge's own family, who aren't above cracking jokes at Scrooge's expense.Finally, Scrooge meets the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, a silent entity, who reveals the chilling revelation that young Tiny Tim (Robin the Frog) will not survive the coming year, thanks in no small part to the impoverished existence of the Cratchit family. Furthermore, it is revealed that when Scrooge's own time has passed, others will certainly delight in his absence from the world, with local businessmen attending his funeral only for the free food and Scrooge's servants stealing the very clothes he was to have been buried in. It is this final epiphany that jolts Scrooge back into humanity, and makes him vow to celebrate with his fellow man. Scrooge goes about the town spreading good deeds and charity, plans a feast for Bob Cratchit and his kin, and learns to adopt the spirit of Christmas throughout the year.

By Richard Moody, Tanya Ross & Greg Ross

Richard Moody's Mixture Of Favourite DVD's

2009-11-30T13:08:00.000-08:00

1. Oceans Eleven (1960): A gang of World War II 82nd Airborne veterans are recruited by Danny Ocean and Jimmy Foster to rob five different Las Vegas] casinos (Sahara, Riviera, Desert Inn, Sands, and The Flamingo) on a single night. The gang plans the elaborate New Year's Eve heist with the precision of a military operation. Josh Howard takes a job driving a garbage truck while others work to scope out the various casinos. Sam Harmon entertains in one of the hotel's lounges. Demolition charges are planted on an electrical transmission tower and the backup electrical systems are covertly rewired in each casino. At exactly midnight, while everyone in every Vegas casino is singing "Auld Lang Syne" the tower is blown up and Vegas goes dark. The backup electrical systems open the cashier cages instead of powering the emergency lights. The inside men sneak into the cashier cages and collect the money. They dump the bags of loot into hotel's garbage bins, go back inside and mingle with the crowds. As soon as the lights come back on, the thieves stroll out of the casinos. A garbage truck driven by Josh picks up the bags and passes through the police blockade. It appears to have gone off without a hitch. Their ace electrician, Tony Bergdorf, however, has a heart attack in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip and drops dead. This raises the suspicions of police, who wonder if there is any connection. Reformed gangster Duke Santos offers to recover the casino bosses' money for a price. He learns of Ocean being in town and his connection to Foster, who is the son of Duke's fiancee. Santos pieces together the puzzle by the time Bergdorf's body arrives at the mortuary. Santos confronts the thieves, demanding half of their take. In desperation, the money is hidden in Bergdorf's coffin, with $10,000 set aside for the widow. The group plans to take back the rest of the money, making no payoff to Santos, after the coffin is shipped to San Francisco. Alas, this plan backfires when the funeral home talks Bergdorf's widow into having the funeral in Las Vegas, where the body is cremated -- along with all the money.

2. The Nutty Professor (1963): Professor Julius Kelp (Lewis) is a nerdy, unkempt, buck-toothed, introverted, socially inept university professor who always incurs the wrath of the university administration by continually destroying the classroom laboratory. When a football-playing bully humiliates him, Kelp invents a serum that turns him into the handsome, extremely smooth, cool, and obnoxious girl-chasing hipster, Buddy Love. (Lewis said that the two represented good and evil). This newfound persona gives him the confidence to pursue one of his students, Stella Purdy (Stella Stevens). At first she despises Love, but she finds herself strangely attracted to him. Buddy wows the crowd with his jazzy, breezy delivery and cool demeanor at the Purple Pit, a nightclub where the students hang out. He also mixes it up with the bartender, who is instructed on how to mix the latest drinks for the enigmatic entertainer.The formula wears off at inopportune times, often to Kelp's embarrassment. He must rush back to his laboratory in the hopes that no one will discover his secret. Although Kelp knows that his alternate persona is an arrogant person, he cannot prevent himself from continually taking the formula as he enjoys the newfound attention that Love receives. Buddy performs at the annual student dance, and while on the dais, the formula starts to wear off.In the end, his real identity is revealed during the prom, as the Love persona transforms to Kelp during a speech. He gives an impassioned plea that people must learn to like themselves before others can like them in return. He admits that he has learned a valuable lesson, and Purdy admits that she likes Kelp better than Love and they get married. Prompted by his formerly henpecked father's marketing of the formula, Kelp and Purdy decide to license the product and benefit from the profits.

3. Twin Dragons (1992): In the movie, Jackie Chan plays two roles, twins who were separated at birth and ended up with very different upbringings - one (John Ma) became a famous classical pianist while the other (Boomer) became a common crook. As is inevitable in such a situation, when Ma visits Hong Kong he and Boomer are mixed up with each other and are forced to assume each other's identity. Boomer eventually has to come to the rescue of Ma when he gets himself stuck in the middle of a gang war.

4. Mr. Nice Guy (1997): Television journalist Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) manages to record footage of a cocaine deal gone wrong, between the Italian mob and a street gang known as the Demons. The footage shows mob boss Giancarlo (Richard Norton) killing the Demon's leader. Diana's partner is captured and she bumps into TV chef Jackie (Jackie Chan), who helps her escape from the gangsters. Diana later accidentally switches the videotape of the drug trade with one of Jackie's cooking videos from a box of tapes. The mob, knowing that the tape is still out there, tracks Diana down to her home to force her to give them the tape. The gangsters search for Jackie but are unable to capture him, so they destroy his home and kidnap his girlfriend Miki (Miki Lee). Unauthorized to partake in the kidnapping issue, Jackie is told not to interfere by the police, but does not listen. Jackie is later captured and taken to Giancarlo, and forced into an unfair fight whereby Jackie's arms and legs are restrained with ropes held by the henchmen. After taking a serious beating, Giancarlo orders his men to kill Jackie at a construction site outside his home. Jackie escapes and destroys the gang boss' home by driving through it in a 120-ton mining vehicle from the nearby construction site. The authorities arrive, including Richard, but the police decided to state that they did not witness anything and that it was all just a gang battle, so Jackie goes free whilst the mobsters are arrested for possession of cocaine. The cars destroyed during the filming of this motion picture included a Ford LTD, BMW 7-Series Mercedes-Benz SLC, two Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow I cars, Cadillac Fleetwood, Lamborghini Countach Replica, Porsche 911 Carrera Targa, and a Lincoln Town Car Limousine.

5. Who Am I? (1998): A member of a CIA-sponsored multinational black ops special forces unit is on a mission to kidnap several South African scientists working on a highly volatile extraterrestrial compound brought to Earth in a meteorite. According to the computer data showing the names of the participants of the operation, one of them was 'Jackie Chan' (Chan). He falls victim to a staged "incident" which results in the death of his colleagues. He survives, but is subsequently stranded in the African veldt with massive amnesia. When asked by natives for his name, he replies "Who am I?", which they take to be his real name. Experiencing flashbacks hinting at his true identity, 'Who am I?' proceeds to befriend two beautiful women - Christine (Michelle Ferre), a CIA agent working undercover as a journalist, and Yuki (Yamamoto Mirai). Renegade ex-US Army officers and black market arms dealers are illegally exporting the extraterrestrial compound, and 'Who am I?' is the only potential threat to their operations. Agents are sent out to stop 'Who am I?' before he can expose their criminal activities. He defeats numerous ex-renegade agents, and ultimately engages in a tightly choreographed roof-top fight scene in Rotterdam against Morgan's two top hitmen, and performing the film's signature stunt, sliding down the steeply-pitched glass roof. The CIA secures the villains' arrests, and 'Who am I?' comes to terms with his identity.

6. The Accidental Spy (2001): The opening of film shows a news reporter covering a story in Turkey where many people have mysteriously died, seemingly from pneumonia. The focus then moves to Hong Kong where Buck Yuen (Chan) works as an exercise equipment salesman. After an unsuccessful day at work, he heads out through the shopping mall and intuitively knows that a robbery is about to take place. Buck thwarts the robbers plans, relieving them of the money they have stolen and returning it to the police. Later, a stranger approaches Buck, eager to speak the hero who foiled the robbery. The stranger goes by the name of Manny Liu (Eric Tsang) and he tells Buck that he is rounding up several men of Buck's age and description, one of whom could be the son of a wealthy Korean man. As a child, Buck had been an orphan, but he has vague dreams seemingly recalling his parents cooing over him, his father clutching a shiny object. Buck goes to meet the Korean man in question, a former spy, who does not have long to live. After fending off an attack on the old man, Buck is given the opportunity to play a "game" with the old man. The old man gives him a crucifix, which appears to be the shiny object of his dreams, confirming this man to be his father. Once the old man has died, Buck finds the first clue to the "game" at his grave - a message saying "wait for me" in English. Eventually he realises that the letters of the phrase correspond to a telephone number and calls it. It turns out to be a bank in Turkey, so Buck sets out on his journey. Once in Turkey, Buck goes to the bank and receives the contents of the old man's safety deposit box - a large sum of money and a small package. Avoiding the attempted theft of his newfound wealth by a group of thugs who have commandeered a fleet of taxis, Buck eventually makes it back to his hotel. Along the way he meets two women - the first, Korean reporter Carmen (Kim Min-Jeong) and the second, a Chinese woman called Yong (Vivian Hsu), who sings sweetly and wears a scarf embroidered with the same phrase from the old man's grave. He catches up with the woman and they arrange to meet later. Buck then visits a Turkish baths, but is accosted by another group of thugs, and ends up being pursued, wearing nothing but a towel, through a Turkish bazaar. He soon loses his towel, and is forced to hide his nudity with a variety of implements from the various stores, all the while, avoiding attacks from the thugs. He hides in an alleyway and notices huge pieces of cloth hanging from above, so he rapidly performs acrobatic moves to twist the material around himself. Thus disguised in the makeshift clothing he finally manages to make his escape. Carmen Wong, who had appeared to be a reporter, turns out to be working for the CIA and she informs Buck that the item everyone seems so keen to get their hands on is a new biological weapon, Anthrax II, many times more powerful than regular anthrax. It is this that had killed the many Turkish people in the film's opening scene - Turkey had been chosen as the testing ground. When Buck meets up with Yong, he learns that her boss is crime lord Lee Sang-zen, (Wu Hsing-kuo) and a deal had been brokered between him and Buck's 'father'. Buck and Yong are then captured by a Turkish gang and tied up, but the gang themselves are subject to an attack from Lee's gang. Buck makes his escape and frees Yong, winding the winch cable of a crane all around the supporting wooden beams of the building and setting the crane to retract the cable. The cable rips through the wooden building, tearing it from its moorings and allows Buck and Yong to escape into the sea. Later the pair are picked up by Lee, and Buck learns that Yong is a drug addict, practically a slave to Lee and her life is in grave danger. Later, as they part, Lee offers Buck a new deal, more money and Yong's freedom if he gives Lee what he wants. Realizing that if he saves Yong's life, many others may die, Buck seeks the advice of a Turkish priest. The priest knows the various East Asian languages, and was an associate of the old man. He leads Buck to a basement room and gives him the item that everyone has been trying to get their hands on - 2 vials of Anthrax II. He advises Buck to save the one he can and leave the consequences up to God. Buck relents, following the advice of the priest, hands over the vials over to save Yong. However, he soon learns that she has already been given a fatal dose of drugs and is soon dead. Buck tells Carmen that he gave the vials up for Yong's life and a desperate race to get them back ensues. At the height of the action, the thugs' car becomes lodged into the rear of a large oil tanker, which catches fire. In scenes reminiscent of Speed, the driver is told he must keep the tanker traveling at 80 km/h or else the fire will spread forward, blowing up the tanker and a huge blast radius around it. Buck pulls the family from the tanker to safety one by one, but cannot escape himself. At the last moment, as the tanker heads towards the edge of a disused bridge, Buck leaps from the tanker. As he flies over the edge of the bridge, he grabs the plastic barrier, which is quickly uprooted sending him swinging down towards the ground, as the flaming oil tanker crashes into the ground below and explodes. Later on, while Buck was in the hospital to recover from his injuries, it was revealed that his entire adventure was actually an intelligence mission for an undisclosed intelligence agency, performed by Buck as an informal, non-official agent (thus the movie title, accidental spy). His background as an orphan, combined with his talents of extremely sharp intuitions and excellent martial arts skills had made him a perfect candidate for a freelance agent who could perform special missions. The mission was set as a "game" for Buck since he was not an official agent and therefore cannot be briefed about it. His sharp intuition enabled him to interpret his "clues" correctly, thus enabling him to perform his mission successfully. As the end credits are rolling, Buck is shown as getting involved in another "adventure", another way of saying that he's performing another intelligence mission-as an "accidental" spy.

7. The Medallion (2003): Eddie Yang is a Hong Kong police officer cooperating with Interpol in the capture of a crimelord named AJ "Snakehead" Staul. The operation is headed by the officiously paranoid Agent Arthur Watson and also involves a former girlfriend of Eddie's, a British agent named Nicole. The investigation leads the team to the kidnapping of a young boy named Jai, who holds the secret to a powerful medallion that gives its possessor superhuman powers and immortality. After a near-death rescue of Jai from drowning, Eddie is given supernatural martial arts powers, which assists him in tracking down Snakehead and putting an end to the arch-criminal's scheme.

8. Around the World in 80 Days (2004): The film starts with a man (later known to be Lau Xing) (Jackie Chan), robbing and escaping from the Bank of England. To evade the police, he hides in Phileas Fogg's house. From a window he observes police officers searching for him, asking foreign-looking men in the street for identification; so when Phileas Fogg (Steve Coogan) asks him for his name he responds "Passport...too". Phileas takes his name to be "Passepartout" (pronounced Pass-port-too), and takes him on as a valet. Phileas Fogg is trying to break the 50-mph speed barrier, and after succeeding with the help of Passepartout and managing to avoid the police, they head to the Royal Academy of Science. There Fogg is insulted by the other 'brilliant minds', in particular the bombastic William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (Jim Broadbent), who believes that everything worth discovering has already been discovered and there is no need for further progress. The bank robbery is also discussed. In his blind rage, Phileas says that he is glad the bank was robbed, because it is outdated and says that the thief could be in China in little over a month, which interests Passepartout. Phileas Fogg is pressured into a bet to see whether it would be possible, as his calculations say, to travel around the world in 80 days. If he wins, he would become Minister of Science in Lord Kelvin's place; if not, he would have to tear down his lab and never invent anything again. Passepartout and Phileas retreat to Phileas's home, where he mourns on his rash decision to take the bet; yet Passepartout says that to bet on something he believes in, means the bet is in no way foolish. That sets Phileas on the start of his journey around the world. Without losing a moment, they take a carriage and leave London, after crossing with Inspector Fix (Ewen Bremner), a corrupt officer who was hired by the Royal Academy of Science to stop them travelling round the world. They then journey to Paris, where Passepartout must evade warriors sent by the murderous female soldier General Fang, who is after the precious Jade Buddha that he stole. She had previously given the Buddha to Lord Kelvin, in exchange for military assistance in her enterprises to conquer Lau Xing's village. [Remember at this point that Passepartout'real name is Lau Xing!]. Pretending to take Phileas to a convention with Thomas Edison, Passepartout leads him instead to an Art School, where Phileas meets Monique (Cécile de France), a would-be impressionist. Realizing how busy his boss is, Passepartout fights the minions using every material available: canvas, brushes and buckets of paint, etc, while in the process of accidentally making a painting. Meanwhile, Phileas and Monique discuss Monique's paintings of 'impossible things', such as dogs playing poker. Moments later, Phileas sees a painting of a man with wings. To make a machine that could allow men to fly was always Phileas's dream; he therefore feels touched. All of a sudden, Passepartout returns and tells his boss that they are running late. The two men, accompanied by Monique, depart in a hot-air balloon, while being chased by General Fang's warriors. Phileas initially refuses to allow Monique to travel with them due to a misunderstanding in allowances, but after consulting him, he does allow her. Then they travel to Turkey, where they are greeted by Prince Hapi (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Here, they were entertained for some hours in a swimming pool, in which they also chat about their ideas of better mankind and tuck into a delicious feast. The Prince, having become infatuated with Monique, ordered her to stay as his seventh wife, (one for each day of the week), while the men were ordered to leave. The men leave, but blackmail Prince Hapi into releasing Monique, using a prized but apparently flimsy 'The Thinker' statue of the Prince as a bargaining counter. The statue is ultimately destroyed, though the three travelers escape. Lord Kelvin, hearing of all this and of the theft of the Jade Buddha, becomes angry; he is later contemptuous, when he learns that Phileas has been involuntarily abetting a thief's escape. Using this as an excuse to delay Phileas, he and his aides order the British colonial authorities in India to arrest both men. In India, Passepartout sees notice of the price on his head and warns his companions. Disguised as local women, they evade the police, but are attacked by General Fang's warriors again. Using Inspector Fix and a sextant as weapons, Phileas and Passepartout defeat their assailants and flee to China. Guided by knowledge of China, Passepartout leads his friends to a village, where they are happily greeted. They spend several days here, during which Phileas discovers that Passepartout is in fact Lau Xing, a local warrior, and that the repeated attacks by General Fang's (Karen Joy Morris) militia, the Black Scorpions, are part of a power struggle centred around the Jade Buddha. Phileas is disappointed by this and more so, by the revelation that Monique has known the truth for many weeks. Later, the village is attacked by the Black Scorpions. Phileas, Monique and Lau Xing are held captive. In the next morning, Lau Xing challenges the arrogant young leader of the group that has seized him to a fight. Lau Xing at first fights alone and is defeated (when the leader cheats); moments later, he is joined by the martial arts masters of the "Ten Tigers of Canton", of which he is one. The Tigers, though outnumbered, drive the Black Scorpions from their village and free the Westerners. The Jade Buddha is then reinstated in the village's temple. Phileas now desires to continue alone, having been disappointed by his companions. He travels to San Francisco, where he is tricked out of his money. He attempts to replenish his supply with the aid of a beggar (Rob Schneider), but fails, as he is punched by a passerby as he begs for money. He is soon, however, recognized by Lau Xing and Monique, who have come to find him. In the desert, they find the Wright brothers (brothers Owen and Luke Wilson), and the 3 inventors discuss the flying machine. Taking a look at the plans (which Wilbur Wright claimed to be his silly brother's doing), Phileas finds them brilliant and suggests a few mere changes (Wilbur says he was proud of his brother and had always believed in him). Lau Xing (still called Passepartout because of force of habit on the other people's part), Monique and Phileas' next stop is New York City, where a massive crowd who had placed bets for or against Phileas winning, greet them and make it impossible for them to pass and reach their ship. A policeman allows this to be possible, by taking them through a building he called a shortcut. Here more minions await them, ready for one last face-off. They made arrangements with Lord Kelvin to take Lau Xing's village and tap the jade reserves underneath it, but if Phileas wins the bet, Lord Kelvin will not have the means to help them. A major battle between the three friends and General Fang and her minions commences in the workshop, where the Statue of Liberty was constructed, with Lau Xing using his skill to stop his enemies and the other two using luck. Fang is crushed to death by the statue's tablet. In the end, the three friends are victorious or so it seems, as the minions had stalled them enough to make them lose their ship to England. Though Phileas could have gotten to the boat, he decides to miss it to help Lau Xing. Phileas feels like he had lost, but the other two say they might still make it, if they caught the next ship. Phileas knows the unlikelihood of this, yet chooses to carry on. The old ship was owned by a sailor, who had lost both his nipples in an attack by a great white shark. Phileas tells the captain they weren't going fast enough and run out of coal, and after a lot of talking, he manages to convince the captain to let him build a plane out of the old wood from the ship, in exchange for a new ship and a surgery to give him new nipples. Using the changed Wright brother's plans, Phileas builds the machine. On it is Passepartout/Lau Xing (pedalling), Phileas (driving) and Monique (commenting). The machine seems to be working fine and soon they reach London. Then, the machine begins to fall apart and they have a crash-landing right in front of the RAS (Royal Academy of Science). Lord Kelvin sends police to stop them from making it to their actual destination, the top step of the Royal Academy of Science and the clock soon strikes noon, which is the time Phileas started.Lord Kelvin proclaims himself the victor. Several people, such as Monique, Fix and other ministers, begin attesting to Kelvin's unfair methods and his bullying nature, but Kelvin scoffs at them. However, in the process, he insults Queen Victoria (Kathy Bates), who is nearby listening. She had found out he had sold her arsenal to Fang (in exchange for jade mines in China), thanks to one of his aides, and soon realizes this fate. Kelvin tries to run away, but is apprehended. Phileas is also lucky enough not to have lost the bet; he is one day early, thanks to crossing the international date line, yet believed himself late, because of an error on the part of Passepartout. He ascends the stairs of the Academy and there, embraces Monique, victorious in his bet.

By Richard Moody & Rachel Sutcliffe

Richard Moody's Complete Childhood Oggy and the Cockroaches DVD

2009-11-11T08:35:00.000-08:00

1. Oggy et les Cafards AKA Oggy and the Cockroaches (1999): The show centers on Oggy, a content and lazy, albeit very tender fat blue cat, who would usually spend his days watching TV and cooking - if it wasn't for the three pesky roaches in the household: Joey, Dee Dee and Marky (named after members of the punk group Ramones). The trio seems to enjoy generally making Oggy's life miserable, which involves mischief ranging from (in most cases) plundering his fridge to such awkward things like hijacking the train Oggy just boarded. The cartoon itself relies on slapstick humour, much like its "ancestor", Tom and Jerry, only amplifying the level of extremities up a notch; while "traditional" slapstick cartoon characters prefer dropping anvils and pianos on each other, this show sometimes uses even buses or submarines. Despite these however, most gags are easily accessible and enjoyable for younger viewers. Since dialog is kept to a minimum the humour is entirely visual. The additional voices for characters were done by Mark Waterworth, Lizzie Waterworth, Richard Herman, and Hugh Laurie.

By James Ross & Duane Ross

Richard Moody's Complete Childhood Videos Part 2

2009-11-06T04:08:00.000-08:00

1. MouseHunt (1997): Lars (Lee Evans) and Ernie (Nathan Lane) Smuntz are two hapless brothers, and sons of wealthy string manufacturer Rudolf Smuntz (William Hickey). Pop, as they called him, dies, leaving them his vintage string factory and a handful of personal items including a box of cigars, which Ernie quickly takes, and the deed to an old mansion with a bank debt. Later that day, a couple of representatives from company called Zeppco International offers to buy the factory from Lars. Lars then remembers he and his brother, after being given a lucky piece of string, had promised their dying father to never sell the factory. He declines the offer (without first telling Ernie) but accepts a business card from the Zeppco representatives. That night, his wife April (Vicki Lewis) discovers this and throws him out in a rage. Meanwhile, Ernie, who never cared for his father's business, serves the mayor at his restaurant Chez Ernie. A cockroach crawls out of the box of cigars into one of the dishes. The mayor accidentally eats it and dies of a heart attack, and due to the publicity, Ernie loses his restaurant and home. He meets Lars in a diner, where they reconcile and decide to investigate the old mansion, since both of them have nowhere else to live. They find the mansion to be "... just like him: cold and spooky". Their first night in the only bed there is a noise, which they attribute to a mouse that they find in the attic. They also find the mansion's blueprints, which show that it was built in 1876 by a famous architect, Charles Lyle LaRue. The find attracts immediate interest, including a collector of LaRue items, Alexander Falko (Maury Chaykin), who offers to buy the mansion right then for $10 million. However, Ernie greedily convinces Lars that they can make more money if they restore it and then auction it off. April reconciles with Lars and finances the restoration. The brothers begin renovating, which destroys the mouse's home behind a wall. The mouse subsequently sabotages their efforts, invoking numerous attempts by them to kill it, which injure only themselves and coincidentally destroy prominent portions of the house. They cover the floor with mousetraps, which the mouse triggers with a cherry. they try to suck it up with a vacuum cleaner but gets stuck in a sewage pipe, causing the bag in the vacuum cleaner to explode. They acquire a deranged cat, named Catzilla, which the mouse tricks into falling down a Dumbwaiter shaft. Finally they hire an eccentric exterminator named Caesar (Christopher Walken). Meanwhile, Ernie finds the Zeppco business card in the string factory and surreptitiously arranges a meeting (without telling Lars), which never occurs because he flirts with two Belgian women and gets hit by a bus. The brothers return to the house as Caesar, injured and insane, is taken away by paramedics, who found him locked in a trunk in the attic, like the previous owner. After another chase after the mouse, the two brothers result in being burnt/injured with Ernie being blasted out of the chimney and into a frozen lake in a ball of fire. Completely berserk, Ernie grabs a shotgun and fires at the mouse, missing each time and causing the floor to collapse by accidentally shooting a bug bomb dropped by Caesar. In the ensuing calm, the answering machine plays a message from Zeppco, withdrawing their offer to buy the factory. The brothers begin to argue about each betrayal, and Lars, enraged, throws an orange at Ernie, missing and knocking the mouse unconscious. Finding the opportunity, the brothers wanted to finish the mouse off, but their consciences desists them despite all the mayhem the mouse contributed. Instead, the brothers happily mail the mouse to Cuba. They finally finish restoring the mansion and host a lavish auction at the premises. The bidding rises into millions, when Lars discovers the mouse parcel, returned due to insufficient postage, with a hole chewed through. In horror, the brothers immediately attempt to find and kill the mouse. They feed a hose into the walls to try and flood the mouse out. Meanwhile, Alexander Falko bids $25 million, but before the auctioneer's gavel drops, the walls collapse under the water pressure. The water flushes out all the people inside the house before the house finally collapses to the ground. The brothers' only consolation is the apparent certainty that the mouse has finally been killed, and they assumed so when they found their father's lucky piece of string, which the mouse ate earlier. Ruined again, the brothers spend the night in the string factory, unaware that the mouse has survived and followed them. The mouse activates the factory machinery and drops a slab of cheese into the wax receptacle. The noise awakens the brothers, who find a ball of string cheese at the end of the production line. The film switches to Lars giving his new girlfriend a tour of the highly modernised factory, which now manufactures string cheese very profitably. Ernie is the top chef for new blends, but accepts them only after quality control by the mouse, telling it, "We want you to be our spokesperson. I'm sure people have had a mouse as a spokesperson before and it turned out pretty well." The film ends with the portrait of Rudolf Smuntz beaming (his expression in the portrait has been changing throughout the entire film), and his lucky piece of string laminated, framed and hung beside the portrait, with his famous quotation written under it, "A world without string is chaos."

2. Tarzan (1999): In the late 1880s off the coast of Africa, a young couple and their infant son escape a burning ship, ending up on land near uncharted rainforests (presumably West Africa). The couple craft themselves a treehouse from their ship's wreckage. The couple are killed by a savage female leopard named Sabor. Kala (Glenn Close), a gorilla who recently lost her own child to the vicious leopardess, hears the cries of the orphaned infant, and finds him in the ruined treehouse. Kala is attacked by Sabor, who wants to kill and eat the baby, but Kala manages to get her tangled in the ropes holding the derelict rowboat, and she and the baby escape. The kindly Kala takes the baby back to the Gorilla troop to raise as her own, despite her mate Kerchak's (Lance Henriksen) disapproval. Kala raises the human child, naming him Tarzan (Alex D. Linz as a young boy, Tony Goldwyn as a young adult). Though he befriends other gorillas in the troop and other animals, including the young female gorilla Terk (Rosie O'Donnell) and the male elephant Tantor (Wayne Knight), Tarzan finds himself unable to keep up with them, and takes great efforts to improve himself, including occasionally fashioning crude tools, to put him on par with the other gorillas. As a young man, Tarzan is able to kill Sabor with his crude spear and protect the troop, earning Kerchak's reluctant respect. The gorilla troop's peaceful life is interrupted by the arrival of a team of human explorers from England, including Professor Porter (Nigel Hawthorne), his daughter Jane (Minnie Driver) and their hunter-guide Clayton (Brian Blessed). Jane is accidentally separated from the group and chased by a pack of baboons. Tarzan saves her from the baboons, and recognizes that she is the same as he is, a human. Jane leads Tarzan back to the explorer's camp, where both Porter and Clayton take great interest in him—the former in terms of scientific progress while the latter hoping to have Tarzan lead him to the gorillas so that he can capture them and return with them to England. Despite Kerchak's warnings to be wary of the humans, Tarzan continues to return to the camp and be taught by Porter and Jane to speak English and learn of the human world, and both he and Jane begin to fall for each other. However, Clayton cannot convince Tarzan to lead him to the gorillas, due to Tarzan's fear for their safety from the threat of Kerchak. When the explorers' boat returns to pick them up, Clayton makes Tarzan believe that if he shows the group the gorillas, then Jane will stay with him forever. Tarzan agrees and leads the party to the gorilla troop's home, while Terk and Tantor lure Kerchak away to avoid having him attack the humans. Porter and Jane are excited to mingle with the gorillas, but Kerchak returns and threatens to kill them. Tarzan is forced to hold Kerchak at bay while the humans escape, and then leaves the troop himself, now alienated by his actions. Kala takes Tarzan back to the treehouse she found him in, and shows him his true past (including an old photograph of Tarzan's biological parents, and himself as a baby). Kala encourages him to follow his heart, and leave with Jane and Professor Porter (although it will break her heart to see him go). When they return to the ship, they are ambushed by pirates, led by Clayton, who desires to capture and sell the gorillas in England for a fine price. He orders them locked below with the Captain and his crew, but Tarzan manages to escape with the help of Tantor and Terk, and races back to the gorilla home. Kerchak and Tarzan together battle Clayton; Kerchak is fatally shot, while Clayton chases Tarzan into the vine-covered trees, where Tarzan gets the drop on him, destroying Clayton's gun. Clayton, in his haste to kill Tarzan, ignores his warning about the vine wrapped around his neck, and Clayton's neck is broken in the drop when he cuts himself free. Kerchak, in his dying breath, accepts Tarzan as his own son finally, and names him the leader of the gorilla troop. The rest of the gorillas (including Kala) are freed by Jane, Professor Porter, Terk and Tantor, and other of Tarzan's miscellaneous animal friends (baboons, rhinos, etc.), after fighting and/or scaring away the rest of Clayton's men, imprisoning them in the very same cages they planned to imprison the gorillas in. The next day, as Porter and Jane prepare to leave on the ship, Tarzan reveals that he now plans to stay with the gorilla troop. As the ship leaves shore, Porter encourages his daughter to stay with the man she loves, and Jane jumps overboard to return to shore; Porter shortly follows himself. The two are accepted into the gorilla troop where, as the song says, they are all finally "Two Worlds, One Family".

3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001): Harry Potter is a seemingly ordinary eleven-year-old boy, living with his negligent relatives, the Dursleys. On his eleventh birthday, Harry learns from a mysterious stranger, Rubeus Hagrid, that he is actually a wizard, famous in the Wizarding World for surviving an attack by the evil Lord Voldemort when Harry was only one year old. Voldemort killed Harry's parents, but his attack on Harry rebounded, leaving only a lightning-bolt scar on Harry's forehead and rendering Voldemort powerless. Hagrid reveals to Harry that he has been invited to begin attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry defies his aunt and uncle, and attends Hogwarts where he begins to learn magic and make new friends, as well as enemies, among the Hogwarts students and staff. Voldemort has been near death, and in hiding, since the attack on Harry ten years earlier, but a plot is brewing for the Dark Lord to regain his power and strength through the acquisition of a philosopher's stone, which grants immortality to its owner. Harry and his friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, discover the plot and seek to prevent the theft of the stone, which is hidden in a protected chamber at Hogwarts. The three friends suspect Professor Snape, a teacher who for unknown reasons despises Harry. The culprit is actually the seemingly cowardly teacher, Professor Quirrell, who is acting on Voldemort's orders. Harry manages to defeat Quirrell, and the stone is forever destroyed by Albus Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel, crushing the chance of Voldemort returning to power

4. The Haunted Mansion (2003): The prologue shown over the opening credits is a series of vignettes which sketch the story eventually told later in the film: sometime in the 19th century, a young landowner by the name of Edward Gracey fell in love with a woman named Elizabeth Henshaw. The two were to marry, but Elizabeth unexpectedly committed suicide (by taking poison), and Edward, having received a note, (supposedly written by his fiancee,) hanged himself in despair. In modern-day Louisiana, Jim Evers (Murphy) operates a successful and growing real estate partnership with his wife, Sara (Thomason). Jim's workaholic habits often cause him to put work ahead of his family, but he promises to make it up to them with a weekend trip to a nearby lake. Before leaving, however, Sara receives a telephone call asking her to appraise an old mansion in the remote swamps of New Orleans. Jim jumps at the chance to handle the selling of the house, and takes his entire family, including his children Michael and Megan, to the old Gracey Manor, which seems completely deserted except for the owner, Edward Gracey (Parker), his creepy butler Ramsley (Stamp), and two servants, Ezra (Shawn) and Emma (Waters). What is supposed to be a brief stop turns into an overnight stay when a sudden rainstorm blocks the road, and the Evers are offered shelter for the night. After an argument between Jim and Sara, Ramsley leads Jim to the library, where Jim discovers a secret exit and becomes trapped wandering through the passageways. Elsewhere, Gracey approaches Sara and offers her a tour of the mansion. Meanwhile, a strange, glowing ball appears in Megan and Michael's room, and leads them to the attic, where they discover an old portrait, and realize that Sara is the spitting image of Elizabeth Henshaw. Jim stumbles on a crystal ball with the spirit of a gypsy, Madame Leota (Tilly) inside. Leota guides him to Michael and Megan, accompanied by Ezra and Emma, who explain that they, and the rest of the house's inhabitants, are ghosts: since Master Gracey's suicide, the mansion has been cursed and their spirits have been trapped there. Believing that Sara is a reincarnated Elizabeth, Gracey seeks to marry her, ending his despair and breaking the curse. Jim asks how they can escape, and Leota tells him to find a key in the adjacent graveyard. After a narrow escape from a crypt full of zombies, they use the key to open a locked trunk in the attic: inside, they find a letter from Elizabeth to Edward, accepting his proposal of marriage. Stunned, Ezra and Emma realize that Elizabeth didn't kill herself. Ramsley's ghost appears and reveals the truth: feeling that marriage to Elizabeth would have ruined his master, Ramsley poisoned her, and then sent Edward a fake suicide note. He did not expect Edward's suicide, or the curse it caused. Now, in order to break the curse, he has lured Sara to the mansion, so Edward can "marry" her and finally be at peace. When Jim objects, Ramsley uses his powers to take Megan and Michael prisoner, throw Jim out of the mansion, and then seal it off. Inside, Edward pleads with Sara to remember who she really is. Frightened, and realizing that he is a ghost, she runs away and locks herself in her room. Ramsley then confronts her, telling her to play her part and go through with the wedding, or else Megan and Michael will die. Outside the mansion, Jim has almost given up hope, but Madame Leota tells him to "try again." Jim crashes his car through the mansion's windows, rescues Megan and Michael, and then confronts the ghosts in the middle of the "wedding," just before Sara is about to join Edward in death by drinking a cup of poison. Jim gives Edward the real letter from Elizabeth, and Ramsley, when confronted, admits to murdering her. When all is revealed, Ramsley becomes enraged and envokes the powers of Hell. Windows shatter as evil spirits fly around the room. At that, flames erupt from the fireplace and drag Ramsley down to his rightful place: in Hell. Then the mysterious ball reappears, and reveals itself to be the ghost of Elizabeth; she and Edward reunite, and together they, and the rest of the mansion's ghosts, ascend to Heaven. The only inhabitants of the mansion left behind are Madame Leota and four singing busts, which the Evers adopt into their family and take with them on their vacation.

5. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005): Tottington Hall's annual Giant Vegetable Competition is approaching. The winner of the competition will win the Golden Carrot Award. All are eager to protect their vegetables from damage and thievery by rabbits until the contest, and Wallace and Gromit are cashing in by running a vegetable security and humane pest control business, "Anti-Pesto". However, they are faced with two problems: the first is Wallace's growing weight and the second is inadequate space for the captured rabbits. Wallace comes up with an idea — use his Mind Manipulation-O-Matic machine to brainwash the rabbits, allowing them to run freely without harming everyone's gardens. While performing the operation, he kicks the switch and something goes terribly wrong, leaving them with a semi-intelligent rabbit who (in a slow metamorphosis) starts to behave like Wallace (down to his fondness for cheese) and whom Wallace names "Hutch". Soon the town is threatened by the "Were-Rabbit", a giant rabbit-like monster which eats vegetables of any size. During a chaotic yet hilarious town meeting, Anti-Pesto enters into a rivalry with Lord Victor Quartermaine to capture the Were-Rabbit and to win Lady Tottington's heart. After the first night of the Were-Rabbit, the townsfolk start to argue about what to do. After a hectic night-time chase, Gromit discovers that the Were-Rabbit (whom he assumed was Hutch at first) is, in fact, Wallace, suffering from the effects of the accident with the Mind Manipulation-O-Matic having caused him and Hutch to each take on aspects of the other; Hutch even displays Wallace's knack for inventions and regularly repeats some of Wallace's old phrases. Victor corners Wallace during the night, jealous of Lady Tottington's growing fondness for him because of his humane practice of pest control (whereas Victor thinks it's more effective to shoot and kill them). But then Wallace falls into the path of moonlight and transforms. Victor, having identified the Were-Rabbit, goes to Reverend Clement Hedges and gains access to "24-carrot" gold bullets - supposedly, the only things capable of killing a Were-Rabbit. During the final showdown, Victor and his dog Philip capture Gromit, who subsequently escapes and decides to make the ultimate sacrifice by using the melon he had been growing for the competition as bait for Wallace who, in his rabbit form, has burst in upon the vegetable contest, causing panic. Victor tries to shoot what is apparently the monster, but Gromit is one step ahead of him, using a rabbit costume he and Wallace had created prior to the discovery of the Were-Rabbit's true nature as a trap. Unfortunately, the marrow cannot keep Wallace's attention as Victor tries to take the golden carrot award from a distressed Lady Tottington (The only vaguely bullet-like object left to him after he exhausted the gold bullets provided by the vicar). Wallace ascends to the rooftops, holding a screaming Lady Tottington in his hand. Discovering his identity, she promises to protect him, only to be interrupted by Victor. Meanwhile, in a mid-air dogfight in toy aeroplanes, Philip chases after Gromit. Gromit forces his foe out of the air in a fiery crash and explosion - but Philip manages to hold on to Gromit's plane and the two grapple with each other. The fight rages on and in the end, Gromit releases Philip, ironically, through the bomb doors and into a bouncy castle. On the roof of Tottington Hall, Gromit's toy biplane circles Wallace, who clings onto the flagpole at the top of the building for dear life. Victor, wielding the Golden Carrot trophy inside a blunderbuss he finds at an antiques table at the fair, tries one last time to shoot Wallace, but Wallace is saved by Gromit, who grabs onto a rope from a flagpole and swings his plane into the path of the improvised bullet. The enraged Victor throws down the blunderbuss and stamps on it screaming out "Potty poo!" Unfortunately, since it is a toy plane not intended for flying, when Gromit accidentally lets go of the rope, the plane begins to descend rapidly. Wallace jumps from the flagpole and catches the plane, thereby breaking Gromit's fall into the cheese tent below. Victor gloats, but is knocked unconscious by Lady Tottington, using a giant carrot. He falls into the tent too, where Wallace lies unconscious and seemingly dying of his injuries. To protect Wallace from the angry mob outside, Gromit dresses Victor up as the monster (using a marionette he used earlier as a lure for the Were-Rabbit), and throws him out of the tent. Philip, believing Victor to be the beast, bites his master, and the angry mob chases Victor away.Gromit and Tottington tend to Wallace who, seconds later, breathes his last and morphs back into his human form. Gromit, the rabbits, and Lady Tottington are saddened by their loss, but Gromit is able to revive Wallace with a slice of Stinking Bishop cheese. Gromit, for his bravery and his "brave and splendid marrow", was awarded the (now somewhat battered) competition trophy, and Lady Tottington turns Tottington Hall into a wildlife refuge where all the rabbits, including Hutch, can live in peace.

By Steven Harris, Vikrum Singh, Scott Hancock & Richard Moody

My Favorite Novels Of Twilight Series

2009-11-05T06:45:00.000-08:00

1. Twilight (2005): Isabella "Bella" Swan moves from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington to live with her father, Charlie, while her mother, Renée, travels with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, a minor league baseball player. Bella attracts much attention at her new school and is quickly befriended by several students. Much to her dismay, several boys compete for shy Bella's attention. When Bella is seated next to Edward Cullen in class on her first day of school, Edward seems utterly repulsed by her. He disappears for a few days, but warms up to Bella upon his return; their newfound relationship reaches a climax when Bella is nearly run over by a fellow classmate's van in the school parking lot. Seemingly defying the laws of physics, Edward saves her life when he instantaneously appears next to her and stops the van with his bare hands. Bella becomes determined to find out how Edward saved her life, and constantly pesters him with questions. After tricking a family friend, Jacob Black, into telling her the local tribal legends, Bella concludes that Edward and his family are vampires who drink animal blood rather than human. Edward confesses that he initially avoided Bella because the scent of her blood was too desirable to him. Over time, Edward and Bella fall in love.Their relationship is disturbed when another vampire coven sweeps into Forks. James, a tracker vampire who is intrigued by the Cullens' relationship with a human, wants to hunt Bella for sport. The Cullens attempt to distract the tracker by splitting up Bella and Edward, and Bella is sent to hide in a hotel in Phoenix. There, Bella receives a phone call from James, who claims to be holding her mother captive. When Bella surrenders herself, James attacks her. Before she is killed, Edward, along with the other Cullens, rescues her and defeats James. Once they realize that James has bitten Bella's hand, Edward sucks the venom from her bloodstream before she is infected and becomes a vampire. After doing so, she is brought to a hospital. Upon returning to Forks, Bella and Edward attend their school prom and Bella expresses her desire to become a vampire, but Edward refuses.

2. New Moon (2006): On Isabella "Bella" Swan's 18th birthday, Edward Cullen, the vampire she loves, and his family throw her a birthday party. While unwrapping a gift, she gets a paper cut, which causes Edward's adopted brother, Jasper, to be overwhelmed by her blood's scent and attempt to kill Bella. To protect her, Edward decides to end their relationship, and the Cullens move away from Forks. This leaves Bella heart-broken and depressed. In the months that follow, Bella learns that thrill-seeking activities, such as motorcycle riding, allow her to "hear" Edward's voice in her head. She also seeks comfort in her deepening friendship with Jacob Black, a cheerful companion who eases her pain over losing Edward. Bella later discovers that Jacob is a werewolf. He and his fellow werewolves protect Bella from the vampires Laurent and Victoria, the latter of whom seeks revenge for her dead mate, James, whom the Cullens killed in Twilight. Meanwhile, a series of miscommunications leads Edward to believe that Bella has killed herself. Distraught over her supposed suicide, Edward flees to Italy to provoke the Volturi, vampire royalty who are capable of killing him. Alice and Bella rush to Italy to save Edward, arriving just in time to stop him. Before leaving Italy, the Volturi tell Edward that Bella, a human who knows that vampires exist, must either be killed or transformed into a vampire. When they return to Forks, Edward tells Bella that he has always loved her and only left Forks to protect her. She forgives him, and the Cullens vote in favor of Bella being transformed into a vampire, to Edward's dismay. However, Edward gives Bella a choice: either she lets Carlisle change her after her graduation, or, if Bella agrees to marry him, he will change her himself.

3. Eclipse (2007): The story opens with the revelation that Seattle, Washington is being plagued by a string of unsolved murders, which Edward suspects is caused by a young vampire that is unable to control its thirst for human blood. As Edward and Bella apply to colleges, Bella explains to Edward her desire to see her werewolf friend, Jacob Black, again. Although Edward fears for her safety, Bella insists that neither Jacob nor his werewolf pack would ever harm her, and she begins visiting him occasionally. Meanwhile, Alice Cullen has a vision that Victoria, a vampire who is hunting Bella for revenge, has returned to Forks. A few days later, Edward proposes to Bella and, despite having an aversion to marriage, she accepts. Bella and the Cullens realize that the murders in Seattle are being committed by an "army" of newborn vampires, controlled by Victoria. The Cullens join forces with the werewolf pack to combat this threat. As everyone else prepares for battle, Edward, Bella, and Jacob camp up in the mountains, hidden during the battle, where they are later joined by Seth Clearwater, a young member of the werewolf pack, to wait out the fight. In the morning, Jacob becomes upset when he overhears Edward and Bella discussing their engagement and threatens to join the fight and get himself killed. To stop him, Bella kisses Jacob and comes to realize that she also loves him. During the battle, Victoria tracks Edward's scent to where Bella is hidden in the woods, and Edward is forced to fight. After Victoria and her army are successfully destroyed, Bella explains to Jacob that while she loves him, her love for Edward is greater. After receiving a wedding invitation from Edward, Jacob runs away in his wolf form to escape his pain, angry and heartbroken at Bella's decision to become a vampire.

4. Breaking Dawn (2008): Breaking Dawn is split into three separate parts. The first part details Bella's marriage and honeymoon with Edward, which they spend on a private island off the coast of Brazil. Two weeks into their honeymoon, Bella realizes that she is pregnant and that her condition is progressing at an unnaturally accelerated rate. After contacting Carlisle, who confirms her pregnancy, she and Edward immediately return home to Forks, Washington. Edward, concerned for Bella's life and convinced that the fetus is a monster as it continues to develop with unnatural rapidity, urges her to have an abortion. However, Bella feels a pull towards the child and refuses to go through with the procedure. The second part of the novel is written from the perspective of werewolf Jacob Black, and lasts throughout Bella's pregnancy and childbirth. Jacob's Quileute werewolf pack, not knowing what danger the unborn child may pose, make plans to destroy it, even though they must kill Bella to do so. Jacob vehemently protests this decision and leaves, forming his own pack with Leah and Seth Clearwater. Bella soon gives birth, but the baby breaks many of her bones and she loses massive amounts of blood. In order to save her life, Edward changes her into a vampire by injecting his venom into her heart. Jacob, who was present for the birth, almost immediately "imprints"—an involuntary response in which a werewolf finds his soul mate—on Edward and Bella's newborn daughter, Renesmee. The third section of Breaking Dawn shifts back to Bella's perspective, finding her changed into a vampire and enjoying her new life and abilities. However, the vampire Irina misidentifies Renesmee as an "immortal child", a child who has been turned into a vampire. Because "immortal children" are uncontrollable, creating them has been outlawed by the Volturi. After Irina presents her allegation to the Volturi, they plan to destroy Renesmee and the Cullens. In an attempt to survive, the Cullens gather other vampire clans from around the world to stand as witnesses and prove to the Volturi that Renesmee is not an immortal child. Upon confronting the gathered Cullen allies and witnesses, the Volturi discover that they have been misinformed and immediately execute Irina for her mistake. However, they remain undecided on whether Renesmee should be viewed as a threat to vampires' secret existence. At that time, Alice and Jasper, who had left prior to the confrontation, return with a Mapuche called Nahuel, a 150-year-old vampire-human crossbreed like Renesmee. He demonstrates that the crossbreeds pose no threat, and the Volturi surrender. Edward, Bella and Renesmee return to their home in peace.

By Richard Moody

Richard Moody's Complete Childhood Video

2009-10-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

Something’s Got to Give (1962): Ellen Arden (Monroe), mother of two small children, was a photographer on a trans-pacific yacht race when she was swept overboard. After an exhaustive search her husband Nick (Dean Martin) has her declared dead. On the same day her husband is married to Bianca (Cyd Charisse). While they are on their honeymoon, Ellen returns home after having been rescued from an island where she has been marooned for 5 years, and although the family dog remembers her, the children do not. However, the children take a liking to her, and invite her to stay. Ellen poses as a woman named Ingrid Tic, impersonating a foreign accent. Nick obviously recognizes the woman, however Bianca does not, but his assumptions are not proven until he spies Ellen laughing while swimming in the pool while in the nude late at night. After this, Nick learns that she was marooned on the island with Stephen Burkett (Tom Tryon) known as "Adam" to her "Eve". To allay Nick's fears, Ellen enlists a meek shoe salesman (Wally Cox) to impersonate her island companion.

By Shway Ross & Richard Moody

Quantum of Solace 31.10.2008 (U.K.)

2009-10-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

Quantum of Solace (2008): The film continues immediately after the events of Casino Royale with Bond driving from Lake Como to Siena, Italy. With the captured Mr. White in the luggage compartment of his car, Bond is attacked by chasing henchmen. After evading his pursuers, Bond and M interrogate White regarding his organisation, Quantum. M's bodyguard, Mitchell, is revealed as a double agent and a traitor, attacking M and allowing White to escape; Bond chases Mitchell across Siena and kills him. Following a forensic investigation into Mitchell's apartment back in London, Bond heads to Haiti to track down and kill Mitchell's contact, Edmund Slate. In carrying out his objective, Bond learns that Slate was sent to kill Camille Montes at the behest of her lover, Dominic Greene, the chairman of an ecological organization called Greene Planet. While observing her meeting with Greene, Bond learns that Greene is helping the Bolivian general Medrano – who murdered Camille's family – overthrow his government in exchange for a seemingly barren piece of desert. Greene has Camille escorted away on Medrano's boat to "sweeten" their deal, but Bond rescues her. Bond then follows Greene to a private jet, which flies him to a performance of Tosca at Lake Constance in Bregenz, Austria. Bond infiltrates Quantum's meeting at the opera, and a gunfight ensues in a restaurant. A bodyguard of Guy Haines, an advisor to the British Prime Minister, is killed, and M, assuming Bond is the killer, has his passports and credit cards revoked. Bond travels to Talamone, small Italian town in Maremma, to reunite with his old ally René Mathis, whom he convinces to accompany him to La Paz. They are greeted by Strawberry Fields, an MI6 field operative from the British Consulate, who demands that Bond return to the UK on the next available flight. Bond disobeys and seduces her in their hotel suite. Bond meets Camille again at a fund-raiser being held by Greene, and they leave hastily together, but are pulled over by the Bolivian police. Not knowing that their chief was working with Medrano, the policemen beat up Mathis and put him in the trunk of Bond's car. The police order Bond to open the luggage compartment of his vehicle, revealing a bloodied Mathis. As Bond lifts Mathis out of the vehicle, the policemen open fire and fatally wound Mathis, who dies in Bond's arms. After Bond subdues the police and deposits Mathis's body in a waste container, Bond and Camille drive to Greene's intended land acquisition and survey the area in a Douglas DC-3 plane. They are intercepted and shot down by an Aermacchi SF.260 fighter and a Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter. They escape from the crippled plane by parachuting, landing in a sinkhole. While escaping the cave, Bond and Camille discover Quantum is blockading Bolivia's supply of fresh water, normally flowing in subterranean rivers, by damming it to double the price of water. The duo return to La Paz, where Bond meets M and learns Quantum murdered Fields by drowning her in crude oil. Believing that Bond has become a threat to both friend and foe, M orders him to disarm and end his activities in Bolivia, but he defies her and escapes. Bond meets CIA agent Felix Leiter at a local bar, who discloses Greene and Medrano will meet at an eco-hotel in the Bolivian desert. Tipped off by Leiter, Bond evades American special forces attempting to kill him. Bond then sets out to the hotel where Greene and Medrano make the change in the Bolivian leadership. Bond kills the departing Colonel of Police for betraying Mathis, and sets off a chain of explosions in the hotel when a hydrogen fuel tank is hit by an out of control vehicle. Camille kills Medrano, and Bond captures Greene. After interrogating him, he leaves Greene stranded in the middle of the desert with only a can of motor oil. Bond drives Camille to a train station, where they kiss before she departs. Bond goes to Kazan, Russia, where he confronts Vesper Lynd's former lover, Yusef Kabira. Yusef is a member of Quantum who seduces high-ranking women with valuable connections, getting them to give up government assets as ransom for himself in fake kidnappings where he is supposedly held hostage. He is attempting to do the same with Canadian agent Corinne Veneau, even giving her the same kind of necklace he gave Vesper. Surprising them at Yusef's apartment, Bond tells Corinne about Vesper and advises her to alert the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. As Bond is leaving Yusef's apartment he is confronted by M, who is surprised that Bond did not kill Yusef, but rather left him alive for questioning. M reveals that Leiter has been promoted by the CIA, replacing Beam, and that Greene was found in the desert, shot dead with 2 bullet holes in his head and with motor oil in his stomach. Bond doesn't volunteer any information on Greene, but tells M that she was right about Vesper. M then tells Bond that MI6 needs him back and fully reinstates him as an agent. Bond walks off into the night telling M that he never left. As he leaves, he drops Vesper's necklace in the snow.

By Richard Moody

Richard Moody's Complete Childhood 3 James Dean DVD's

2009-10-19T04:38:00.000-07:00

1. East of Eden (1955): The story is set in 1917, during World War I, in the central California coastal towns of Monterey and Salinas. Cal (Caleb) (James Dean) and Aron (Richard Davalos) are the young adult sons of a modestly successful farmer and wartime draft board chairman named Adam Trask (Raymond Massey). Adam is a deeply religious man. Cal is moody and embittered by his belief that his father loves only Aron. The Trask family has a farm in the fertile Salinas valley. Although both Cal and Aron had been led to believe that their mother had died "and gone to heaven", the opening scene reveals that Cal knows that his mother is still alive, owning and running a successful brothel. After the father's idealistic plans for a long-haul vegetable shipping business venture end in a loss of thousands of dollars, Cal decides to enter the bean-growing business, as a way of recouping the money his father lost in the vegetable shipping venture. He knows that if the United States enters the war, the price of beans will skyrocket. Cal hopes this will finally earn him the love and respect of his father. He goes to his mother Kate (Jo Van Fleet) to ask to borrow the capital he needs. She reluctantly lends him the five thousand dollars (approximately $85,000 in 2007's currency). Meanwhile, Aron's girlfriend Abra (Julie Harris) finds herself attracted to Cal. Cal's business goes quite well. He makes a birthday present of the money to his father. However, Adam refuses to accept any money earned by war profiteering. Cal does not understand, and sees his father's refusal to accept the gift as just another rejection. When the distraught Cal leaves the room, Abra goes after him, to console him as best she can. Aron follows and orders Cal to stay away from her. In anger, Cal takes his brother to see their mother, then returns home alone. When his father demands to know where his brother is, Cal tells him. The shock drives the pacifistic Aron to get drunk and lose his mind and then board a troop train to enlist in the army. When Sam (Burl Ives), the sheriff, brings the news, Adam rushes to the train station in a futile attempt to dissuade him, he fails and can only watch helplessly as his son steams away from him covered in blood and laughing manically.The old man then suffers a stroke, which leaves him paralyzed and unable to communicate. Cal tries to talk to him, but gets no response and leaves the bedroom. Abra pleads with Adam to show Cal some affection before it is too late. Then she drags Cal back into the room. When Cal makes his last bid for acceptance before leaving town, his father manages to speak. He tells his son to get rid of the annoying nurse and not to get anyone else, but to stay and take care of him himself.

2. Rebel without a Cause (1955): The protagonist is 17-year-old James 'Jim' Stark, shortly after he and his parents move to Los Angeles, where he enrolls at Dawson High School. The film begins with Jim brought into police station for public drunkenness. His mother, father and grandmother come to retrieve him, and Jim's family situation is introduced. Jim's parents are often fighting. Often the father is the one who tries to advocate for Jim; however, Jim's mother always succeeds during the arguments. Jim feels betrayed both by this fighting and by his father's lack of moral strength, causing feelings of unrest and displacement. This shows later in the film when he repeatedly asks his father "what do you do when you have to be a man?" While trying to conform with fellow students at the school, he becomes involved in a dispute with a local bully named Buzz Gunderson. While he tries to deal with Buzz (Corey Allen), he becomes friends with a 15-year-old boy, John, nick-named Plato (Sal Mineo), who was also at the police station the night of the opening scene for shooting puppies. Plato idolizes Jim, his real father having abandoned his family. Plato experiences many of the same problems as Jim, such as searching for meaning in life and dealing with parents who "don't understand." Jim meets Judy (Natalie Wood), whom he also recognizes from the police station, where she was brought in for being out alone after dark, who originally acts unimpressed by Jim, saying in an ironic tone "I'm bet you're a real yoyo." She belongs to the high school gang of Buzz Gunderson. The thugs challenge Jim to a "Chicken Race" with Buzz, racing stolen cars towards an abyss. The one who first jumps out of the car loses and is deemed a "chicken" (coward). The "game" ends in tragedy for Buzz when a strap on the sleeve of his leather jacket becomes caught on the car door and he is unable to jump before it goes over the cliff. Jim tries to tell his parents what happened but becomes frustrated by their failure to understand him and storms out of the house. When Jim is seen trying to go to the police by some of Buzz's friends, they decide to hunt him down, and harass Plato and Jim's family to try to find him. Judy and Plato join him in the garden of an abandoned villa, where they act out a "fantasy family," with Jim as father, Judy as mother and Plato as child. The thugs soon discover them, and Plato brandishes a gun, shooting at one of the boys, Jim, and a police officer, in a clearly unstable state. Plato hides in the Griffith Observatory which is soon besieged by the police. Jim and Judy follow him inside, and Jim convinces Plato to lend him the gun, from which he silently removes the ammunition magazine (though he neglects the round in the chamber). When Plato steps out of the observatory, he becomes unstable again at the sight of the police and charges forward, brandishing his weapon. He is shot fatally by a police officer acting in defense of himself and the bystanders, despite Jim's yelling to police that he removed the bullets. Plato was wearing Jim's jacket at the time, and as a result, Jim's parents (brought to the scene by police) think at first that Jim was shot. Mr. Stark then runs to comfort Jim, who is distraught by Plato's death. Mr. Stark promises to be a stronger father, one that his son can depend on. Thus reconciled, Jim introduces Judy to his parents.

3. Giant (1956): Bick Benedict (Rock Hudson), the head of the rich Benedict ranching family of Texas, goes to Maryland to buy a stud horse, War Winds. There he meets and courts the socialite Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor), who becomes his wife. They return to Texas to start their life together on the family ranch, Reata. Luz (Mercedes McCambridge), Bick's sister, and Leslie don't get along. Jett Rink (James Dean) the family handyman, is envious of the Benedict wealth and flirts with Leslie. Luz dies after War Winds bucks her off, and as part of her will, Jett is given a plot of land within the Benedict ranch. Bick tries to buy back the land, but Jett refuses. Jett keeps the fenced off waterhole as his home and names the property Little Reata. Leslie eventually gives birth to twins, Jordan Benedict III (Dennis Hopper), or Jordy, and Judy Benedict (Fran Bennett), and a younger daughter named Luz Jr (Carroll Baker). Jett discovers oil on his property, and when he gets his first gusher, he barges onto the Benedicts' property proclaiming in front of the entire family that he will be richer than the Benedicts. Bick and Jett have a fistfight and Jett runs off. In the years before World War II, Jett starts an oil drilling company that makes him wealthy. Bick resists the lure of oil wealth, preferring to remain a rancher. After war breaks out, Jett visits the Benedicts and convinces Bick to allow oil production to help the war effort. During this visit, Luz Jr, now a teen-aged girl, and Jett start flirting. Once oil production starts, the wealthy Benedict family becomes wealthier. In the postwar years, tensions in the Benedict household revolve around how the parents want to bring up their children. Bick wants Jordy to run the ranch, but Jordy wants to become a doctor. Leslie wants her Judy to attend finishing school in Switzerland, but Judy wants to stay in Texas for her education. The Benedict/Rink rivalry comes to a head when the Benedicts find Luz Jr. and Jett Rink have been dating. At a huge gala Jett organizes in his own honor, Jordy tries to fight him, after realizing he and his Mexican American wife, Juana (Elsa Cárdenas), were invited just so Jett's employees could turn Juana away. Bick then takes Jett to a kitchen room, about to fight him, but realizes that Jett is a shell of a man, who only has money. He tells him, "You're not even worth hitting...You're all through," and leaves. The party ends when Jett, completely drunk, slumps down in front of everyone before his big speech. Luz Jr. sees him afterwards, once everyone has left the ballroom, and discovers that he is a lonely wreck. The movie portrays how the oil industry transformed the Texas ranchers into the super rich of their generation. A major sub-plot of the movie is the racism against Mexican Americans in Texas. When the movie starts, Bick and Luz are racist towards the Mexicans who work on their ranch, which shocks Leslie. By the end of the movie, though, Bick realizes the wrongs of racism and defends his daughter-in-law and grandson, Juana and Jordan Benedict IV, respectively and earns Leslie's respect.

By James Ross & Duane Ross

My Favorite American TV series Friends & Joey

2009-10-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

1. Friends (1994 – 2004): The first season introduces the six main characters: Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, and Ross. Rachel arrives at Central Perk, after leaving her fiancé at the altar, and moves into Monica's apartment with her. Ross constantly tries to tell Rachel that he loves her, while his lesbian ex-wife, Carol, is expecting his baby. Joey is shown to be a struggling actor, while Phoebe works as a masseuse. Chandler breaks up with girlfriend Janice (Maggie Wheeler), who frequently returns in later seasons. At the end of the season, Chandler accidentally reveals that Ross loves Rachel, who realizes that she feels the same way. Tom Selleck garnered a 2000 Primetime Emmy Award nomination for "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series" for his role as Richard.
The second season begins with Rachel discovering that Ross is dating Julie (Lauren Tom), someone he knew from grad school. Rachel's attempts to tell Ross she likes him mirror his failed attempts in the first season, although the characters eventually begin a relationship. Joey gets a part in a fictional version of the soap opera Days of our Lives, but his character is killed off after he claims that he writes many of his own lines. Monica begins dating Richard (Tom Selleck), recently divorced and 21 years her senior. In the season finale, they end their relationship when they realize that unlike Monica, Richard does not want children.
Season three takes on a significantly greater serialized format. Rachel begins working at Bloomingdale's, an upscale department store chain, and Ross becomes jealous of her colleague, Mark. Ross and Rachel decide to take a break; however, Ross is confused by this arrangement and sleeps with someone else, causing Rachel to break up with him. After believing she has no family except her twin sister Ursula (Lisa Kudrow), Phoebe becomes acquainted with her half-brother (Giovani Ribisi) and birth mother (Teri Garr). Joey develops a relationship with his acting partner Kate (Dina Meyer), and Monica begins a relationship with millionaire Pete Becker (Jon Favreau).
In the fourth season premiere, Ross and Rachel reconcile but soon break up again. Phoebe becomes a surrogate mother for her brother and his wife Alice (Debra Jo Rupp). Monica and Rachel are forced to switch apartments with Joey and Chandler after losing a bet, but manage to switch back by bribing them with Knicks season tickets and a one-minute kiss between themselves. Ross begins dating an English woman named Emily (Helen Baxendale), and the season finale features their wedding in London. Chandler and Monica sleep together, and Rachel decides to attend Ross and Emily's wedding. While saying his vows, Ross uses the wrong name at the altar, to the shock of his bride and the guests.
Season five features Monica and Chandler trying to keep their new relationship a secret from their friends. Phoebe gives birth to triplets in the show's one hundredth episode. She gives birth to a boy, Frank Jr. Jr., and two girls: Leslie, and Chandler. They decided to keep the name Chandler, despite thinking the baby was a boy. Ross and Emily's marriage is called off, while Phoebe starts a relationship with police officer Gary (Michael Rapaport). Monica and Chandler go public with their relationship, to the surprise of their friends. They decide to get married on a trip to Las Vegas, but change their plans after witnessing Ross and Rachel drunkenly stumble out of the wedding chapel. Paul Rudd, who portrayed Phoebe's husband Mike, was originally asked to appear in several episodes and was surprised that his role became recurring.
In the sixth season premiere, Ross and Rachel's marriage is established to be a drunken mistake, and they divorce several episodes later. Monica and Chandler decide to move into her apartment together, and Rachel moves in with Phoebe. Joey lands a role on a cable television series called Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E, where he stars alongside a robot. Ross gets a job lecturing at New York University, and starts dating one of his students, Elizabeth (Alexandra Holden). Phoebe and Rachel's apartment catches fire, and Rachel moves in with Joey while Phoebe moves in with Chandler and Monica. Chandler decides to propose to Monica, who considers reconciling with Richard. Although Richard confesses that he still loves her, Monica accepts Chandler's proposal.
The seventh season mainly follows various antics by Monica and Chandler, who are preparing for their wedding. Joey's television series Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E is canceled, but he is offered his job back on Days of our Lives. Phoebe's apartment is fixed, but due to the way it is built, Rachel decides to stay with Joey. The season finale features Monica and Chandler's wedding, and Rachel is revealed to be pregnant.
The eighth season's first three episodes revolve around the identity of Rachel's baby's father, who is revealed to be Ross. Rachel and Ross decide to have the baby, but do not resume their romantic relationship. Joey develops romantic feelings for Rachel, but she does not feel the same. Rachel gives birth to baby Emma in the season finale, and Ross's mother wants him to propose. Joey finds Ross's ring on the floor, and Rachel accepts what she thinks is his proposal.
Season nine begins with Ross and Rachel living together as roommates with baby Emma. Monica and Chandler decide to have a child themselves but discover that they are unlikely to conceive. Phoebe begins dating Mike Hannigan (Paul Rudd), and chooses to be with him over her friend David (Hank Azaria). Rachel and Emma move in with Joey in the middle of the season, and Rachel develops romantic feelings for him. The group travels to Barbados in the finale to hear Ross give a keynote speech at a Paleontologist conference. Joey and his girlfriend Charlie (Aisha Tyler) break up, and she begins a relationship with Ross. Joey and Rachel's feelings for each other return, and the finale ends with them kissing.
The tenth season closes several long running storylines. Joey and Rachel try to contend with Ross's feelings about them being together, and decide to remain friends. Phoebe and Mike get married, while Charlie breaks up with Ross. Monica and Chandler apply to adopt a child, and are chosen by Erica (Anna Faris). In the series finale, Chandler and Monica fulfil their dream of having children, as Erica gives birth to twins - a boy and a girl. Monica and Chandler move to the suburbs, and Joey becomes upset with the changes happening in his life. Rachel takes a job in Paris, but decides not to go and resumes her relationship with Ross.

2. Joey (2004 – 2006): The pilot episode was released in screener for test audiences and members of the entertainment industry to preview the show and drum up business. The screener was subsequently leaked on the Internet and thus has received a much wider critical review process than initially conceived. There were few differences between the unbroadcast pilot and the version that was broadcast. Ashley Scott played the role of Allison in the unbroadcast pilot, she was replaced by Andrea Anders and the character name changed to Alex. The series did well in the Nielsen Ratings in its first season (2004-2005) and was subsequently renewed for a second season (2005-2006). In the second season, Miguel A. Núñez Jr. was added to the show as a series regular. Also, Jennifer Coolidge had a more prominent role. The show was pulled from its Thursday-night timeslot in December 2005, and NBC returned the show in a new timeslot (Tuesdays at 8pm) on March 7, 2006. Despite being in competition with American Idol, the ratings were even higher; Joey was the highest rated prime time program of the week for NBC. The network pulled the series after the first Tuesday broadcast and its cancellation was announced on May 15, 2006. The remaining episodes have never been broadcast by NBC, but have been shown on various other networks around the world.

By Richard Moody

Stephen Gately 1976 - 2009

2009-10-12T08:58:00.001-07:00

In 1994 I was at Meadowhall in Sheffield in the Oasis and I looked at the big screen TV. A Boyzone music video called “Love Me for the Reason” was on and I always thought that they were British not realizing that they were Irish.
When I was listening to “Father and Son by Boyzone” the song was originally by Cat Stevens back in 1970. I remember I was reading a book called “The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts.” The bit where Chris Farley listens to “Father and Son by Cat Stevens,” it made Chris Farley cry as that is what he wrote in his book.
In 1997 when I went to see “Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie” at the end of credits in the movie was song called “Picture Of You by Boyzone” Also Rowan Atkinson was in the music video.
I remember the group Boyzone was in a music video in a small part with Bono called “Sweetest Thing by U2.” That’s one of my favourite U2 songs. When Boyzone split up in 2000 Stephen Gately made a single called “Bright Eyes” taken from a Children’s TV Programme Watership Down 1999 to 2001.
In 2008 Boyzone came back with a new song called “Love You Anyway” and in College my tutors were glad to see them back.
On October 11, 2009 I saw on ITV News that Stephen Gately was found dead in Majorca, Spain in the hotel. When I heard the news about him I thought to myself “this can’t be happening just can’t be happening” I used to like him. If only he'd have lived a long full life, he'd have made so many more great songs.

By Richard Moody

Horton Hears A Who - Best Animated Movie

2009-10-10T13:23:00.001-07:00

Horton Hears A Who (2008): In the Jungle of Nool on the fifteenth of May where a warthog breifly ran, a caring, imaginative elephant named Horton (Jim Carrey), the jungle's nature teacher, takes a dip in the pool. A dust speck floats past him in the air, and he hears a tiny yelp coming from it. Believing that an entire family of microscopic creatures are living on that speck, he places it on top of a pink, fuzzy clover that he holds in his trunk. In fact, he finds out the speck harbors the city of Who-ville and all its inhabitants, led by Mayor Ned McDodd (Steve Carell). He has a loving wife, Sally (Amy Poehler), 96 daughters (Selena Gomez) who all have names that start with the letter H, and one son named JoJo (Jesse McCartney), who, by Who custom, is next in line for the mayoral position. JoJo does not want to become mayor, which leads him to become sullen and refuse to talk, despite Ned's giving him extra attention. The Mayor finds out from Dr. Larue (Isla Fisher) that Who-ville will be destroyed if Horton does not find a "safer more stable home." So Horton resolves to place the speck atop Mt. Nool, the safest place in the jungle. This outlook earns Horton nothing but ridicule from the inhabitants of Nool, especially from the strict official of the jungle, the Sour Kangaroo (Carol Burnett), who tries to get Horton to give up the speck, so as not to put supposedly ridiculous ideas into the heads of the children. Ever faithful to his motto, "A person's a person, no matter how small," Horton refuses. Also taking force toward Horton are the Wickersham brothers (Frank Welker and Dan Castellaneta), a group of bullying monkeys who love making misery. All the small incidents that Horton experiences on his trek across the jungle have a catastrophic effect on Who-ville. He almost falls off a rickety bridge over a gaping chasm with a river of dangerous crocodiles at the bottom, which causes a dentist's needle to accidentally slip into the Mayor's arm while getting a root canal. When Horton left the clover outside overnight, it frosted over, which created winter in the summer down in Who-ville. As the other Whos become suspicious, the Mayor finally reveals the truth, but at first, the Whos do not believe him any more than the animals believe Horton. In the meantime, the Kangaroo has enlisted a nefarious buzzard named Vlad Vladikoff (Will Arnett) to get rid of the speck by force. Vlad manages to steal the clover with the speck on it, flee from a chasing Horton and drop it from hundreds of feet into a valley full of nearly identical clovers, (the one holding the speck has a striped stem). The impact nearly demolishes Who-ville like an earthquake. Horton painstakingly picks 2,999,999 clovers through the field and finally finds it "on the 3 millionth flower." The earthquake, combined with hearing Horton's voice through the drain pipe, is enough to convince the rest of the Whos that the mayor is not crazy, and they all tell Horton they believe in him. The Kangaroo finds out that Horton still has the speck, and, as her patience completely runs out, organizes a mob by telling lies to get rid of the speck once and for all. The animals plan to rope and cage Horton, but the Kangaroo turns this into a chance for attention, and offers Horton an ultimatum: give up the speck and "admit" he was wrong and that she was right, or pay the price. Despite a heartfelt speech from Horton that clearly touches the animals, Kangaroo still takes this refusal as an insult to her authority, orders them to proceed, and drop the speck into a pot of boiling beezlenut oil to "teach him not to make up stories of people on specks!" The Mayor enlists all of his people to make noise by shouting, "We are here," as well as playing a variety of instruments, so the animals can hear them. JoJo runs off to Who-ville's abandoned Star-Studying Tower and soon Ned takes off after him. Inside, he reveals his ingenious invention: the Symphony-Phone, a giant machine that serves as an orchestra, and proceeds to add it to the mix of sounds. Still, the sound is not loud enough. The animals do not hear anything and the Kangaroo, who has had Horton caged, takes the clover, holds it over the oil and releases it. In a last-ditch effort to be heard, JoJo grabs the horn used to project Horton's voice, runs up the highest tower and yells "YOPP!" A sound wave emerges and ripples up to the already pressured clouds and collides with them, causing the clouds to break and the sound to come through. Hearing the Whos' cries, Rudy (Josh Flitter), the Kangaroo's son (who has been in his mother's pouch throughout the film despite being old enough to be out and too large for her pouch), grabs the clover before it hits the oil and returns it to Horton, refusing his mother's orders to return to her pouch. The animals finally realize the atrocity they almost committed. The Kangaroo is miserable for her behavior, but Horton forgives her, and offers his friendship, which the Kangaroo accepts. At the end of the film, everyone helps Horton carry the speck up to the top of Mt. Nool. After a big number of the cast singing REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling", the camera zooms out, revealing that along with numerous other worlds in our universe, the jungle of Nool is just one speck among numerous others like our planet.

By Richard Moody

Rowan Atkinson Movie Trilogy

2009-10-06T06:13:00.000-07:00

Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie (1997)

Starring
Rowan Atkinson
Peter MacNicol
Burt Reynolds
Pamela Reed
Richard Gant

Directed By Mel Smith

Johnny English (2003)

Starring
Rowan Atkinson
John Malkovich
Natalie Imbruglia
Tasha de Vasconcelos
Ben Miller

Directed By Peter Howitt

Mr. Bean’s Holiday (2007)

Starring
Rowan Atkinson
Emma de Caunes
Max Baldry
Willem Dafoe
Jean Rochefort
Karel Roden

Directed By Steve Bendelack

By Richard Moody

Richard Moody's Complete Childhood Tom and Jerry DVD

2009-10-03T02:17:00.001-07:00

Tom and Jerry Classic Collection Volume 2 DVD

Review: The second DVD in the collector’s edition series features classic cartoons capers from the world’s most famous cat and mouse duo, taking us in chronological order up to the 1950s episode entitled 'Safety Second'. This collection also includes the famous Oscar-winning installment 'The Cat Concerto', which sees Tom and Jerry turn a concert performance of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody into a pitched battle on the piano.

Side A
1. Solid Serenade (1946)
2. Cat Fishin’ (1947)
3. Part Time Pal (1947)
4. The Cat Concerto (1947)
5. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse (1947)
6. Salt Tabby Water (1947)
7. A Mouse in the House (1947)
8. The Invisible Mouse (1947)
9. Kitty Foiled (1948)
10. The Truce Hurts (1948)
11. Old Rockin’ Chair Tom (1948)
12. Professor Tom (1948)
13. Mouse Cleaning (1948)

Side B
1. Polka-Dot Puss (1949)
2. The Little Orphan (1949)
3. Hatch Up Your Troubles (1949)
4. Heavenly Puss (1949)
5. The Cat and the Mermouse (1949)
6. Love That Pup (1949)
7. Jerry’s Diary (1949)
8. Tennis Chumps (1949)
9. Little Quacker (1950)
10. Saturday Evening Puss (1950)
11. Texas Tom (1950)
12. Jerry and the Lion (1950)
13. Safety Second (1950)

By Richard Moody & Andrew Batty

Fame

2009-09-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

1. Fame (1980): At the New York City High School for the Performing Arts, students get specialized training that often leads to success as actors, singers, etc. This movie follows four students from the time when they audition to get into the school, through graduation. They are the brazen Coco Hernandez, shy Doris Finsecker, sensitive gay Montgomery MacNeil, and brash, abrasive Raul Garcia.

2. Fame TV Series (1982): The show was produced by MGM Television and was first broadcast on the NBC television network in the US on January 7 1982, producers William Blinn and Mel Swope. The last new episode was broadcast in the US on May 18, 1987. Some seasons of the show were broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom and Channel 7 in Australia. Following its cancellation, two versions of the series were syndicated in reruns: the original hour-long episodes, which usually contained a primary plot, a sub plot and two or more musical numbers; and a second version, stripped of the musical numbers and the sub plot and reduced to 30 minutes in length. The show's theme song was a pop hit for singer Irene Cara, having been featured in the motion picture. A re-recorded version of the theme, using similar instrumentation to the 1980 track, was used in the TV series and sung by co-star Erica Gimpel, who played Coco Hernandez. Although Gimpel left the series midway through the third season (after the show moved from NBC to first-run syndication in 1983), her opening vocals were still heard on the show for two more seasons. An updated version of the song, featuring a modern, synthesized hard-rock flavor, was introduced in the fall of 1985 and performed by new cast member Loretta Chandler (Dusty). This version ran for the final two seasons of Fame. "I Still Believe In Me", from an episode of the series entitled "Passing Grade", was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Original Song. It was performed by Erica Gimpel and Debbie Allen and co-written by Gary Portnoy who would go on to co-write and sing the Theme from Cheers (Where Everybody Knows Your Name). In the UK, two singles credited to The Kids from "Fame", "Hi-Fidelity" and "Starmaker", reached the top ten.

3. Fame (2009): A reinvention of the original 1980 hit film, Fame follows a talented group of dancers, singers, actors, and artists over four years at the New York City High School of Performing Arts today known as Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.

By Richard Moody

Paul Newman (1925 - 2008) First Anniversary 26.09.2009

2009-09-26T02:35:00.000-07:00

Paul Newman Biography

Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio. With more than five decades’ worth of great performances to his credit, Paul Newman was one of Hollywood’s most talented and beloved actors. He was not only an actor, but a humanitarian, donating 100% of the profits from the food company he founded to numerous charities.
Newman grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, with his older brother Arthur and his parents, Arthur and Teresa. His father owned a sporting-goods store and his mother was a homemaker who loved the theatre. Newman got his first taste of acting while doing school plays, but it was not his first love at the time. In high school, he played football and hoped to be a professional athlete.
Graduating high school in 1943, Newman briefly attended college before enlisting in the U.S. Navy Air Corps. He wanted to be a pilot, but he was told that he could never fly a plane as he was colorblind. He ended up serving as a radio operator and spent part of World War II serving in the Pacific.
After leaving the military in 1946, Paul Newman attended Kenyon College in his home state of Ohio. He was on an athletic scholarship and played on the school’s football team. But after getting into some trouble, Newman changed course. “I got thrown in jail and kicked off the football team. Since I was determined not to study very much, I majored in theater the last two years,” he told Interview magazine in 1998.
After finishing college in 1949, Paul Newman did summer stock in Wisconsin where he met his first wife, actress Jacqueline Witte. The couple soon married, and Newman continued to act until his father’s death in 1950. He and his wife moved to Ohio to run the family business for a time. Their first child, a son named Scott, was born there. After asking his brother to take over the business, Newman and his family relocated to Connecticut where he studied at the Yale School of Drama.
Running out of money, Newman left Yale after a year and tried his luck in New York. He studied with Lee Strasberg at the famed Actor's Studio alongside Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Geraldine Page.
Newman made his Broadway debut in William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy Picnic in 1953. During rehearsals he met actress Joanne Woodward, who was serving as an understudy for the production. While they were reportedly attracted to each other, the happily-married Newman did not pursue a romantic relationship with the young actress.
Around this time, Newman and his wife welcomed their second child together, a daughter named Susan. Picnic ran for 14 months, helping Newman support his growing family. He also found work on the then-emerging medium of television.
In 1954, Paul Newman made his film debut in The Silver Chalice for which he received terrible reviews. He had better success on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning The Desperate Hours (1955), in which he played an escaped convict who terrorizes a suburban family. During the run of the hit play, he and his wife added a third child (a daughter named Stephanie) to their family.
A winning turn on television helped pave the way for Newman’s return to Hollywood. Working with director Arthur Penn, he appeared in an episode of Philco Playhouse, “The Death of Billy the Kid,” written by Gore Vidal. Newman reteamed with Penn for an episode of Playwrights ’56 for a story about a worn-down and battered boxer. Two projects became feature films: Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) and The Left-Handed Gun (1958).
In Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Newman again played a boxer. This time he took on the role of real-life prizefighter Rocky Graziano—and demonstrated his considered acting talents to movie-goers and critics alike. His reputation was further magnified with Penn’s The Left-Handed Gun; an adaptation of Gore Vidal’s earlier teleplay about Billy the Kid.
That same year, Paul Newman starred as Brick in the film version of Tennessee Williams' play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) opposite Elizabeth Taylor. He gave another strong performance as a hard-drinking former athlete and disinterested husband who struggles against different types of pressures exerted on him by his wife (Taylor) and his overpowering father (Burl Ives). Once dismissed as just another handsome face, Newman showed that he could handle the challenges of such a complex character. He was nominated for his first Academy Award (Best Actor) for this role.
he Long Hot Summer (1958) marked the first big-screen pairing of Newman and Joanne Woodward. The two had already become a couple off-screen while he was still married to his first wife, and they wed in 1958 soon after his divorce was finalized. The next year, Newman returned to Broadway to star in the original production of Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth. The production saw Newman acting opposite the great Geraldine Page, and was directed by Elia Kazan.
Newman continued to thrive professionally. He starred in Otto Preminger’s Exodus (1960) about the founding of the state of Israel. The following year, he took on one of his most famous roles. In The Hustler (1961), Newman played Fast Eddie, a slick, small-time pool shark who takes on the legendary Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). For his work on the film, Paul Newman received his second Academy Award nomination.
Taking on another remarkable part, Newman played the title character—an arrogant, unprincipled cowboy—in Hud (1963). The movie posters for the film described the character as “the man with the barbed wire soul,” and Newman earned critical acclaim and another Academy Award nomination for his work as yet another on-screen antihero.
In Cool Hand Luke (1967), Newman played a rebellious inmate at a southern prison. His convincing and charming portrayal led audiences to cheer on this convict in his battle against prison authorities. No matter how hard they leaned on Luke, he refused to bend to their will. This thoroughly enjoyable and realistic performance led to Paul Newman’s fourth Academy Award nomination.
The next year, Newman stepped behind the cameras to direct his wife in Rachel, Rachel (1968). Woodward starred as an older schoolteacher who dreams of love. A critical success, the film earned four Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture.
A lesser-known film from this time helped trigger a new passion for the actor. While working on the car racing film, Winning (1969), Newman went to a professional driving program as part of his preparation for the role. He discovered that he loved racing and started to devote some of his time to the sport.
That same year, Newman starred alongside Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). He played Butch to Redford’s Sundance, and the pairing was a huge success with audiences,bringing in more than $46 million domestically. Recapturing their on-screen camaraderie, Newman and Redford played suave con men in The Sting (1973), another hit at the box office.
Around this time, Paul Newman scored his first racing victory at a Connecticut track in 1972. He went on to win a national Sports Car Club of America title four years later. In 1977, Newman made the leap and became a professional racer.
Newman’s life was rocked by a personal tragedy around this time. In 1978, his only son Scott died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and prescription drugs. Newman established the Scott Newman Center, which seeks to stop drug abuse through educational programs.
During the 1980s Newman continued to amass critical praise for his work. In Sydney Pollack’s Absence of Malice (1981), he played a man victimized by the media. The following year he starred as a down-and-out lawyer as The Verdict (1982). Both films earned Newman Academy Award nominations.
While he was widely considered one of the finest actors of his time, Paul Newman had never won an Academy Award. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to correct this error by giving Newman an honorary award for his contributions to film in 1985. With his trademark sense of humor, Newman said in his acceptance speech that “I am especially grateful that this did not come wrapped in a gift certificate to Forest Lawn [a famous cemetery].”
Shifting some of his energy away from acting, Newman started his own food company in the early 1980s. He was making bottles of salad dressing to give them out as gifts for Christmas one year with his friend, writer A. E. Hotchner. Newman then had an unusual idea as to what to do with the leftovers—he wanted to try selling dressing to stores. The two went on to found Newman's Own, whose profits and royalties are used for educational and charitable purposes. The company’s product line now extends from dressings to sauces to snacks to cookies. Since Newman’s Own inception, over $250 million has been donated to thousands of charities worldwide.
A few years later, Paul Newman established the Hole in the Wall Camps to give children with life-threatening illnesses a memorable, free holiday. In 1988, the first residential summer camp was opened in Ashford, Connecticut. There are now eight camps in the United States, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and France. Some of the funds raised by Newman’s Own have gone to support the Hole in the Wall Camps.
In addition to his charitable efforts, Newman continued to perform. He returned to the character of Fast Eddie from The Hustler in 1986’s The Color of Money. This time around, his character was no longer the up-and-coming hustler, but a worn-out liquor salesman. He is drawn back in the world of pool by mentoring a young upstart (Tom Cruise). For his work on the film, Paul Newman finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Approaching his seventies, Newman continued to delight audiences with more character-driven roles. He played an aging, but crafty rascal who struggles with renewing a relationship with his estranged son in Nobody's Fool (1994). The next year, Newman enjoyed a triumph in another arena. He was part of the winning team at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. With this victory, Newman became the oldest driver to win this 24-hour-long race.
Newman played a crime boss in Road to Perdition (2002), which starred Tom Hanks as a hit man who must protect his son from Newman's character. This role brought him another Academy Award nomination—this time for Best Supporting Actor.
In his later years, Paul Newman took fewer acting roles, but was still able to deliver impressive performances. He earned an Emmy Award for his nuanced depiction of a lay-about father in the television miniseries Empire Falls (2005), which was adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Richard Russo novel. The miniseries also provided him the opportunity to work with his wife Joanne Woodward.
Known for his love of race cars, he lent his distinctive voice to the 2006 animated film Cars, playing the part of Doc Hudson—a retired racecar. He also served as the narrator for the 2007 documentary The Price of Sugar, which explored the work of Father Christopher Hartley and his efforts to help the workers in Dominican Republic’s sugar cane fields.
That same year, Newman announced that he was retiring from acting. “I’m not able to work anymore as an actor at the level I would want to,” he said during an appearance on Good Morning America. “You start to lose your memory, your confidence, your invention. So that’s pretty much a closed book for me.”
Newman, however, wasn't going to leave the business entirely. He was planning on directing Of Mice and Men at the Westport Country Playhouse the following year. But he ended up withdrawing from the production because of health problems, and rumors began to circulate that the great actor was seriously ill. Statements from the actor and his representatives simply said he was “doing nicely” and, reflective of Newman’s sense of humor, being treated “for athlete’s foot and hair loss.”
A private man, Newman chose to keep the true nature of his illness to himself. He succumbed to cancer at his Westport, Connecticut home on September 26, 2008. This is where he and his wife had lived for numerous years to get away from the spotlight and where they chose to raise their three daughters, Nell, Melissa, and Clea.
As the news of his death spread, praise and tributes began pouring in. "There is a point where feelings go beyond words. I have lost a real friend. My life–and this country–is better for his being in it," friend Robert Redford said after learning about Newman’s death.
Paul Newman will be long remembered for his great films, his vibrant lifestyle and his extensive charitable works. And his relationship with Joanne Woodward will always be regarded as one of the most successful and enduring love stories in Hollywood history.

Richard’s comment

I’ve been a big fan of Paul Newman for five years some of my favorite movies was “Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Hud, Hemingway’s Adventure of a Young Man, The Hustler, Sweet Birds of Youth, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Verdict, Absence of Malice, The Color of Money, Nobody’s Fool, Road To Perdition, Our Town & Empire Falls” Whilst I was on holiday in the Lake District I went to a shop and I bought some Newman’s Own salad dressing. I bought one for home and one for college to have in our Cook and Eat session.

By Richard Moody

Richard's favourite Jean Claude Van Damme Movies

2009-09-17T08:43:00.000-07:00

1. Maximum Risk (1996): Alain Moreau (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a cop in Nice, France. Alain is at a funeral that is being held for a fellow cop, when Alain’s partner Sebastien (Jean-Hugues Anglade) shows up. They discover that his name was Mikhail Suverov, and Mikhail was born on the exact same day Alain was. As it turns out, Mikahil is the twin brother Alain never knew he had. Tracing his brother's steps back to New York City, Alain discovers that Mikahil was a member of the Russian Mafia, who was chased down and killed when he attempted to get out. Of course, now Alain is mistaken for Mikhail, who was also mixed up in a war between Mafia organizations. With his only real ally being Mikhail's fiancé Alex Bartlett (Natasha Henstridge), Alain sets out to avenge his brother's death, which is complicated not only by the Mafia, but by two corrupt FBI agents.

2. Double Team (1997): Having successfully completed his final mission three years prior, which was to retrieve a truck load of plutonium stolen from a US military base in Croatia by freelance international terrorist Stavros (Mickey Rourke), government anti-terrorist agent Jack Paul Quinn (Jean Claude Van Damme) is relaxing by his pool in South France with Kathryn, his pregnant wife. Quinn is approached by a government representative who tells him that Stavros, Quinn’s nemesis, has become active again and tries to convince Quinn to come out of retirement telling Quinn that he ‘can’t retire until he [Stavros] does’. Quinn is reluctant to return to duty but agrees after the same representative is killed by Stavros shortly after the meeting with Quinn. Quinn and Yaz shelter from an explosion whilst breaking into the hospital to rescue Quinn's wife and son. Acting on intelligence received, Quinn travels to Antwerp, Belgium where he meets up with quirky arms dealer Yaz, played by Dennis Rodman, who equips Quinn with weaponry and then proceeds to meet the Delta team put together to capture Stavros. Stavros has been tracked to an amusement park but Quinn hesitates to give the order to shoot Stavros when it becomes apparent that Stavros is meeting with his six year old son. Stavros exploits Quinn’s hesitation and a shootout ensues in which Stavros’ son is killed and Stavros is able to escape into a hospital, pursued by Quinn. Stavros and Quinn fight in the hospital’s maternity ward with Stavros getting away after knocking Quinn unconscious in an explosion. Quinn wakes up on ‘The Colony’, an inescapable, invisible penal institution island for secret agents reminiscent of The Village from The Prisoner. Quinn learns that he has been sent to the Colony due to his failure to capture Stavros, that his family has been told he was killed and that only agents considered ‘too valuable to kill but too dangerous to set free’ are committed to the institution. The occupants of the Colony are expected to help analyse terrorist threats and have to register themselves present every day using a fingerprint scanner. Meanwhile, Kathryn receives a call from an art gallery in Rome telling her that they would like to display her sculptures and that they will fly her out immediately. When she arrives, Stavros kidnaps her. Whilst analysing information received from a terrorist bombing, Quinn picks up a message from Stavros telling him that Stavros has captured Kathryn and so Quinn realises he must escape the Colony if he is to save her. Quinn devises a system to fool the fingerprint scanner and is able to leave the island by attaching himself to cargo due to be extracted from the island from the air. Quinn goes to Yaz, the only man who can help him, pleading for assistance in return for access to CIA bank accounts. Yaz agrees to help and the two go to Quinn’s house where they are ambushed by Stavros’ men. After fighting the men off, Quinn receives a message from Stavros telling him that he must go to Rome for his baby’s sake. When they arrive in Rome, Yaz learns that Quinn’s wife is pregnant after Stavros delivers a sonogram of the baby to the given rendezvous. Quinn emails Stavros encouraging him to meet in a town square, knowing that Stavros will have to take the bait. At the meeting point, Quinn catches sight of Kathryn in a car but is intercepted by Stavros before he can reach her and a shootout occurs as Kathryn is driven away. Quinn tracks Stavros’ henchmen down to the hotel suite where Kathryn was being held and finds a clue to her whereabouts - a prescription bottle label. Meanwhile, Kathryn is transported to hospital where she gives birth. Using the prescription bottle and with Yaz’s help, Quinn is able to track down the hospital where he finds Kathryn but discovers that Stavros has taken his son. Thanks to assistance from a nurse, Quinn locates Stavros and the baby in an explosives-rigged Roman amphitheater. Stavros leaves Quinn in the middle of a minefield with his son and then unleashes a tiger. Thankfully Yaz arrives on a motorbike and is able to snatch the baby, leaving Quinn to escape from the tiger and go after Stravros. Quinn and Stavros fight in the minefield until Stavros steps on a mine (after Yaz moved the markers) and is left stranded. Quinn, his son and Yaz run as Stavros is charged by the tiger and takes his foot off the mine, a chain reaction rips the amphitheater apart and Quinn is able to shield his friends from the ensuing blast by sheltering under a Coke dispenser. Stavros is killed by the blast.

By Richard Moody

The Best Of Bela Lugosi & Lon Chaney Jr

2009-09-09T13:09:00.000-07:00

1. Dracula (1931): Renfield (Dwight Frye), a British solicitor, travels through the Carpathian Mountains via stagecoach. The people in the stagecoach are fearful that the coach won’t reach the local inn before sundown. Arriving there safely before sundown, Renfield refuses to stay at the inn and asks the driver to take him to the Borgo Pass. The innkeeper and his wife seem to be afraid of Renfield’s destination, Castle Dracula, and warn him about vampires. The innkeeper's wife gives Renfield a Crucifix for protection before he leaves for Borgo Pass, whence he is driven to the castle by Dracula's coach, which was awaiting him at Borgo Pass, with Dracula himself disguised as the driver. Renfield enters the castle after his driver and his luggage disappear, and is bid welcomed by charming but odd nobleman Count Dracula (Béla Lugosi), who is a vampire. Dracula and Renfield discuss the purchase of Carfax Abbey in England, and afterwards Dracula departs. Renfield faints when he opens a window and a bat comes in, and Dracula, morphed from bat, forces his wives to get away from Renfield. He then bites him. Aboard the Vesta, bound for England, Renfield has now became a raving lunatic slave to Dracula, who is hidden in a coffin and gets out for feeding on the ship's crew. When the ship arrives in England, Renfield is discovered the only living person in it; the captain is lashed on the wheel and none of the ship’s crew is discovered. Renfield is sent to Dr. Seward’s sanatorium. Some nights later, Dracula hypnotizes an usherette and tells her to inform Dr. Seward (Herbert Bunston) that he is wanted on the telephone. Before leaving, Dracula meets with Dr. Seward, who introduces him to his daughter Mina (Helen Chandler), her fiancé John Harker (David Manners), and the family friend Lucy Weston (Frances Dade). Lucy is fascinated by Count Dracula, and that night, after Lucy has a talk with Mina and falls asleep in bed, Dracula enters her room as a bat and feasts on her blood. She dies in an autopsy theatre the next day after a string of transfusions, and two tiny marks on her throat are discovered. Several days later, it is seen that Renfield is obsessed with eating flies and spiders, devouring their lives also. Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) analyzes Renfield's blood, discovering Renfield’s obsession. He starts talking about vampires, and that afternoon chats with Renfield, who begs Dr. Seward to send him away, because his nightly cries may disturb Mina’s dreams. When Dracula awakes and calls Renfield with wolf howling, Renfield is disturbed by Van Helsing showing him a branch of wolfbane. It stops wolves, as Van Helsing says, and also is used for vampire protection. Dracula visits a sleeping Mina in her bedroom and bites her, leaving her the same marks Lucy had. She talks to the others about a dream of hers, when Dracula visited her. Then, Dracula enters for a night's visit at the Sewards. Van Helsing and Harker notice that Dracula does not have a reflection in the mirrored top of the cigarette case. When Van Helsing shows that "most amazing phenomenon" to Dracula, he smashes the mirror and excuses himself, leaving. Van Helsing deduces that Dracula is the vampire. Meanwhile, Mina leaves her room and runs into Dracula’s hug in the garden, and is discovered there unconscious. The next day, newspapers write about a “beautiful lady” who lured little children playing in the park with chocolate and then bit them. Mina recognizes the beautiful lady as Lucy, who has risen as a vampire. Harker wants to take Mina at London for safety, but he is finally convinced to leave Mina with them. Van Helsing orders nurse Briggs (Joan Standing) to take care of Mina when she is sleeping, and not to remove the garland of wolfbane around her neck. Renfield again escapes from his cell and listens to the three men discussing vampires. Before Martin (Charles K. Gerrard), his attendant, arrives to take Renfield back to his cell, Renfield narrarates to Van Helsing, Harker and Seward how Dracula convinced Renfield to allow him to enter the sanatorium by promising him thousands of rats with blood and life in them. Dracula enters the Seward parlour and talks with Van Helsing. Dracula tells him that Mina is now his after fusing his blood with hers, and Van Helsing swears revenge by sterilizing Carfax Abbey and finding the box where he sleeps; he will then thrust a stake through his heart. Dracula tries to hypnotize Van Helsing, almost succeeding, but Van Helsing shows a crucifix to the vampire and turns away. Dracula, Renfield & Mina near the end of the simultaneously filmed Spanish film.Mina is visited in her bedroom by Harker, and they talk about the night. Harker notices Mina’s changes, as she now becomes step by step a vampire, and when a bat (Dracula) enters the room and squeaks to Mina, she answers and tries to attack Harker. Fortunately, Van Helsing and Dr. Seward arrive just in time to save Harker. Mina confesses what Dracula has done to her, and tries to tell Harker that their love is finished.Later that night, Dracula hypnotizes Briggs into removing the wolfbane from Mina’s room so he can enter. Van Helsing and Harker see Renfield, having just escaped from his cell, heading for Carfax Abbey. They see Dracula with Mina in the abbey, and when Harker shouts to Mina, Dracula sees them thinking Renfield had trailed them. He strangles Renfield and tosses him from the staircase, and is hunted by Van Helsing and Harker. Dracula is forced to sleep in his coffin, as sunrise has come, and is trapped. Van Helsing prepares a wooden stake while Harker searches for Mina. He finds her in a strange stasis, and when Dracula moans in pain when Van Helsing impales him, she returns to her old self. Harker leaves with Mina while Van Helsing stays. The sound of church bells is heard.

2. The Wolfman (1941): Upon the death of his brother, Larry Talbot returns from America to his ancestral home in Wales. He visits a gypsy camp with village girl Jenny Williams, who is attacked by Bela, a gypsy who has turned into a werewolf. Larry kills the werewolf but is bitten during the fight. Bela's mother tells him that this will cause him to become a werewolf at each full moon. Larry confesses his plight to his unbelieving father, Sir John, who then joins the villagers in a hunt for the wolf. Larry, transformed by the full moon, heads for the forest and a fateful meeting with both Sir John and Gwen.

3. Abbott & Costello Met Frankenstein (1948): Chick Young (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello) work as baggage clerks in LaMirada, Florida. When Wilbur mishandles two crates belonging to 'McDougal's House of Horrors' museum, Mr. McDougal (Frank Ferguson) demands that they deliver them in person so that they can be inspected by an insurance agent. McDougal boasts to Wilbur's girlfriend, Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lénore Aubert), that the crates contain "the remains of the original Count Dracula" (Bela Lugosi) and "the body of the Frankenstein Monster" (Glenn Strange). Dracula awakens, hypnotizes Wilbur, and spirits away his own coffin (and the revived Monster) before anyone else sees them. McDougal then arrives with the insurance agent. Finding the storage crates empty, he accuses the boys of theft and has them arrested. Mornay receives Dracula and the Monster at her island castle. Sandra is a gifted surgeon who has studied Dr. Frankenstein's notebooks, and has been posing as Wilbur's girlfriend as part of Dracula's scheme to replace the Monster's brutish brain with one more pliable — Wilbur's. Wilbur and Chick are bailed out of jail and mistakenly believe Sandra to be their benefactor. Actually Joan Raymond (Jane Randolph), who also seems to like Wilbur, is responsible for the good deed. Joan is secretly working for the company that is processing McDougal's insurance claim, and hopes Wilbur will lead her to the missing 'exhibits'. Meanwhile, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) has taken the apartment across the hall from Wilbur and Chick. He has tracked Dracula and the Monster from Europe, and knows them to be alive. Talbot asks the boys to help him find and destroy the villains. Wilbur is amenable to the plan, but Chick thinks both of them are crazy. Talbot's desperate insistence that he be locked in his room before moonrise impresses Chick even less. But unbeknowst to Wilbur and Chick, Talbot transforms into the Wolf Man when the moon rises. When Wilbur brings over Talbot's luggage that he forgot at their apartment, he is stalked unsuspecting by the Wolf Man, and narrowly escapes without realizing he was even in danger. The following night, Wilbur, Chick and Joan go to Sandra's castle to pick her up for a costume ball. Sandra has told Wilbur to come alone, and receives the extra guests rather icily. While the ladies powder their noses, Wilbur answers a telephone call from someone wanting to speak to a 'Dr Lejos'. It is Talbot, who informs them that they are in the "house of Dracula". Wilbur reluctantly agrees to search the castle with Chick, and soon stumbles upon an underground passageway, complete with boat and dock. Behind a secret revolving wall, Wilbur again encounters Dracula and the Monster, but escapes. Wilbur's every attempt to get Chick to witness the villains fails - thanks to the revolving wall. Meanwhile, Joan has discovered Dr Frankenstein's notebook in Sandra's bureau, while Sandra has discovered Joan's employee I.D. in her bag. Suavely re-attired, Dracula (a.k.a. Dr. Lejos) is introduced by Sandra to Joan and the boys. He commends Sandra on her 'choice', expertly massaging the ego of Wilbur, who does not realize the true context of the remark. Also working at the castle is the naive Dr. Stevens (Charles Bradstreet), who questions some of the specialized equipment that has arrived. Dracula manages to deflect Dr. Stevens' questions by pairing him with Joan and shooing off the 'young people' to their ball. Sandra claims to have a sudden splitting headache and will not be able to attend the event. When Dracula consults Sandra in private, she admits that Dr. Stevens' questions, Joan's insurance credentials and Wilbur's inquiries have made her nervous, and wants to postpone the experiments. Impatient, Dracula asserts his will by hypnotizing her, and biting her in the throat. At the ball, the boys encounter Talbot and McDougal. Dracula arrives unexpectedly with Sandra, now under his spell. Dracula easily deflects Talbot's accusations, making the man appear disturbed. Dracula takes Joan for a dance while Sandra lures Wilbur to a quiet spot. Just before she can bite Wilbur's neck, Chick and Larry approach looking for Joan, and Sandra flees. As they search the grounds, Talbot transforms into the Wolf Man. Wilbur escapes, but the Wolf Man finds and injures McDougal. Noting that Chick has a wolf mask, McDougal concludes that Chick attacked him for revenge. (The fact that Chick is dressed like Talbot does not help the situation). Chick manages to slip away, only to witness Dracula hypnotizing Wilbur. Chick becomes somewhat hypnotized himself, while Wilbur and an entranced Joan are brought back to the castle by Dracula and Sandra. The next morning, Chick is still on the lam when he finds Larry, who confesses that he was McDougal's attacker. Now finally convinced, Chick agrees to help Larry rescue Wilbur and Joan. While Wilbur is being held in a pillory, Sandra finally explains to him the plan to transplant his brain into the Monster. She and Dracula leave him to prepare the Monster for the operation. Chick and Talbot arrive, free Wilbur, and head off to save Joan. Wilbur, meanwhile, is lured back to the castle by Dracula, who easily overpowers his mind. While the Monster receives an electrical boost in the lab, Sandra is about to open Wilbur's skull when Talbot storms in and casts her aside. Chick fends off Dracula with a chair, lifting it over his head to swing it at the vampire and inadvertently knocking out Sandra in the process. But just as Talbot is about to untie Wilbur, he once again transforms into the Wolf Man. Dracula returns to the scene, only to have a tug-of-war with the Wolf Man over Wilbur's gurney. Dracula flees, with the Wolf Man giving chase. Chick arrives to untie Wilbur just as the Monster, now at full power, breaks his own restraints and rises from his stretcher. Sandra attempts to order him back as Dracula can, but the Monster defiantly throws her through a window to her death. Dr. Stevens, meanwhile, has managed to find Joan and gets her to the boat. Dracula, in an attempt to escape, transforms into a bat, but the Wolf Man snares him and both fall over a balcony and into the rocky seas below. Joan abruptly wakes from her trance, while the boys escape the castle and head to the pier, with the Monster in pursuit. Once again Chick and Wilbur encounter Mr. McDougal, who still insists that he wants his exhibits. They loudly reply, "..here comes one of them now!" When the Monster appears, McDougal and his partner jump off the pier. Chick and Wilbur attempt to escape in a rowboat that is securely tied to the pier. The Monster throws barrels at them, in a series of near misses. Wilbur finally unties the boat, while Stevens and Joan arrive and set the pier ablaze. The Monster turns around and marches into the flames, succumbing as the pier collapses into the water. Just as Chick and Wilbur relax, they hear a disembodied voice (Vincent Price) and see a cigarette floating in the air: "Allow me to introduce myself, I'm the Invisible Man!" The boys jump off the boat and swim away as the Invisible Man lights his cigarette and laughs. (This scene presaged 1951's Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, though Price did not star, and all characters were different).

By Richard Moody

Kevin Bishop

2009-09-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

I was watching the DVD called “Muppet Treasure Island.” As I was watching the movie I was also listening to music on my IPod.
I was listening to the album “Limp Bizkit – Significant Other” and one of my favourite songs was “Limp Bizkit – Break Stuff.”
Kevin Bishop played Jim Hawkins in the movie with Rizzo & Gonzo sailing to an Island and I thought he played a brilliant part in that movie. I didn’t realize he was English actor, writer and comedian, also I remembered he was in “Suzie Gold” in Summer Phoenix’s movie.
Summer Phoenix is related to Joaquin Phoenix and the late River Phoenix.

In 2006 I learned that was Kevin Bishop impersonated George Michael in Star Stories. He also impersonated Michael Douglas and Daisy Beaumont impersonated Catherine Zeta-Jones in Star Stories. I couldn’t give over laughing when I was watching “The Kevin Bishop Show” as these were sketches and impersonations. The show was related to his other show like “Star Stories & No Signal.”
Some of the best bits I liked were when Kevin plays “The Notorious B.F.G.” taken off from the movie “Notorious.” The other bits I like to watch are “Christopher Walken Night, Free Fall Maniacs, Macintyre Undercover, Andy Sugar, The Cry Factor & Gritty Bafta” also “Stephen Hawking – The Break-Up.” It seems to have been a long time since I use to watch Kevin Bishop on TV back in early 2000’s.

By Richard Moody

Top 10 Dragon Movies

2009-08-28T05:48:00.000-07:00

1. Pete’s Dragon (1977): A young troubled boy named Pete and his guardian dragon Elliott elude the abusive Gogan family, who all use Pete as a slave instead of a loved child. When Pete can successfully run away from them with his dragon, he stumbles into the town of Passamaquaddy- an ocean front harbor town filled with superstitious fishermen, drunken hooligans and wary townsfolk. Pete's arrival does not mix well with the citizens, as his dragon Elliott accidentally causes town rioting and gossip among the town drunks about the dragon. Expecting to be an outcast yet again, Pete is taken in by the kind Nora who lives in a lighthouse with her father Lampy. While Pete bonds with Nora and Lampy, the townsfolk have not lowered their guards and suspicions about the dragon. And when Dr. Terminus arrives, a phony con artist posing as a doctor, he sees Elliott the Dragon as the ultimate profit to his fame. With Passamaquaddy filled with superstition, greed and lack of imagination, life will not be easy before the town can ever believe Pete's dragon

2. George and the Dragon (2004): George (James Purefoy), a knight returned from the Crusades, wishes to retire from soldiering, find a wife, and settle on "an acre of land with two head of cattle." To conclude the transaction, he agrees to help the land's owner King Edgaar )Simon Callow), whose daughter Princess Lunna (Piper Perabo) has disappeared. Also in search of the princess are Garth (Patrick Swayze), betrothed of the unwilling princess, and the mercenary El Cabillo, a title which passes through different men, and begins with the (uncredited) Val Kilmer.The princess has been kidnapped by a female dragon, which lays an egg and then seemingly dies a few days later. Rather than escaping, the princess decides to guard the egg, which she believes holds the last dragon on earth, whom she has named Smite. George's father Sir Robert (Paul Freeman), a previous friend of King Edgaar's and an amputee from his own previous run-in with the mother dragon, gives his son George a Dragon Horn, which "sounds a note only a dragon can hear".When George encounters the princess, he attempts to destroy the egg but she knocks him unconscious each time he tries. They then, in company with other companions, transport the egg by wagon back to her father. Along the way they stop at a convent, where Lunna's cousin is a nun, and a friar is an old friend of George's. The princess's betrothed, Garth, catches up with them at the convent, and she says she will not marry him because she does not love him. He then kidnaps her to force her to marry him, as it is part of his plan to take over the kingdom.Mercenaries arrive, led by the El Cabillo, who then reveals himself to the group as Tarik (Michael Clarke Duncan), a Moor who was a close friend of George's seen at the beginning of the film before the two part ways. But El Cabillo's men revolt against him, as they wish to capture the Princess and claim the reward. While they are all fighting, the baby dragon hatches, the monk Elmendorf is killed saving the Princess from a flying spear and King Edgaars men and Sir Robert's men arrive to join the fray. During this fight, Garth and George are fighting, but turn to find themselves facing a mutual enemy: the former second-in-command of El Cabillo, the leader of the mutiny. They fight him off together, while taking shots at each other. This conflagration is interrupted as the wall of the castle keep explodes across the screen. The mother dragon has returned.The combatants all flee. George is last to the door of the keep but debris prevents his escape. In the castle courtyard the former combatants all listen in silence as the dragon makes much noise within the keep. The Princess Lunna fears the worst for both George and the dragon she has named herself.Within the keep the mother dragon seems preoccupied with her child and George is largely frozen lest he attract the mother dragon's attention. George notices a lance protrudes from the mother dragons side. This is the lance of his father still lodged in the beast. George slowly approaches the lance and takes hold. He asks God's forgiveness for what he must do.The scene shifts to the castle courtyard a roar is heard. George emerges from the keep with a bloodied lance. Believing that George has slain the dragon the men are overjoyed. The Princess Lunna however is not and, overcome with sorrow for both the dragon's death and George's betrayal, flees on horseback. George pursues with King Edgaars horse and his blessing to marry his daughter. There is a chase along the shore of a large body of water but George is not alone in the chase. Garth has also pursued. Garth knocks George from his steed and they fight. Garth has the advantage and as he raises his sword for the killing blow the mother dragon leaps from the water and swallows Garth whole.The Princess Lunna realizes that George did not actually kill the dragons. They kiss and presumably live happily ever after

3. Dragonslayer (1981): A medieval kingdom called Urland is being terrorized by a dragon named Vermithrax Pejorative. An expedition led by a young man calling himself Valerian (Clarke) comes to the house of sorcerer Ulrich of Craggenmoor (Richardson), the only remaining wizard alive. They explain to the sorcerer that their king, Casiodorus (Peter Eyre), desperate to assuage the monster, offers it a virgin chosen in a lottery twice a year. The wizard foresaw their arrival and his own death but agrees to help. Before he can do so however, a brutish knight from Urland named Tyrian (Hallam), who has followed the expedition under orders from the king, turns up to intimidate him. Ulrich invites Tyrian to stab him to prove his magical powers, and dies instantly, to the horror of his young apprentice Galen Bradwarden (MacNicol) and elderly servant Hodge (Sydney Bromley). They burn Ulrich's body and place the ashes in a leather pouch.Galen decides to take the job himself when the wizard's magical amulet begins to obey his Latin incantations, and travels to Urland with the villagers and Hodge in tow. On the way, he accidentally discovers Valerian to be a female: her father passed her as a man to spare her the lottery. The poorer villagers suspect that the daughters of wealthy or powerful people are secretly kept out of it as well.In an effort to discourage the expedition, Tyrian kills Hodge from a distance using a bow. Galen witnesses the murder through a vision in water but is not fast enough to intervene.Arriving in Urland, Galen inspects the dragon's lair and attempts to seal its entrance by causing rocks to fall from the cliff. Manipulating the amulet inexpertly he nearly kills the whole delegation and himself but apparently succeeds in entombing the monster. The village celebrates in the evening, and Valerian abandons her manly disguise. However the feast is interrupted by Tyrian who drags Galen to the court of King Casiodorus. After seeing Galen's clumsy efforts at magic tricks, King Casiodorus guesses that he is not a real wizard and complains that his attack may have angered the dragon instead of killing it, as his own brother and predecessor once did. The king then confiscates the amulet and has Galen locked away. His daughter Elspeth (Chloe Salaman) comes to taunt Galen, but is shocked when he informs her of rumours the lottery is rigged. Casiodorus is unable to lie convincingly when she confronts him.Meanwhile the dragon has stormed its way through the rubble and emerges from its lair with a vengeance. An earthquake ensues, and Elspeth releases Galen in the confusion. Galen narrowly escapes on horseback, but without the amulet. The village priest, Brother Jacopus (Ian McDiarmid), leads his congregation to confront the dragon, denouncing it as the Devil, but the dragon kills him and then heads for the village.When Galen returns to the village, he finds that Vermithrax has already begun to retaliate by setting it on fire. Valerian and her father, Simon the blacksmith (Emrys James), conceal Galen from the king's soldiers. Galen still wants to kill the dragon, but must steal back the amulet from the king to do so.When the lottery begins anew, Princess Elspeth rigs the draw so that only her name can be chosen, in reparation. The King is appalled but unable to oppose her decision. When shortly afterwards Galen is caught searching the king's quarters for the amulet, the monarch returns it to him so that he might save Elspeth. Then, with Simon's help, Galen uses the amulet to enchant a heavy spear (dubbed Sicarious Dracorum, or "Dragonslayer") that the blacksmith has forged strong enough to pierce the dragon's armored hide. Meanwhile, Valerian gathers pieces of dragon hide and uses them to make Galen a shield. She makes a discovery while doing so: Vermithrax has a litter of kits.Galen sets out to kill the dragon and rescue the princess. Valerian thinks his plan is suicide, but gives him the shield. They admit to having feelings for each other.As Galen attempts to rescue Princess Elspeth by cutting her chains, he is confronted by Tyrian, who demands that the sacrifice be made to save the kingdom. The knight is considerably more skilled at combat, but Galen surprises him by cutting with the supernaturally sharp Dragonslayer right though a wooden pole, spearing him. The Princess however, instead of fleeing, has descended into the dragon's cave to her death. Galen follows her and finds the young dragons feasting upon her corpse. He kills them with considerable difficulty then finds Vermithrax nesting by an underground lake of fire. He manages to wound the monster but the spear is broken and only Valerian's shield saves him from incineration. Vermithrax loses Galen but finds her children's bodies and flies away to rampage.After his failure to kill Vermithrax, Valerian convinces Galen to leave the village with her, with her father's blessing. Simon believes the time for magic and dragons is over; like other villagers he is turning to the newly arrived religion of Christianity. As the two lovers board a boat together however, the amulet gives Galen a vision that explains his teacher's final wishes. Ulrich had asked that his ashes be spread over "burning water", and Galen realizes that the wizard had planned the whole thing. He was too frail to make the journey himself, so had his servants make the trip for him by carrying his ashes. Galen returns to the cave, spreads the ashes and speaks an incantation, and the wizard is resurrected from the flames of the burning lake. Despite the disappointment of realizing he had no powers after all, but was merely channeling those of his master via the amulet, Galen is overjoyed to have him returned. Ulrich however reveals that he is only back for a short time and that Galen must destroy the amulet when the time is right. The wizard then transports himself to a mountaintop and attracts the dragon's attention. The sun is eclipsed. After a brief battle, the monster grabs the old man and flies away with him. Galen crushes the amulet with a rock, causing the wizard to explode and obliterate the dragon.Inspecting the wreckage, the villagers credit God with the victory, while the king arrives and drives a sword into the dragon's broken carcass to claim the glory for himself. No one thanks Galen or praises the late wizard's sacrifice.As Galen and Valerian leave Urland together, he confesses that he misses both Ulrich and the amulet. But then he says, out loud, "I just wish we had a horse." As if on cue, a white horse appears to take the incredulous lovers away.

4. Dungeons & Dragons (2000): The story concerns an evil wizard named Profion (played by Jeremy Irons) who attempts to control red dragons with a powerful artifact, and overthrow idealistic young Empress Savina of Izmer (Thora Birch). The young heroes destined to stop this cataclysmic event are Marina Pretensa (Zoe McLellan), an eager but inept apprentice wizard, and Ridley Freeborn and Snails (Justin Whalin and Marlon Wayans), two thieves who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. They are accompanied on their impromptu quest by the hard-drinking and equinophobic dwarf Elwood Gutworthy (Lee Arenberg), and the mysterious dark-skinned elven ranger, Norda (Kristen Wilson) sent by Empress Savina first to stop the heroes, but later to assist them. They are pursued along the way by Damodar (Bruce Payne); Profion's head enforcer, and leader of Izmer's elite fighting unit, the Crimson Brigade. As part of their quest, the heroes are required to recover a magic gemstone from the Master of the Antius City Thieves's Guild, Xilus (Richard O'Brien). Ridley completes a maze to gain the "eye of the dragon".

5. Reign Of Fire (2002): During Underground construction in London around the year 2008, a huge, hibernating dragon is discovered and springs to life, instantly incinerating all construction workers with its fiery breath. The only survivor is 12-year-old Quinn Abercromby, whose mother (Alice Krige) was chief of the construction crew that he was visiting after school. The dragon escapes, and soon thousands of them work their way across Europe and eventually the rest of the world, burning everything and multiplying at an exponential rate. Brief newspaper and TV news accounts reveal that among other things, Paris was burned by the dragons but terrorists were initially suspected, an attack in Kenya kills dozens of people, paleontologists discover dragon fossils in Antarctica during Arctic heating, scientists prove the dragons are a separate species that coexisted with the dinosaurs, and who were responsible for the dinosaurs' extinction. Scientists infer that when the dragons began to starve, they went into hibernation until the Earth could replenish itself. The United Nations calls an emergency session after a large dragon nest is discovered in Pakistan. By late 2010 (as the news accounts also reveal), the world powers begin to use Nuclear weapons which only hastens the destruction of the planet, causing a nuclear holocaust, and soon all semblance of organized government and society falls apart, save for small communities of survivors. Twelve years later, in 2020, the adult Quinn (played by Christian Bale) leads a small community of survivors living in a medieval stone castle in Northumberland. Their hope is to outlast the dragons, wait until they die out again (as they presumably did several times before) and go into hibernation. Unfortunately, the people are beginning to starve while waiting for their crops to ripen. Eddie Stax (David Kennedy) and his children attempt to leave the castle for food, but they actually lure a dragon to them. One of Eddie's children's friends, and one of his children, are killed by the dragon, and most of the crops are burned. Days later, a team of American volunteers arrive, led by Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) and bringing a Chieftain tank and an Agusta A109 helicopter, piloted by Alex Jensen (Izabella Scorupco). Van Zan and his heavily armed band of 200 soldiers have devised an elaborate tracking system to hunt and kill dragons. Mistrusting, but needing each other, Quinn and Van Zan work together and kill the dragon that destroyed the crop. The inhabitants of the castle celebrate the victory, only to be chastised by Van Zan, who is disgusted by their behaviour, having lost three of his men in the battle. Afterwards Van Zan and Alex tell Quinn that all dragons his unit have encountered so far are female. Their hypothesis is that there is only one male worldwide. Alex was said to have discovered this two years before, while working out how they breathe fire (Apparently, and provingly, the dragons secrete two separate chemicals in glands in their mouth, and then emit a flammable gas which sparks a giant explosion). Van Zan orders his soldiers to pick the best of Quinn's men at the castle, pressing them into service in Van Zan's band. This enrages Quinn and he engages Van Zan in a fight; however, Van Zan is a battle-tempered and hardened soldier and he begins to beat Quinn mercilessly until others run to pull him off of Quinn. Made to look weak in front of his community, Quinn becomes angry and shouts at everyone that are now willingly joining Van Zan that the dragon will follow them and then backtrack their trail to find out where they came from. He warns that the castle will be destroyed if this happens. Also Quinn is frightened because he has seen the male dragon before: it was the one that killed his mother and all of the construction workers at the beginning of the movie. Van Zan and his unit go to London to find the single male dragon and discover a road block. Van Zan then sends Alex to find a new way around. The male dragon soon arrives and incinerates nearly the entire number of Van Zan's soldiers, save for Alex, Van Zan, and a wounded soldier. Van Zan realizes the mistake he made in trying to engage the dragon, as it had killed almost everyone in his unit within a few seconds (with just 'one pass'). Quinn's warning is realized, as the male dragon follows their route back to the castle and attacks it. Some castle inhabitants successfully hide in an underground shelter that is designed to survive the intense heat. Quinn's close friend, Creedy (Gerard Butler), attempts to bring more castle inhabitants down to the shelter but is killed by a follow-up attack that also seals the shelter entrance. Defeated, Van Zan returns to the castle, freeing Quinn and the surviving children from the castle's shelter. Quinn tells Van Zan that they and Alex will hunt the male dragon in London. They use the helicopter to follow the River Thames to the city, unnoticed, where they see that the dragons are beginning to starve and are resorting to cannibalism. Van Zan's plan is to fire a magnesium and C4 explosive charge, placed on a crossbow bolt, into the dragon's chest during the brief moment it exposes its chest as it inhales, drawing air to produce fire. During the battle, Van Zan is unable to destroy the dragon using his crossbow and attacks the dragon with no more than his battle-axe in a head-on leap. He is killed when the dragon swallows him in mid-air. Quinn and Alex are able to lure the dragon to street level, and Quinn destroys it with his own crossbow by firing the explosive bolt into the dragon's mouth. At least three months after the male dragon is slain, Quinn and Alex are seen erecting a radio tower and receive a transmission from another group of survivors in France. The sun is shining brightly, and it is said that there have been no dragon sightings for three months. The now hopeful Quinn resolutely dedicates himself to rebuilding civilization, undaunted by the remote possibility of the dragons returning, stating, "They'll burn, and we'll build."

6. The Last Dragon (2004): The story begins 65 million years ago, sometime in the late Cretaceous period. A Tyrannosaurus rex is stalking a creature that has been raiding its territory and food sources. The creature is revealed to be a juvenile Prehistoric dragon. The T. rex had not eaten for days and prepares to attack the young dragon: in an attempt to defend itself, the dragon extends its wings to give the illusion that it is much larger than it really is, but the T. rex is not convinced and continues to advance. The young dragon then tries another tactic: it utters a deafening, piercing scream that carries for miles. Although the screech disorientates the T. rex, hurting its sensitive ears, the attack only goads the dinosaur on. Suddenly, the dragon's mother swoops down from the sky to the rescue and attacks the T. rex, slashing the dinosaur's skull with its talons. During the short fight, both animals cause serious injuries to the other; the T. rex breaks the female dragon's wing and in retaliation, the dragon breathes a jet of fire at the Tyrannosaurus's face. The Tyrannosaurus limps away with fatal burns, while the female dragon is left unable to hunt for herself or her offspring. 65 million years in the future, at the London Museum of Natural History and Science, England. Dr. Jack Tanner, a young palaeontologist, who has been fascinated with dragons since childhood is introduced. Upon discovering talon marks on a skull of a T. rex, Dr. Tanner shares his theory about the creature that caused the damage to the skull with other palaeontologists. He tells them that the damage was caused by a creature unknown to science. However, he says that it was not the talons that killed it; a blast of fire, precisely aimed at the head was the cause of death, as evidenced by carbon deposits discovered down both sides of the skull. Unfortunately, his colleagues aren't convinced and Tanner's academic reputation is left in tatters. In his office Dr. Tanner studies photographs taken of a new discovery at Romania. Several human corpses, dating from the Middle Ages, were found in a cave in the Carpathian Mountains while some straying skiers were being rescued. Along with the bodies, a carcass of an unidentified animal was discovered. The Romanian authorities ask the museum to investigate the find. Most of the professors at the museum want nothing to do with the specimen, but Tanner asks if he can go on behalf of the museum. The museum agrees and Tanner prepares to travel to Romania, under one condition- if it is a hoax, they leave immediately: if it's of interest, the body is shipped back to London. Tanner, along with two associates, arrive to discover that the remains have been moved off the mountain, Tanner wonders what evidence may have been lost in the process. The three scientists enter the shed where the carcass is being housed and begin analysing the specimen. After initial analysis, Tanner notes that the creature has a scaly hide and a tail, suggesting a reptile, but also has wings and foot talons, characteristics of powered flight. When he finds the wings, he wonders if the creature could really fly, as its wingspan is too small to allow flight. After further investigation, Tanner finds that the bones of the creature have a honeycomb structure, which would allow for flight, being hollow but strong. Internal scans of the creature show a huge heart, needed to pump oxygen-rich blood to the chest muscles during hard work, and two bladder-like structures. Tanner suggests that they could be gas bladders: the gas contained inside is hydrogen, which is lighter than air and would give the creature extra lift. He tells his associates that the creature has everything needed for flight but that they don't add up. Back in the Cretaceous, two weeks after the fight with the T. rex, the mother dragon is dead, having succumbed to infection; the starving juvenile must now teach itself how to fly, while evading the scavengers seeking to feed on his mother's body: at present, only pterosaurs, but more dangerous creatures will come. The juvenile begins to eat the only food source available; its mother's carcass. While eating, an aged male dragon arrives to feast on the mother. The juvenile, sensing danger, flees, but the older dragon, seeking fresh meat, gives chase. The juvenile flees into a forest where the adult male cannot fly. Body working overtime, the juvenile begins to make hydrogen, essential for flight, as the adult is gaining on the juvenile, nature kicks in and the juvenile regurgitates the contents of its stomach to remove excessive weight and takes to the air, narrowly escaping the adult male. In the present, Tanner inspects inside the mouth of the creature and declares it a carnivore, but also notices molars and wonders about their purpose in a carnivore. He also notes a fleshy palate at the back of the throat and wonders if it could have been used to prevent backdraft from fire. Noting that the mouth shows no evidence of ever having been exposed to fire, he reconsiders. He theorizes that dragons breathing fire is biologically possible, explaining that the Bombardier beetle can emit liquid at a temperature of 200°C. The prehistoric dragon, now a young adult, is preparing to fight an Alpha male for territory and mates. Before it goes to fight the other adult male it eats rock rich in minerals, which is found at the heart of every dragon territory. The young adult ventures into the territory of an old Alpha male. The two fight and the young male succeeds in winning. Tanner says that to create fire, they need fuel, oxygen and a source of ignition. He then realises that he had already found fuel inside the flight bladders, hydrogen and methane, both combustible and lighter than air. He then takes samples of the crushed rocks found on the molars of the creature to discover they are rich in platinum, which can start a fire in a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. Tanner is now convinced that his theories have been correct and the creature is a dragon. Tanner begins to wonder how dragons survived the K/T Event, when other large land-dwelling creatures like the dinosaurs didn't. The narrator then explains that at the K/T event, a meteor the size of Mount Everest smashed into the Earth, wiping out nearly all life on the planet. Sharks, Coelacanths, Turtles and Crocodiles all survived and all had one thing in common: they were all marine species. Tanner then remembers that crocodiles also have a false palate like the one found in their dragon, and deduces that it is an evolutionary relic passed down from a marine ancestor. The narrator continues to inform us that the land dwelling, Prehistoric dragon was wiped out, but explains that the Prehistoric dragon was not the only dragon species alive at the time of the K/T Event. There was also a Marine dragon, a cousin of the Prehistoric dragon, both descended from a common ancestor. It is explained that the Marine dragon lived in the sea and its the flight bladders became swim bladders allowing extra buoyancy, the wings became vestigial and served as fins, and the large tail became a rudder. As the land recovered from the impact of the meteor, some dragons returned to shallower waters and eventually made the transition back to land. Tanner suggests that the legends of sea serpents were actually recollections of true encounters with Marine dragons. One of his associates discovers that a fossil of a false palate had been found in bamboo forest, in China. Tanner theorizes that the Marine dragon came back onto land and evolved into a new species in the bamboo forests of Asia. The dragons of Chinese mythology are low-slung, elongated and slender; all characteristics of a body recently adapted from water. But Tanner wonders if this would have been suitable for living in a forest. We are taken back 50,000 years to the bamboo forests of China. Here we are shown the newly evolved Forest dragon, adapted to its new environment. We follow the dragon as it stalks its prey, and discover that the dragon has evolved a unique adaptation, mimicry. By controlling the flow of gasses out of its bladder, the dragon is able to mimic animals in distress. The vestigial wings, are too small to allow flight, the dragon only able to glide small distances; but the buoyancy of the gas bladders let it tread less heavily and thus quieter when stalking prey. The dragons also use their natural fire breathing abilities to cook their captured prey, as the fur on some of its prey is not easily digested. The dragon succeeds in dealing with several mammalian intruders to its territory, including wild pigs and tigers, but in the distance, another species watches the dragon's use of fire with inquisitive eyes, a species that will turn the dragon's own weapon on it: humans. In the present, Tanner, after theorising about the Marine and Forest dragons, begins to wonder what other dragon species may have evolved within this family of creature. Tanner's associate shows him something strange on the monitor, bone fragments. He thinks they may be ribs, but the ribs are intact. The three scientists lift the wings of the dragon to discover that it has four legs and two wings. Tanner is amazed saying, "No vertebrate that ever lived had six limbs". They check the DNA, knowing that if it is not a hoax then the limbs will show up in the DNA. The DNA test shows that the dragon has a genetic adaptation in the gene responsible for creating limbs. Tanner tells us that World mythology was correct all the time, all depictions of dragons show them to have six limbs. He cites the different depictions of dragons as evidence of a whole family of dragons existing all over the world. He dubs their carcass the Mountain dragon, and wonders if this is the dragon in European folk history.As the three scientists prepare the dragon carcass to be packed up and shipped to England, they perform one final check to see if they missed anything. They find the tip of a broken sword buried in its heart, Tanner goes to where the Romanian scientists are studying the human corpses and find the sword that the tip came from. The narrator tells us the dragons survived until the emergence of humans, who used the dragon's fire against it. These encounters between humans and dragons are recorded in folklore throughout the world. Tanner discovers that the human bodies show evidence of carbonisation, showing that the bodies were burnt, but their dragon specimen never breathed fire. As the Romanian authorities come for the dragon, Tanner studies x-rays that had been taken, he sees that the ovaries of the dragon show no follicular activity, and concludes that their dragon was a baby. The three scientists travel to the cave, hoping to find a nest. We are taken back over 500 years, to the Carpathian Mountains in the Middle Ages. Dragons have been driven to live in remote places of Europe by encroaching human. A female Mountain dragon is searching for a mate: she marks her territory with her scent. The female is near the end of her season. The scientists arrive at the cave and find rocks that have been scorched in symmetrical lines. They scan inside the cave using echo scanning. As the female returns to her den, a male dragon arrives, having travelled to Romania from his territory in the Atlas Mountains, and the female goes to him. Instinct then takes over as the two begin their courtship ritual, where they fly to a great height then freefall together, only pulling apart at the last instant. Inside the cave, Tanner finds a nest, containing egg shell fragments and one intact egg. Back in the 1400s we see the female dragon, using her fire to incubate the eggs inside the nest. The male returns from hunting, with no food. Instead, he brings another rock for the nest. The female, now being very protective of her nest, allows the male to enter the cave and take care of the nest. As the female takes her turn to hunt, the male enters the nest and places the rock on the nest. But instead of keeping the temperature at a high level, he lowers the temperature of the eggs in order for the eggs to develop into all females, as another male may be a rival for him; the resulting imbalance in sex ratio would have been tolerable in a healthy population but is a severe risk in a species which is now nearly extinct. The female returns from the hunt and finds the male not attending to the eggs. She quickly senses that something isn't right inside the nest. She finds out that the temperature in the nest is dangerously low and attempts to raise it again: one infant dragon has already died, but the other can still be saved. The male senses trouble and makes his escape.The adult female has been stealing livestock from local villages in order to feed her young daughter, despite the risk of provoking the villagers. As the adult female begins to teach her daughter the secret of fire, a pair of local knights arrive to kill the dragon. They find that the young female cannot defend herself because she cannot breathe fire yet, and kill her. The adult female returns to the lair too late and finds her daughter dead. One of the knights is soon killed by the enraged female, while the other narrowly manages to escape. With her daughter now dead, the adult female comes back into heat and begins trying to attract another mate. As winter comes, the female hibernates. More warriors (mercenaries paid by the locals) come to the den and catch her with her gas bladder nearly empty due to hibernation and attack her. She fights bravely, cutting down the mercenaries until only one man is left, badly wounded. As she rears above the man to crush him, he holds a spear upright. As she fatally impales herself on the spear, her toppling corpse crushes the last mercenary beneath her.In the present, Tanner discovers a chamber. He enters it and finds the adult female. Back at the museum in England, Tanner shows the specimens to his colleagues: the legends of dragons were real, but had been twisted

7. The Reluctant Dragon (1941): Humorist Robert Benchley attempts to find Walt Disney to ask him to adapt a short story about a gentle dragon who would rather recite poetry than be ferocious. Along the way, he is given a tour of Walt Disney Studios, and learns about the animation process. Humorist Robert Benchley visits the Disney Studios to sell Walt on the idea of animating the story of The Reluctant Dragon. While evading an officious young studio guide, Benchley stumbles into various studio activities and departments, including an art class, a sound effects session, the multiplane camera studio (at which point he notices the film has switched to Technicolor), the paint lab, a storyboard session for the "Baby Weems" segment, a movieola screening of the Goofy cartoon "How to Ride a Horse", and finally catches up with Walt in a screening room just as he's previewing the studio's latest film... The Reluctant Dragon!

8. Dragon Wars (2007): As a young boy, Ethan Kendrick (Cody Arens) encounters in a shop, owned and operated by antiques dealer Jack (Robert Forster), a mysterious reptilian scale that shines with a blue light. This light projects itself upon Ethan. Seeing this, Jack pretends to suffer a heart attack and sends Ethan's father, who is selling him an antique dagger, to get help. Ethan then listens as Jack narrates a story (largely shown in flashback) explaining the scale. Jack, having told this story, reveals that he is himself Bochun, and that Ethan is Haram, reborn to protect the Yuh-Yi-Joo from Burakai, who is soon to return. Jack gives Ethan a medallion formerly belonging to Haram and reveals that the Yuh-Yi-Joo is a girl named Sarah whom Ethan will find in Los Angeles. Ethan accepts the medallion and the responsibility of caring for the Yuh-Yi-Joo. Nineteen years later, Ethan has become a television news reporter, in which role he discovers that Buraki has returned. He then inquires into the news office's database for the location of a Los Angeles-based girl named Sarah, who is either nineteen or twenty years old and bears a dragon-shaped mark on her shoulder. His friend Bruce, despite his disbelief, helps Ethan search. The Sarah that Ethan wants, one Sarah Daniels, sees Ethan's news report and is terrified by the tracks Buraki has left. She hurries home and surrounds herself with protective symbols, which she does not understand but which she feels are the only tools she has by which to protect herself. Her friend Brandy, concerned but not quite understanding Sarah's problem, takes her to a tavern for a drink, hoping to distract her from fear. Sarah, still afraid, leaves the tavern and is attacked outside by three thugs, who are driven away by Jack. Word of her escape later reaches Ethan through another reporter. Buraki and his army continue to search for Sarah, attracting the attention of the U.S. Government and the notice of at least one civilian. Ethan eventually finds Sarah at a hospital. Although the hospital's receptionist refuses him entry, a doctor later revealed to be Jack in disguise allows him into Sarah's room. Ethan is about to explain the truth of their situation to Sarah when Buraki attacks the hospital, intent on capturing her. Ethan and Sarah flee in a car driven by Bruce, with Buraki in pursuit. They are stopped by a commander of the Atrox Army, but eventually escape him due to another intervention by a disguised Jack. Ethan subsequently explains the story to Sarah, who accepts it as true and Ethan as her protector. He then takes her to a practitioner of hypnotherapy, who helps her revive the memories of her previous life as the unsuccessful Yuh-Yi-Joo. The energy released by her body during the hypnotherapy session attracts Buraki, who destroys the hypnotherapist's house and follows Sarah and Ethan. In a car, Ethan and Sarah flee to a more densely-populated area of the city, where they meet with Bruce in a restaurant. When Bruce has left Ethan alone, Jack warns Ethan that the Yuh-Yi-Joo must fulfill her destiny. Ethan, defiant as a result of his new attachment to Sarah, demands autonomy. Moments later, Buraki finds Ethan and Sarah again. They attempt to escape him, resulting in a chase scene that culminates atop the U.S. Bank Tower. There, Buraki is distracted by several military helicopters, who proceed to attack him. Buraki then summons the Atrox Army to help him. This legion enters the city and advances through the streets, engaging the United States Army and the Los Angeles Police Department in battle. Here, the Atrox Army is shown to consist of black-armored, humanoid warriors; therapod-like cavalry called "Shaconnes"; small, winged western dragons called "Bulcos"; and huge, slow-moving reptiles identified in the dialogue as "Dawdlers", who carry powerful rocket launchers on their backs. The Atrox Army proceeds, crushing the American soldiers and their weapons while suffering moderate casualties. Ethan and Sarah are taken to an empty garage by two FBI Agents. The senior agent reveals that he has researched the legend of the Imoogi, and attempts to kill Sarah so that Buraki and his army would depart for another five centuries. The junior agent then kills his partner and gives the fugitives his car whereby to escape. Ethan and Sarah then enter the rural countryside in the car. Sarah, having given up hope of escape, remarks that wherever she goes, the Imoogi will find her. Ethan, who seems bent on saving her both from Buraki and from the Good Imoogi for whom she is destined, refuses to admit this. Sarah pauses, then tells him that she is now twenty years old, revealing herself to have come into her full power as Yuh-Yi-Joo. Immediately, the Bulcos knock the car over and capture Sarah. When Ethan regains conciousness, he finds himself tied to a pillar which stands before a menacing fortress in the midst of a darkened desert landscape. In front of it lies an altar from which Sarah is to be sacrificed to Buraki. Buraki is about to consume Sarah when Ethan's pendant unleashes a light that destroys all of Buraki's legions, though not the Atrox Leader or Buraki himself.Ethan attempts to retrieve Sarah, but is halted by the Atrox Leader, with whom he engages in combat. The Atrox Leader is killed by Ethan's pendant when he inadvertently strikes it with his sword. A revived Buraki knocks Ethan down and attempts to eat Sarah, but is unexpectedly attacked by the Good Imoogi. Ethan and Sarah then watch as Buraki and the Good Imoogi battle. Ultimately, Buraki wins. He then approaches Sarah, who offers herself to him. Just as Buraki is about to absorb Sarah's power, she redirects it into the open mouth of the Good Imoogi, who is instantly revived and continues to fight Buraki, transforming as he does into a gigantic Korean dragon. The two struggle for a few moments until the Good Imoogi, now the Celestial Dragon, disengages from Buraki, flies to the top of the latter's fortress, and burns him to ashes by firing a fireball down his throat.Having slain Buraki, the Celestial Dragon approaches Ethan, allowing Sarah's spirit to speak with him. Sarah, now a fully fledged Yuh-Yi-Joo, requests Ethan not to be sad, adding that she will love him for all eternity. The Celestial Dragon then takes Sarah back into his body and ascends to the heavens. Jack appears behind Ethan, reminds him that the two of them "have been given a great honor", and dissolves into dust. Ethan, recognizing that he will never see Jack again, whispers "Good-bye, old man". His own fate is undisclosed.

9. Eragon (2006): Eragon is a farm boy who is 17 years of age and lives in a small village named Carvahall in the fictional and magical country of Alagaësia that contains dragons and other fictional creatures. While hunting, he finds a dragon egg the size of a small cat from which hatches a blue dragon named Saphira. Eragon decides to keep Saphira a secret, but a pair of magical creatures, The Razac, are sent by Galbatorix, the King of Alagaesia to find Eragon and the dragon. This causes Ergaon to flee his home but when he returns he finds out his uncle Garrow has been killed by the Razac and so sets out on a journey to avenge him. Accompanied by a wise storyteller named Brom, Eragon and Saphira take up the legacy of legendary Dragon Riders. He learns magic, swordfighting, and dragon-riding to fulfil the legend of the dragon riders and his destiny: to help the Varden overthrow the Empire and its tyrant king, Galbatorix.

10. Dragon Storm (2004): Meteorites falling from the sky during a meteor shower act as transportation for dragons traveling within. The dragons wreak havoc on the surrounding medieval countryside and two rival monarchs, King Fastrad (John Rhys-Davies) and King Wednesbury (John Hansson) must join forces to face the threat. A messenger arrives to warn King Fastrad who does not believe him, until the dragons make their appearance and destroy his fiefdom. Fastrad and his top aids then head to the fiefdom of King Wednesbury, ostensibly to seek aid, but planning to overthrow him. Along the way they meet Silas (Maxwell Caulfield), a hunter who agrees, for a price, to escort and protect the party from the countryside's other dangers. They reach Wednesbury and Fastrad falsely accuses Silas of being a poacher in order to wiggle out of the debt. Silas is joined by the Mystic Scholar Ling (Woon Young Park), the vengence-seeking Remmegar {Richard Wharton), and King Wednesbury's warrior daughter Medina (Angel Boris). One of the meteors was damaged when it fell, killing its dragon passenger. Ling studies the dead beast and the party decides to set off to hunt the remaining dragons using a giant catapult/crossbow. While they are gone, Fastrad continues plotting against Wednesbury, and blackmails Wednesbury's aide to kill Silas.

By Richard Moody

Richard Moody's Complete Childhood 2 Orson Welles DVD's

2009-08-16T03:32:00.000-07:00

1. Don Quixote (1992): Over the course of his lifetime, the legendary director Orson Welles (1915-1985) was forced to leave many of his grander movie-making projects unfinished, generally for want of sustained financial backing. Each successive unfinished effort generated buzz throughout the worshipful film community that only served to brighten the luster of his legend. Thus it was only a matter of time before one of his many admirers bought the rights to the fairly extensive footage he shot for his film Don Quixote (begun in 1955) and attempted to edit it into some semblance of a finished film, based on research into Welles' stated intentions and notes. A fuzzy, out-of-focus print of the resulting film was shown at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, and it was immediately deemed as a hashed-up job, a travesty bordering on the sacrilegious, by the assembled deeply interested and knowledgeable viewers. Their criticism focused mainly on issues that ordinary viewers would deem excessively technical, but the gist of it was that this was a very un-Wellesian use of Welles' footage. However, the film does offer viewers a unique opportunity to see some of the master's mature story ideas onscreen. In addition to footage from the film, the movie is also a kind of semi-documentary homage to Welles, showing footage of the famed director at work.

2. It’s All True (1993): Both a documentary and a unique exercise in film restoration, It's All True tells the complex story of Orson Welles' ill-fated attempts to make an anthology film about the life and culture of South America and concludes with a reconstruction of one of Welles' unfinished segments, edited together from rediscovered original footage. The idea for Welles' South American project was conceived by the American government as a sort of cultural exchange to improve relations with Latin America. Using interviews and period footage, the filmmakers relate how the project quickly turned sour, as both the Brazilian government and RKO studio executives objected to Welles early footage; indeed, thanks to a local witch doctor, the film could literally be said to be cursed. Although Welles persevered, RKO eventually withdrew support from the project. The failures of It's All True and The Magnificent Ambersons, which was damaged by studio cuts made while Welles was overseas, are thought by many to have irreparably damaged the director's Hollywood career. It's All True concludes with a partial reconstruction of the "Four Men on a Raft" segment, in which Welles tells the true story of a dramatic, thousand-mile raft journey by four Brazilian peasants.

By Richard Moody & Nell Moody

Land Of The Lost - My Favourite Film

2009-08-07T08:32:00.000-07:00

Land of the Lost (2009): Three years after being kicked out of the science department for his theory of time warps and his attack on Matt Lauer on The Today Show, paleontologist Rick Marshall (Will Ferrell) is reduced to working as a teacher for children at the George C. Page Museum until he meets Holly Cantrell (Anna Friel) who urges him to finish his tachyon amplifier. When he does, they go to the Devils Cave, with tour guide Will Stanton. Marshall activates the T-amplifier triggering an earthquake, and the three end up in a parallel universe having lost the amplifier. They meet some ape men - Pakuni. They are trapped by a tree with one of them (named Chaka) by a Tyrannosaurus which then chases them until they reach a crevice in a cave, it gives up, though still wanting to eat Marshall. Holly, knowing the dinosaur's attitude, gives him the name "Grumpy". The next day Marshall has visions about a strange creature begging for his help and goes to find the Lost City. The others follow and they find the Pylon and are attacked by creatures called Sleestaks. When the Pylon opens, Marshall enters, meeting the creature Enik. Enik tells them that the evil Zarn is out to control the universe and needs the tachyon amplifier. Chaka takes the group through the jungle and onto a salt flat landscape, filled with numerous jumbled objects and landmarks. The others discover that the area is a feeding site for Compsognathus and Velociraptors, who attack a wandering ice cream man, until Grumpy comes and scares them off. An Allosaurus arrives as well. The two territorial predators prepare to fight when they both catch Marshall's scent and chase after him. Marshall runs from "Big Alice", and liquid nitrogen to freeze the Allosaurus to death, then finds the tachyon amplifier among her remains. They take a break at a motel in the salt flat. While Marshall, Will and Chaka laze in the pool, Holly repairs the amplifier and wanders off. She finds dinosaur eggs and takes one. They she triggers a holographic message from the Zarn, learning that Enik is the real villain. Marshall, Will, and Chaka realize Holly is missing and leave to find her. They meet two mating Sleestaks who shed their skin. Marshall and Will use the shed skin to disguise themselves. Holly has been captured by Sleestak, and Marshall and Will learn that Enik is the villain. Enik reveals his plan to use the Sleestaks to take over the Earth. He then leaves Marshall and company to their fate as Grumpy arrives to get his revenge. Marshall takes on Grumpy one-on-one. Holly, Will, and Chaka attempt to fight off the numerous Sleestaks. Once they are surrounded, Marshall returns to kill most of the Sleestaks. Marshall and company entrap Enik and open a portal back to Devil's Cave. Will chooses to stay with Chaka in the Land of the Lost. Back on Earth, Matt Lauer gives a second interview with Marshall. Soon after the show ends Holly's dinosaur egg hatches.

Starring
Will Ferrell as Dr. Rick Marshall
Anna Friel as Holly Cantrell
Danny McBride as Will Stanton
Jorma Taccone as Chaka

By Richard Moody

Richard Moody's Complete Childhood DVD 6 Columbo Episodes

2009-08-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

1. Forgotten Lady (1975): Janet Leigh is Grace Wheeler, an aging former movie star, now married to a wealthy doctor, Henry Willis (Sam Jaffe). John Payne is Ned Diamond, her long time song and dance partner. The pair is fashioned after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. When Henry refuses to finance her return to the spotlight, Grace coldly kills him in his sleep, and tries to pass it off as a suicide. Her butler, played by Maurice Evans, believes she was in the screening room the entire time, watching one of her classic films. This is the only episode where the murderer is not arrested as Diamond falsely confesses, to save Grace, knowing that she is dying of a brain disease she herself is unaware of. Columbo goes along with the ploy, and by the time Diamond is cleared, Grace would have passed away after spending her last days living happily in the past.

2. A Case of Immunity (1975): Hector Elizondo is Hassan Salah, the chief diplomat of the Legation of Swahari, an Arab nation with a new young king. Hassan enlists Rachman Habib, played by Sal Mineo, to help him stage a robbery at the Legation; the real aim is to murder the head of security. Hassan pins the murder on the now absent Habib, who as part of the plan has gone into hiding. Columbo quickly unravels the truth, but finds himself stymied by the fact that Salah has diplomatic immunity and cannot be arrested. Columbo gets Salah to confess the murder with his monarch in the next room listening. To stay in this country rather than face Middle Eastern justice, he waives his immunity from prosecution. The King himself offers a warning: "In case you are thinking of rescinding your waiver of immunity, we will be waiting to welcome you home."

3. Identity Crisis (1975): Patrick McGoohan is back as the villain, this time as CIA operative Nelson Brenner, who is really a double agent. The Agency sends an operative, codenamed "Geronimo" (Leslie Nielsen), to cut a deal with Brenner's alter ego. Geronimo recognizes Brenner as a double agent from the past and puts the squeeze on him. Brenner must kill Geronimo before he can reveal his secret. In the course of his investigation, Columbo finds himself blocked at every turn by a man accustomed to keeping secrets secret. But not even a visit from the Director of the Agency, portrayed by David White, can deter the determined Lieutenant. McGoohan directed the episode as well as starring in it. Note: The name used by the Director of the Agency on his identity card bluntly reveals him to be "Phil Corrigan" — from the Secret Agent X-9 comic strip! (McGoohan also uses the "Be seeing you!" line so prevalent in episodes of The Prisoner.)

4. A Matter of Honor (1976): Ricardo Montalban is Luis Montoya, a former matador renowned throughout Mexico for his courage in the ring. Retired from bullfighting, he raises the bravest bulls in the world. His long time assistant and friend, Hector Rangel, sees a chink in Montoya's armor when they must face a bull that has gored Hector's son. Montoya realizes, that to protect his own reputation, he must kill his lifelong friend, which he does cleverly using the same bull and a small amount of tranquilizer as the murder weapon. Surely nobody would dare to question the word of Luis Montoya. Well, nobody that is except Columbo, who just happens to be in Tijuana for the weekend when the murder takes place. The local chief of police recognizes Columbo as the man who solved the mystery on the cruise ship the year before and enlists his help in solving this crime as well.

5. Now You See Him (1976): Jack Cassidy returns for a third bout as a murderer. This time he is the Great Santini, a magician extraordinaire. It turns out however that he is also Stefan Mueller, formerly a Nazi SS prison guard. Jesse Jerome (Nehemiah Persoff), owner of the Cabaret of Magic, the club where Santini is headlining, discovers the secret and blackmails Santini. If Santini refuses to pay, Jerome promises to turn him over to the Immigration Department. Santini conjures up a murder. A true magician, Santini commits the murder in the middle of his famed water tank escape act, thereby giving himself what he believes to be an airtight alibi. But then, Santini has never matched wits with Columbo before. Sgt. Wilson is back to lend a hand, and is actually instrumental in solving the case. Robert Loggia portrays the club's maitre d' and Jerome's partner Harry Blandford.

6. Last Salute to the Commodore (1976): Someone has killed Commodore Otis Swanson (John Dehner), a retired ship builder who would rather sell his business than let his son-in-law Charles Clay continue to run it. It looks as though the deed was done by Clay, played by Robert Vaughn, the cruise ship murderer from a prior Columbo episode. But when he turns up dead as well, the mystery deepens with surprises that even Columbo would not expect. This episode departs from the normal Columbo format in that we do not know whodunit until the end of the show. Sgt. Wilson is gone, presumably promoted after his pivotal role in capturing Santini, but Columbo has a new sidekick, Sgt. 'Mac' Albinsky. Diane Baker portrays the Commodore's alcoholic daughter Joanna, and Wilfrid Hyde-White is his lawyer Kittering. Patrick McGoohan took his third turn behind the camera to direct this episode.

By Richard Moody, Greg Ross & Tanya Ross

Richard's favourite film G-Force

2009-08-02T12:51:00.000-07:00

G-Force (2009): The film revolves around an special FBI organization of trained secret agent animals, equipped with advanced tools including an advanced earpiece that allows the mammalian members to talk to humans. In addition to a team of cockroaches, the primary field team consists of guinea pigs Darwin (Sam Rockwell) (team leader), Juarez (Penelope Cruz) (martial arts), Blaster (Tracy Morgan) (weapons/transportation), mole Speckles (Nicolas Cage) (cyber intelligence), and fly Mooch (reconnaissance) (Edwin Louis). Hoping to impress his superiors on the eve of a budgetary review, the unit's leader, Ben, orders an unauthorized infiltration of the residence of home electronics and appliances magnate, Leonard Saber, who has been under FBI investigation for years. The team is able to successfully retrieve considerable sensitive information about a sinister scheme that is set to occur in 29 hours. However, when Ben's superior arrives for his evaluation, his astonishment at the team's capabilities and technology is overcome by his indignation at Ben's unauthorized mission and the fact that the downloaded intelligence appears to be useless information about Saber's coffee makers. As a result, the government agent orders the unit shut down, the equipment seized and the animals to be used as experimental subjects to be killed as security risks. With the help of their human compatriots, Darwin, Juarez, Blaster, Mooch, and Speckles escape with hopes of stopping Saber's scheme, but find themselves in a pet carrying case bound for a pet shop.
Now trapped in the store's pet rodent display case, G-Force meets Hurley (Jon Favreau), a gluttonous guinea pig, Bucky (Steve Buscemi) an irascible hamster and three sycophantic mice. Although Blaster and Juarez manage to get themselves sold to a family with plans to return to extract their comrades, Speckles' own attempt to escape by playing dead ends disastrously when he is thrown into and apparently crushed in a garbage truck. Meanwhile, Mooch manages to return to Ben to tell him where his mammalian agents are, but Darwin escapes (with Hurley, who is convinced that Darwin is his brother, tagging along) before he can arrive to collect them.
While Blaster and Juarez escape their new owners to return to Ben, he and his partner discover that the discredited intel has a destructive computer function that apparently hid the scheme. At this time, Darwin and Hurley make their own way to their superior. On route, Darwin sees a Saber coffeemaker and decides to investigate it, but his examination of the machine makes it come alive as a dangerous fighting robot that he and Hurley are barely able to defeat. Now with his suspicions vindicated, Darwin and Hurley transport the wreckage to Ben. However, upon arrival, Ben has lost all confidence in his team and confesses the shattering information that they are not special genetically enhanced animals as previously told, but ordinary ones Ben took in and trained for the team. However, Hurley lifts them from their despair by reminding the team of the astounding feats he has seen them do and the fact that they obviously made themselves extraordinary on their own.
Emboldened but with little time to stop the scheme, Ben provides the field team with the means to infiltrate the Saber residence and plant a virus in the computer mainframe. Unfortunately, FBI agents ordered to capture the animals arrive, forcing the team to elude them with an extended pursuit thanks to a high speed vehicle especially designed for them. After that is accomplished and the team infiltrates Saber's mainframe, the plan is put into motion, and the resulting battle separates the group, only leaving Darwin to take the mainframe down. At the same time, Leonard Saber is shocked to discover that his appliances have become killing machines, expecting them to simply be able to effectively communicate with each other, while FBI takes advantage of this obvious pretext to finally openly move against the industrialist. When Darwin reaches the mainframe, he finds out that Speckles, whose home and family had been destroyed by humans, is the mastermind of the plan, whose masterstroke is to cause a massive planetwide bombardment of space junk pulled from orbit to make the planet surface uninhabitable. Speckles promptly amalgamates the various appliances in the vicinity into a giant walking being, which, combined with a localized bombardment of orbital debris, soon overpowers the police forces gathered at the mansion. Darwin manages to persuade Speckles that his new family is with the rest of the team and Ben, who had taken them all in. Speckles consents, and tries to shut it down, but realizes that it has gone too far. However, Darwin uses the computer virus on his PDA to take it down.
At the end of the film, the guinea pigs are personally commended by the FBI Director who also them appoints them special agents of the FBI. Furthermore, G-Force is reinstated as a unit of the Bureau and expanded with Hurley, Bucky and the mice inducted as new recruits. Meanwhile, Saber makes the largest product recall in history, and Speckles is given the punitive duty of personally removing the malicious chips from all Saber products, which number in the tens of thousands.

By Richard Moody

Walking With Dinosaurs Live

2009-07-24T01:57:00.000-07:00

The Story

The idea for Walking with Dinosaurs started in 1996. At the time I was a science TV producer at the BBC and knew they were looking for a big series about paleontology. In particular they wanted it to appeal to the widest possible audience, to bring the subject alive. This was only a couple of years after Jurassic Park had come out which set a new bench mark in dinosaur imagery, so rather naively I suggested we use the same techniques to make a series of prehistoric natural history programmes. I had an image of a small raptor trying to catch dragonflies in the evening light of a Cretaceous summer - one of these extraordinary animals doing something quite normal and natural. Overall the aim was to create an immersive experience that was both spectacular and informative.
As I investigated further I realised how difficult it would be to achieve. The first quote I got for creating these computer dinosaurs was 10,000 US dollars a second which was way beyond a TV budget and Jurassic Park had only about nine minutes of dinosaurs in it, we needed three hours. So my initial ideas concentrated heavily on the insects, plants and landscapes of the Mesozoic with the occasional dinosaur thrown in. Fortunately my search of UK graphics companies brought me to Framestore where I met Mike Milne. He understood exactly what I was trying to achieve and showed a flexibility and imagination that allowed us to bring down the cost of animation. Suddenly, thanks to Mike and his team, I could have a programme full of dinosaurs.
We shot a six minute pilot among some old Mediterranean pines in Cyprus and this was enough to persuade the BBC, Discovery and BBC Worldwide to fund the series. It was essential that this vision of the past was as accurate as possible even though it could only ever be based on scientific conjecture. For six months we did nothing but research - carefully choosing the moments in the Mesozoic that scientists knew the most about.
To create a complete picture of the past we needed all the information we could get. Then between the summer of 1997 and winter 1998 producer Jasper James and myself took a small production crew to some of the last places on Earth where ancient plants and trees still survive so we could capture the right backgrounds for our dinosaurs. These small patches of untouched wilderness are some of the most beautiful places on the planet and we were truly privileged to spend weeks in them filming. These included the araucaria forests in New Caledonia and southern Chile, the redwood forests in California, the beech gap on South Island New Zealand and the Labyrinth in Tasmania.
While the film crews sat in southern Pacific forests shooting lots of pretty shots of landscape with nothing in it, Mike Milne and his team of animators started work on the dinosaurs. With a lot of advice from paleontologists we built accurate models of almost 20 dinosaurs (and several other weird and wonderful creatures from the same time) and then scanned them into the computer. The team then faced a huge task. They were attempting something that had never been tried before even in Hollywood - hours of high quality photoreal animation. The first show took a year to animate but once Mike’s team have overcome their teething problems, the last five only took six months.
Once our creatures were up and running they looked magnificent and suddenly the era came alive - walking, running, feeding and fighting, a whole menagerie of creatures many of which have never been seen outside the pages of scientific journals. When I first saw the images of our polar allosaurus wandering among the podocarps of New Zealand I knew we had created something quite special. The six half hour programmes were finished and first broadcast in October 1999 on the BBC1.

About the Live Arena

I went to see “Walking with Dinosaurs Live” from Sheffield Arena it was amazing. One of my favorite dinosaurs is pterodactyl the flying dinosaur bird. The first part was 45 minutes long, the same length as second part. I really enjoyed it.

By Richard Moody

4th July Independence Day (USA)

2009-07-04T08:38:00.001-07:00

Background:

During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the American colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. Congress debated and revised the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4. A day earlier, John Adams had written to his wife Abigail:
“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
Adams' prediction was off by two days. From the outset, Americans celebrated independence on July 4, the date shown on the much-publicized Declaration of Independence, rather than on July 2, the date the resolution of independence was approved in a closed session of Congress.
One of the most enduring myths about Independence Day is that Congress signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The myth had become so firmly established that, decades after the event and nearing the end of their lives, even the elderly Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had come to believe that they and the other delegates had signed the Declaration on the fourth. Most delegates actually signed the Declaration on August 2, 1776. In a remarkable series of coincidences, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two founding fathers of the United States and the only two men who signed the Declaration of Independence to become president, died on the same day: July 4, 1826, which was the United States' 50th anniversary. President James Monroe died exactly five years later, on July 4, 1831, but he was not a signatory to the Declaration of Independence.

Customs:

Independence Day is a national holiday marked by patriotic displays. Similar to other summer-themed events, Independence Day celebrations often take place outdoors. Independence Day is a federal holiday, so all non-essential federal institutions (like the postal service and federal courts) are closed on that day. Many politicians make it a point on this day to appear at a public event to praise the nation's heritage, laws, history, society, and people.
Families often celebrate Independence Day by hosting or attending a picnic or barbecue and take advantage of the day off and, in some years, long weekend to gather with relatives. Decorations (e.g., streamers, balloons, and clothing) are generally colored red, white, and blue, the colors of the American flag. Parades often are in the morning, while fireworks displays occur in the evening at such places as parks, fairgrounds, or town squares.
Independence Day fireworks are often accompanied by patriotic songs such as the national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner", "God Bless America", "America the Beautiful", "My Country, 'Tis of Thee", "This Land Is Your Land", "Stars and Stripe Forever", and, regionally, "Yankee Doodle" in northeastern states and "Dixie" in southern states. Some of the lyrics recall images of the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812.
Firework shows are held in many states, and many fireworks are sold for personal use or as an alternative to a public show. Safety concerns have led some states to ban fireworks or limit the sizes and types allowed. Illicit traffic transfers many fireworks from less restrictive states.
A salute of one gun for each state in the United States, called a “salute to the union,” is fired on Independence Day at noon by any capable military base.
Major displays are held in New York on the East River, in Chicago on Lake Michigan, in San Diego over Mission Bay, in Boston on the Charles River, in St. Louis on the Mississippi River, and on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. During the annual Windsor-Detroit International Freedom Festival, Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, host one of the world's largest fireworks displays, over the Detroit River, to celebrate both American Independence Day and Canada Day.
While the official observance always falls on July 4th, participation levels may vary according to which day of the week the 4th falls on. If the holiday falls in the middle of the week, some fireworks displays and celebrations may take place during the weekend for convenience, again, varying by region.

Some People I Know Who’s Birthday Is On July 4, 2009

1. Ron Kovic (From A True Story Film Born on the Fourth of July)
2. Kirk Pengilly (From an Australian group INXS)
3. Jack Frost (Musician)
4. Becki Newton (From Ugly Betty)
5. Mark Belling (From American Radio Talk Show)
6. Bill Withers (African-American Singer)
7. Neil Simon (Playwright & Screenwriter)
8. Ed O’Ross (American Actor)
9. Gloria Stuart (American Actress)
10. Andy Creeggan (From A Canadian Band Called Barenaked Ladies)

By Richard Moody