Wallace and Gromit's 20th Anniversary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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