Black Zoo

Black Zoo is a 1963 American horror film directed by Robert Gordon and starring Michael Gough, Jeanne Cooper, Rod Lauren, Virginia Grey, Jerome Cowan, and Elisha Cook, Jr. It was produced and co-written by Herman Cohen. It is a violent, gore-filled tale.
Plot.
Michael Conrad is a private zookeeper who owns Conrad's Animal Kingdom. He leads a cult group who literally worship the animals he tends — especially the big cats: a lion, a lioness, a pair of cheetahs, a tiger, and a black panther; as well as a gorilla. Conrad plays organ music to the animals in his living room, and uses them to kill anyone who gets in his way. Conrad is married to Edna and forces his mute son Carl to assist him.
Production.
Herman Cohen had the idea for the film, and hired Aben Kandel to work with him on the script.
Cohen had worked with Gough previously in "Horrors of the Black Museum" and "Konga".
The animals were provided by Ralph Helfer. The zoo was built at Raleigh Studio (formerly Producers Studio) on North Bronson in Hollywood, California. The entire zoo seen in the picture was an interior set.
Publicity was done with the cats—including an appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". Cohen did not like the title, preferring "Horrors of the Black Zoo".
Availability.
"Black Zoo" was produced on a VHS tape published by The Fang (Floral Park, NY) in 2001.


El agente 00-P2

El agente 00-P2 (also known as Agent Macaw: Shaken & Stirred) is a 2009 Mexican animated action-spy-comedy film produced by Ánima Estudios. The film features the voices of Mexican actors Jaime Camil, Silvia Pinal, and Dulce María.
It was released in theaters on February 13, 2009 in Mexico. This film references blockbuster spy films, such as "James Bond" and "".
Synopsis.
Tambo Macaw, an overweight macaw who works as a janitor at the Central Intelligentus Animalus (CIA) dreams of becoming a secret agent. The opportunity arises when he is assigned, by mistake, the most important mission in the agency's history; stop the wicked plans of Mamá Osa and her evil organization. Tambo is helped by Gino Tutifrutti, an old turtle who is in charge of the technology lab in the agency and is one of Tambo's few friends. The couple journeys into the coolest and craziest adventure ever, which will lead them to faraway places where they'll face weird and dangerous foes. Our heroes will have to use their limited resources —in Tambo's case, his limited intelligence— to save the world from an icy extinction.
Box office.
"El agente 00-P2" earned $4.4 million pesos ($0.3 million USD) on its opening weekend and grossed a total of $22.57 million pesos (US$1.5 million) during its theatrical run.
Soundtrack.
This film features two hit singles, "One Way or Another", performed by Blondie, and "Summer Fun", performed by The Barracudas.


Cannery Rodent

Cannery Rodent is a 1967 "Tom and Jerry" cartoon produced, written and directed by Chuck Jones. It was the final "Tom and Jerry" cartoon written and directed by Chuck Jones, and one of the last of the theatrical "Tom and Jerry" cartoons to be released by MGM.
Plot.
Tom chases Jerry onto a dock, and as they soon both end up in a cannery, they end up being put into cans during the opening credits. As Jerry in his can rolls out of the way, Tom is carried out by the rolling fish cans and off the pier, until he glides through the air and stops as his tail, then his arm, and then his body register that gravity is imminent. Tom dangles in midair, has his face stretched, and finally falls into the sea.
Tom returns to chasing the mouse when he hears his can clattering across the wood floor. Jerry stops at Tom's foot, and leaps into the air, but is then caught and opened. The cat repeatedly shakes the open can to get the mouse out of it with no results, and sticks a finger inside to get bitten by the mouse, with painful results. He finally pulls Jerry out of the can, and as both of them realize the situation, Jerry releases his death grip, shows his smile to the camera, and kicks Tom's face as he starts the chase.
Tom swims out of the way with the shark continues to snap at him. The cat climbs a ladder while the shark eats through the wood columns under the pier. The shark swims back and takes a leap toward the cat on top of the pier and gets smacked on the head with an oar before falling back into the water. He emerges and glares at Tom as the cat taunts him once again, only this time, the shark leaps out of the water and grabs Tom (and part of the pier decking) in his jaws. Jerry peers through the resulting hole at the terrifying situation below: Tom is hanging onto the oar, which braces the shark's mouth open.
As Jerry relaxes and obtains a halo for his good deed, an ungrateful Tom grabs him and pops Jerry's halo with devil horns that appear on his head, chuckling evilly. Jerry chuckles innocently and sneezes himself out of the cat's paw, off his horns, and into the water, immediately followed by the cat. Tom's searching on the scene, only to become terrified when he screams that he has found another shark fin on a beeline coming towards him, he panics and swims away with lightning speed with the fin keeping pace. The shark fin is revealed to be a fake fin held by Jerry who is swimming underwater as a prank to torture Tom. Devil horns then appear on Jerry's head as he continues to chase Tom.
Production notes.
The title is a play-on-words of the John Steinbeck novel "Cannery Row".


Nalla Neram

Nalla Neram (), is a 1972 Indian Tamil-language action drama film, directed by M. A. Thirumugam. The film stars M. G. Ramachandran and K. R. Vijaya. It is a remake of the 1971 Hindi film "Haathi Mere Saathi" which itself was based on the 1967 Tamil film "Deiva Cheyal". All three versions were produced by Thevar. The film was released on 10 March 1972, and ran for more than 100 days in theatres.
Plot.
Raja "Raju" Kumar owns elephants and earns a livelihood by making them perform tricks. He falls in love with Vijaya and they get married. But soon, a problem arises. Vijaya hates elephants because of a personal tragedy in her life. She also feels that Raju spends too much time with his elephant friends. He had to choose between the love of his wife and the friendship of his loyal and devoted pet elephants.
Production.
"Nalla Neram" is a remake of the 1971 Hindi film "Haathi Mera Saathi", which in turn was adapted from Chinnappa Thevar's own Tamil film "Deiva Cheyal" (1967) which flopped. This film was the last collaboration between Ramachandran and Thevar. For the song "Aagattumda Thambi", Ramachandran drove a '58 Chevrolet Impala.
Soundtrack.
The music was composed by K. V. Mahadevan.


The Gay Anties

The Gay Anties is a 1947 Warner Bros. "Merrie Melodies" cartoon short directed by Friz Freleng and written by Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce. The short was released on February 15, 1947. The title is a play on words for the "Gay Nineties", a phrase that references the 1890s United States.
Plot.
A colony of ants surreptitiously invade a young couple's park picnic in the 1890s and contrive to steal their food. The gags include a scene in which the ants, frustrated three times in their efforts to make off with a sandwich, spread mustard on the back of the girlfriend's hand and trick the boyfriend into biting it, and one in which a female ant sings an overly melodramatic song ("Time Waits for No One") which gets the other ants to run for cover.


Star Fox 64

 known as Lylat Wars in the PAL regions, is a 3D rail shooter video game developed by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It is the second installment in the "Star Fox" series and a reboot of the original "Star Fox" for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
"Star Fox 64" was the very first Nintendo 64 game to feature support for the system's Rumble Pak peripheral, which initially came bundled with retail copies of the game. Since its release in 1997, the game has sold over 4 million copies, making it the best-selling game in the series and the ninth best-selling game on the system. The game received critical acclaim for its precise controls, voice acting, multiplayer modes, and replayability through the use of branching gameplay paths. Like the SNES "Star Fox" game before it, "Star Fox 64" has been deemed one of the greatest video games of all time. A stereoscopic 3D remake for the Nintendo 3DS, "Star Fox 64 3D", was released in 2011, and a reimagining for the Wii U, "Star Fox Zero", was released in 2016.
Gameplay.
"Star Fox 64" is a 3D rail shooter game in which the player controls one of the vehicles piloted by Fox McCloud, usually an Arwing. Most of the game takes place in "Corridor Mode", which forces Fox's vehicle down an on-rails path straight forward through the environment. In Corridor Mode, the player's vehicle can be maneuvered around the screen to dodge obstacles and can also perform a somersault to get behind enemies or dodge projectiles. The Arwing is also capable of deflecting enemy fire while performing a spinning maneuver called a "barrel roll" (actually an aileron roll in real-life aviation terms). The Arwing and Landmaster can charge up their laser cannons to unleash a powerful lock-on laser.
In addition to Corridor Mode, some stages of the game, including multiplayer and most boss fights, take place in "All-Range Mode". In this variant, the player can move freely in a three-dimensional space within the confines of a large arena. The Arwing can also perform one new maneuver in All-Range Mode: a U-Turn to change direction.
Throughout the game, the player can fly or drive through power-ups to collect them. These include silver and gold rings that refill the vehicle's shields, upgrade its lasers, repair its wings, or grant extra lives.
Returning from the original "Star Fox" are wingmen that fly beside the player in Arwings and are sometimes pursued into the player's field of view by enemies. If the player fails to defeat the enemies chasing a wingman, that wingman may be forced to retreat to the mothership "Great Fox" for repairs. The wingman will then be unavailable throughout the next stage. Each wingman provides a different form of assistance to the player: Slippy Toad scans bosses and displays their shields on the player's screen, Peppy Hare provides gameplay advice, and Falco Lombardi occasionally locates alternate routes through stages. Some stages also feature special appearances from supporting characters that assist the team.
The game features a branching level system, in which more difficult paths are unlocked by completing certain objectives. Players can also change paths once the current mission is accomplished. All of the game's possible routes start at Corneria, eventually put the player in contact with the Star Wolf Team, and end at Venom with a confrontation with Andross.
To add replay challenge, the game also features awardable medals, which are earned by accomplishing a mission with all wingmen intact and having achieved a certain hit total. Obtaining medals unlocks bonus features, such as new multiplayer vehicles, cosmetic changes to Fox in single player, and additional game settings such as "Expert Mode".
Vehicles.
The Arwing is the primary craft used by the Star Fox team. The Arwing can use its boost meter to perform four special techniques to avoid collisions and get the drop on pursuers: boost, brake, somersault, and U-Turn.
A tank-like vehicle called the Landmaster is used for two levels in the game, Macbeth and Titania. Like the Arwing, the Landmaster can boost and brake but it cannot somersault. It can perform a barrel roll, but since it lacks an Arwing's force field, the Landmaster's barrel roll does not reflect enemy fire. The Landmaster can also hover a short while.
The Blue-Marine, a submarine, is available solely on the water planet Aquas. The Blue-Marine can upgrade its twin lasers, but it cannot make use of Smart Bombs. It makes up for this with an unlimited supply of torpedoes which not only damage enemies but also produce bright bursts of light, allowing the player to see in the ocean depths. The torpedoes can also lock-on to enemies just as the charged up lasers can in the other vehicles. The submersible also has a shot-deflecting barrel roll in addition to boost and brake capabilities.
Multiplayer.
"Star Fox 64" features multiplayer support for up to four players simultaneously. At first, users can only play using the Arwing spaceship, but by earning certain medals in the main campaign, players can unlock the Landmaster tank and fight on foot as one of the four members of Star Fox equipped with a bazooka. Multiplayer is the only place where players can use a Landmaster with upgraded lasers.
There are three modes of multiplayer play: a "point match" in which the player must shoot down an opponent a certain number of times, a "battle royal" in which the last player left wins, and a "time trial" to destroy enemy fighters.
Plot.
Characters.
The game's protagonist and playable character is Fox McCloud, a red fox and leader of the Star Fox team, who defends the Lylat system. His father, James, was part of the original Star Fox team, who was killed by Andross before the start of the game. Andross, a scientist from Corneria who was exiled to Venom after he nearly destroyed the planet, is the main antagonist of the game.
The Star Fox team is a group of mercenaries consisting of: Peppy Hare, a rabbit and member of the original Star Fox team, Slippy Toad, a frog and the mechanical and energetic expert of the team, and Falco Lombardi, a falcon who is cocky but an excellent fighter. Helping the Star Fox team on their mission to defeat Andross are General Pepper, a bloodhound and leader of a militia force in Corneria; Bill Grey, a bulldog friend of Fox and commander of the Bulldog and Husky units; Katt Monroe, a friend and former fellow gang member of Falco; and ROB 64 (NUS64 in the Japanese version), a robot piloting the "Great Fox", Star Fox's mothership, who gives them support along their quest. Andross's henchmen include the Star Wolf mercenary team, consisting of Wolf O'Donnell, the leader of Star Wolf, Leon Powalski, a sinister chameleon, Andrew Oikonny, Andross's nephew, and Pigma Dengar, a former member of the Star Fox team with James McCloud.
Story.
On Corneria, the fourth planet of the Lylat System, Andross is driven to madness and nearly destroys the planet using biological weapons. General Pepper exiles Andross to the remote planet Venom. Five years later, Pepper detects suspicious activity on Venom. Pepper hires the Star Fox team (including James McCloud, Peppy Hare, and Pigma Dengar) to investigate. After Pigma betrays the team and Andross captures James, Peppy escapes from Venom and informs his son Fox about James's fate.
Five years later, Andross launches an attack across the Lylat system. Defending Corneria, Pepper summons the new Star Fox team, now consisting of Fox, Peppy, Falco, and Slippy. While traveling through several planets, the team battles with several of Andross' henchmen, including the rival mercenaries, Star Wolf. After the team arrives at Venom, Fox confronts and defeats Andross alone. Reunited with the Star Fox team, Fox returns to Corneria for a victory celebration. Pepper offers Fox the opportunity to join the Cornerian Army, but he declines it on his behalf for the team. The "Great Fox" and the Star Fox team fly off in their Arwings into the skies. Two endings are available depending on whether Fox approaches Venom and defeats Andross. The Easy route ending occurs when Fox arrives from Bolse and destroys a robotic version of Andross, leaving Andross drifting in the Lylat System. In the Hard route ending from Area 6, Fox reveals Andross' true form as that of a floating brain, and kills him. However, James appears and leads Fox out from Venom.
In a post-credits scene, Pepper receives a bill from Star Fox presenting the number of enemies killed and multiplies it by 64, resulting in the amount of money due. If the price is between $50,000 and $69,999 (between 781 and 1,093 enemies killed) he will say, "This is one steep bill...but it's worth it." If the price is over $70,000 (1,094 or more), he says "What?!" At this point, the bill is stamped.
Development.
Following the release of "Star Fox" in 1993, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto began working on a sequel entitled "Star Fox 2" that would have been released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). By 1995, Miyamoto and team had largely finished development of "Star Fox 2" before realizing that its release would require the use of an additional "chip—the Super FX 2 with double memory", which would increase the cost of the game. Furthermore, newly launched rival consoles, such as the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation, possessed processing power and graphics capabilities that dwarfed those of the SNES, making the planned graphics for "Star Fox 2" appear obsolete. Recognizing that the Nintendo 64 would launch the following year with significantly increased processing power and graphical capabilities, Miyamoto made the decision to cancel "Star Fox 2" in favor of developing a new "Star Fox" game for the Nintendo 64.
Following the cancellation of "Star Fox 2", Miyamoto and team began work on "Star Fox 64". The team cribbed heavily from the work that had been done in creating "Star Fox" and "Star Fox 2", stating in an interview that roughly 30% of "Star Fox 64"s gameplay came from the original game, roughly 60% came from the canceled sequel, and only 10% was original work done during the development of "Star Fox 64". In particular, Miyamoto said: "All-Range Mode, Multi-Player Mode and the Star Wolf scenario all came from "Star Fox 2"." One new piece of gameplay was the addition of levels that used the Landmaster tank and the Blue-Marine submarine, which were conceived of by members of the development team (rather than Miyamoto himself) in response to Miyamoto's suggestion that the game include a "human-type craft", which the team generally did not approve of. The team originally intended for the game to contain multiple underwater levels but ultimately trimmed all but one as they found that the underwater levels slowed down the pacing of the game.
With the underlying gameplay largely complete early in development, Miyamoto and team focused the majority of their efforts on graphics, audio and dialogue, and enemy AI, seeking to harness the new processing power provided by the Nintendo 64. For example, when developing the animation sequences for "Star Fox 64", the team worked to make the characters' mouths pop open and closed along with their audio. This reduced the amount of animation work put into the series and was inspired by the way puppets appear to talk, as Miyamoto was a fan of the British puppet-based show "Thunderbirds". The development team also realized that adding dynamic audio would enhance the 3D gameplay experience as the player's allies could audibly signal when the player was being pursued by an out-of-camera enemy unit. In writing dialogue for the game's characters, the developers sought to invoke more traditional historical dramas, adding more conventional lines such as "I've been waiting for you, Star Fox" and "You're becoming more like your father." Edgier dialogue such as "I guess it's your turn to be thankful." was written for the character Falco Lombardi, while more supportive dialogue such as "Never give up. Trust your instincts!" came from the character Peppy Hare.
"Star Fox 64" was also the first title to make use of the Rumble Pak peripheral developed by Nintendo and the Rumble Pak came bundled with the game in some instances. Miyamoto stated that the development team struggled to utilize the Rumble Pak in a way that player's understood, noting that, during development, players were often confused as to why their control was rumbling.
Release.
The game was first shown publicly at E3 1996 where Nintendo released a video of an early version of the game. This early version of the game showcased only the first level (Corneria) and featured a minimalistic HUD, showing only a crude meter reflecting the player's shield gauge. Nintendo released further beta footage of the game on December 6, 1996, that showed subsequent levels, an improved HUD, and a short multiplayer segment.
As the game approached launch, Nintendo became concerned that the title "Star Fox" could be considered too similar to the name of the German company "StarVox". Thus, like its predecessor, the game was rebranded as "Lylat Wars" in certain PAL territories. "Nintendo Power" subscribers received a promotional video prior to "Star Fox 64"s release (the same tactic was used to promote "Donkey Kong Country" for the SNES as well as "Diddy Kong Racing", "Banjo-Kazooie", and "Hey You, Pikachu!" for the Nintendo 64) that advertised the game's cinematic presentation, as well as new features like the Rumble Pak and voice acting. It revolves around two agents of Sega and Sony (who at the time were Nintendo's biggest hardware competitors) interrogating a Nintendo employee into revealing information about the game.
Years after release, a substantial number of unused assets were found on the cartridge including unused icons, audio files, levels, and power-ups. In an interview post-release, Miyamoto said that while he was not 100% satisfied with the final version of "Star Fox 64", he felt that the game made better use of the Nintendo 64's increased processing power than "Super Mario 64", which was a launch title for the console and which Miyamoto had also developed.
Reception.
"Star Fox 64" received critical acclaim and was one of the top-selling games of 1997, second to "Mario Kart 64". Reviews hailed the level branching system, particularly its use of player performance and secret in-level triggers rather than simple path selection. Many reviewers also praised the multiplayer modes as an ample source of replay value, with "Next Generation" in particular stating they "give "StarFox 64" a boost over other shooters." However, Crispin Boyer of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" considered them a waste, contending that the split screen display made targets too small to pinpoint. The game's voice clips were widely complimented, not for the quality of the acting, but for the unprecedented quantity of audio clips for a cartridge-based game. Critics also applauded the precise analog control, boss designs, rumble pak implementation, and cinematic cutscenes. "GamePro", which gave the game a perfect 5 out of 5 in all four categories, elaborated, "The analog joystick seriously kicks it here with its best performance to date, demonstrating impressively crisp response that enables you to pull the tight, white-knuckle moves you need to survive. The Rumble Pak teams up with the solid controls and scores as an all-time great add-on."
The most common criticism was that "Star Fox 64" was not as much of a leap over the original "Star Fox", particularly compared to "Super Mario 64"s improvement over previous "Mario" games. This perceived shortcoming did little to dull critics' response to the game, however. "GameSpot" reviewer Glenn Rubenstein declared "Star Fox 64" "an instant classic" and "a pleasure to look at". "EGM" gave it their "Game of the Month" award, with Dan Hsu calling it "a shooting fan's dream come true" and Shawn Smith "almost as good as Mario 64." IGN reviewer Doug Perry said it "demonstrates that shooters are more alive now than ever."
In the first five days of the game's U.S. launch, more than 300,000 copies were sold, surpassing the record previously held by "Mario Kart 64" and "Super Mario 64". It sold above 1 million units in the United States by the end of 1997, one of five Nintendo 64 games to do so. Sales were considerably less in Japan, where it sold 75,595 copies during the first week of sale. The game also took the #73 spot in "Nintendo Power's" "Top 200 Nintendo Games Ever".
The "GameSpot" review of the Wii Virtual Console version bestows a (7.6/10), praising its simple, enjoyable shooting gameplay, and much voice acting. The review says the game is nice to look at regardless of its graphic age, with added replay value in finding hidden paths, but found the lack of rumble support "alarming", especially since it is the first game to support the Rumble Pak.
"Star Fox 64" is listed as the 45th greatest game of all time by Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition in 2009. In 1997 "Electronic Gaming Monthly" ranked it the 39th best console video game of all time, citing its amazing visuals, huge amount of voice acting, and the deep challenge of earning medals on all stages and completing expert mode.
Remake.
At E3 2010, Nintendo announced a remake of "Star Fox 64" for the Nintendo 3DS, titled "Star Fox 64 3D". Nintendo exhibited a demo the same day that emphasized the technology of the Nintendo 3DS. The remake was co-developed by Q-Games and features stereoscopic 3D graphics, quality-of-life improvements, gyroscope controls, and brand new voice recordings. The game was released on July 14, 2011 in Japan and September 9, 2011 in Europe and North America. This marked the first time that "Star Fox 64" had been released in PAL territories under the original "Star Fox" name. While the remake supports multiplayer for up to four players via download play, the game does not have an online multiplayer mode.


Women of the Prehistoric Planet

Women of the Prehistoric Planet is a 1966 American science fiction/action film directed by Arthur C. Pierce and starring John Agar.
Plot.
A spacefaring crew from an advanced civilization is preparing to return home after an extended voyage. The crew includes "humans" (represented in the film by Caucasian actors and actresses) and "Centaurians" (represented in the film by Asian actors and actresses). The Centaurians have been rescued from their home planet after a catastrophic event, not explained in the movie, has devastated their planet. They are being brought back with the spacefaring explorers with an expectation that they will be assimilated into their new parent culture. One of the ships in the fleet is hijacked by a few of its Centaurian passengers and crash-lands on a prehistoric planet in the "Solaris" system. Countermanding orders, the rest of the fleet returns to search for survivors after the crash. In the film's "twist," by the time that the rescuers (traveling at fast sublight speeds) are able to return to the planet, they are encountering the descendants of the original crash survivors - explained in a simplified version of time dilation. Linda, a Centaurian from the rescue ship, falls in love with Tang after he saves her from drowning. After fighting with the planet's indigenous species (including giant iguanas meant to represent dinosaurs), Tang and Linda are marooned on the prehistoric planet - and the latter is revealed to be the captain's own daughter. In the film's coda, this savage and primitive planet is revealed to be Earth.
Themes.
Race relations are the film's overarching theme, although its approach to the subject has been typically criticized in retrospect.
 "... a blatant social commentary on race relations (from a mid-60s point of view). Even though the screenplay tries to preach fairness, some of the subtle signals send contradictory messages. The crew members of the Cosmos are portrayed as superior. The Centaurians as inferior. The crew are clearly all-white. They dress in tidy white uniforms with snappy cravats. They are in control, follow orders, and are concerned for others. The Centaurians are "rustic," (and all played by asians) Their outfits are sleeveless. Their men are hotheads and trouble makers. (their women are nice, though). Even the "progressive" notion of Tang being the mixed-race son of a "white" and a Centaurian, is undermined by his apparent comfort at being a cave man. Subtle signal: "They" are savages at heart.
 "The real subject matter of the film is race relations, with the "Centaurians" all being played by Asian actors and the "Humans" all played by whites and the message is that different races can and should get along. This is a noble sentiment of course, but the movie around it is both incredibly clunky, unintentionally condescending and has an incredibly lazy twist at the end."
Reviews.
Leonard Maltin gave the film one and a half stars. The film has an 18% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes web site. Other reviewers have assessed the film as a "bomb" and described it as "Typical bad sci-fi ... with horrid special effects."
Home media.
The "MST3K" version of the film (episode #104), accompanied by a short introduction by actress Irene Tsu (Linda), was released by Rhino Home Video as part of the 'Collection, Volume 9' box set (now out of print). Englewood Entertainment released a videotape version, and later DVD version, of the original, uninterrupted movie.
Poster.
"Women of the Prehistoric Planet"'s provocative film poster features the tagline "It's a battle of the sexes as savage planet women attack female space invaders" and depicts a blonde and a brunette in a catfight. However, there are no "planet women" in the movie, as the only female Centurian (Irene Tsu) does not originate from the prehistoric planet. Nor does the film contain any scenes of women fighting each other.


Raja Ko Rani Se Pyar Ho Gaya

Raja Ko Rani Se Pyar Ho Gaya (English: "The king has fallen in love with the queen") is a 2000 Indian Hindi film directed by T. K. Rajeev Kumar, starring Arvind Swamy and Manisha Koirala. This is the second Hindi film after Saat Rang Ke Sapne that Arvind Swamy has ever acted in.
Production.
Producer Mohan encouraged Rajeev to do this film in Hindi as this plot would have a wider market and Rajeev felt this won't work out in Malayalam because of the fantasy element in the script. Jennifer Winget made her acting debut as a child artist with this film.
Controversy.
The film became controversial for the scene where Manisha plays with the elephant's tail.
Music.
Given by Jatin Lalit, with lyrics by Javed Akhtar, audio on T-Series.


Ode to a Nightingale

"Ode to a Nightingale" is a poem by John Keats written either in the garden of the Spaniards Inn, Hampstead, London or, according to Keats' friend Charles Armitage Brown, under a plum tree in the garden of Keats' house at Wentworth Place, also in Hampstead. According to Brown, a nightingale had built its nest near the house that he shared with Keats in the spring of 1819. Inspired by the bird's song, Keats composed the poem in one day. It soon became one of his 1819 odes and was first published in "Annals of the Fine Arts" the following July. The poem is one of the most frequently anthologized in the English language.
"Ode to a Nightingale" is a personal poem which describes Keats's journey into the state of negative capability. The tone of the poem rejects the optimistic pursuit of pleasure found within Keats's earlier poems and, instead, explores the themes of nature, transience and mortality, the latter being particularly relevant to Keats.
The nightingale described experiences a type of death but does not actually die. Instead, the songbird is capable of living through its song, which is a fate that humans cannot expect. The poem ends with an acceptance that pleasure cannot last and that death is an inevitable part of life. In the poem, Keats imagines the loss of the physical world and sees himself dead—as a "sod" over which the nightingale sings. The contrast between the immortal nightingale and mortal man sitting in his garden, is made all the more acute by an effort of the imagination. The presence of weather is noticeable in the poem, as spring came early in 1819, bringing nightingales all over the heath.
Background.
Of Keats's six major odes of 1819, "Ode to Psyche", was probably written first and "To Autumn" written last. Sometime between these two, he wrote "Ode to a Nightingale". It is possible that "Ode to a Nightingale" was written between 26 April and 18 May 1819, based on weather conditions and similarities between images in the poem and those in a letter sent to Fanny Brawne on May Day. The poem was composed at the Hampstead house Keats shared with Brown, possibly while sitting beneath a plum tree in the garden. According to Keats' friend Brown, Keats finished the ode in just one morning: "In the spring of 1819 a nightingale had built her nest near my house. Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast-table to the grass-plot under a plum-tree, where he sat for two or three hours. When he came into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, I found those scraps, four or five in number, contained his poetic feelings on the song of the nightingale." Brown's account is personal, as he claimed the poem was directly influenced by his house and preserved by his own doing. However, Keats relied on both his own imagination and other literature as sources for his depiction of the nightingale.
The exact date of "Ode to a Nightingale", as well as those of "Ode on Indolence", "Ode on Melancholy", and "Ode on a Grecian Urn", is unknown, as Keats dated all as 'May 1819'. However, he worked on the four poems together, and there is a unity in both their stanza forms and their themes. The exact order the poems in which the poems were written is also unknown, but they form a sequence within their structures. While Keats was writing "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and the other poems, Brown transcribed copies of the poems and submitted them to Richard Woodhouse. During this time, Benjamin Haydon, Keats' friend, was given a copy of "Ode to a Nightingale", and he shared the poem with the editor of the "Annals of the Fine Arts", James Elmes. Elmes paid Keats a small sum of money, and the poem was published in the July issue. The poem was later included in Keats' 1820 collection of poems, "Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and Other Poems".
Structure.
"Ode to a Nightingale" was probably the first of the middle set of four odes that Keats wrote following "Ode to Psyche", according to Brown. This is further evidenced by the poems' structures. Keats experimentally combines two different types of lyrical poetry: the odal hymn and the lyric of questioning voice that responds to the odal hymn. This combination of structures is similar to that in "Ode on a Grecian Urn". In both poems, the dual form creates a dramatic element within the text. The stanza form of the poem is a combination of elements from Petrarchan sonnets and Shakespearean sonnets.
Keats incorporates a pattern of alternating historically "short" and "long" vowel sounds in his ode. In particular, line 18 ("And purple-stained mouth") has the historical pattern of "short" followed by "long" followed by "short" and followed by "long". This alternation is continued in longer lines, including line 31 ("Away! away! for I will fly to thee") which contains five pairs of alternations. However, other lines, such as line 3 ("Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains") rely on a pattern of five "short" vowels followed by "long" and "short" vowel pairings until they end with a "long" vowel. These are not the only combination patterns present, and there are patterns of two "short" vowels followed by a "long" vowel in other lines, including 12, 22, and 59, which are repeated twice and then followed up with two sets of "short" and then "long" vowel pairs. This reliance on vowel sounds is not unique to this ode, but is common to Keats's other 1819 odes and his "Eve of St. Agnes".
The poem incorporates a complex reliance on assonance—the repetition of vowel sounds—in a conscious pattern, as found in many of his poems. Such a reliance on assonance is found in very few English poems. Within "Ode to a Nightingale", an example of this pattern can be found in line 35 ("Already with thee! tender is the night"), where the "ea" of "Already" connects with the "e" of "tender" and the "i" of "with" connects with the "i" of "is". This same pattern is found again in line 41 ("I cannot see what flowers are at my feet") with the "a" of "cannot" linking with the "a" of "at" and the "ee" of "see" linking with the "ee" of "feet". This system of assonance can be found in approximately a tenth of the lines of Keats's later poetry.
When it comes to other sound patterns, Keats relies on double or triple caesuras in approximately 6% of lines throughout the 1819 odes. An example from "Ode to a Nightingale" can be found within line 45 ("The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild") as the pauses after the commas are a "masculine" pause. Furthermore, Keats began to reduce the amount of Latin-based words and syntax that he relied on in his poetry, which in turn shortened the length of the words that dominate the poem. There is also an emphasis on words beginning with consonants, especially those that begin with "b", "p" or "v". The first stanza relies heavily on these three consonants, and they are used as a syzygy to add a musical tone within the poem.
Compared to his earlier verse, spondees are relatively abundant in his 1819 odes and other late poems. In "Ode to a Nightingale" they are used in just over 8% of his lines (compared to a mere 2.6% in "Endymion"). Examples include:
 Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth (line 12)
 × / × / × / / / / /
 Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last, grey hairs (line 25)
To Walter Jackson Bate, the use of spondees in lines 31–34 creates a feeling of slow flight, and "in the final stanza . . . the distinctive use of scattered spondees, together with initial inversion, lend[s] an approximate phonetic suggestion of the peculiar spring and bounce of the bird in its flight."
Poem.
The first and sixth stanzas exemplify the juxtaposition of rapture and morbidity in the poem:
Themes.
"Ode to a Nightingale" describes a series of conflicts between reality and the Romantic ideal of uniting with nature. In the words of Richard Fogle, "The principal stress of the poem is a struggle between ideal and actual: inclusive terms which, however, contain more particular antitheses of pleasure and pain, of imagination and common sense reason, of fullness and privation, of permanence and change, of nature and the human, of art and life, freedom and bondage, waking and dream." Of course, the nightingale's song is the dominant image and dominant "voice" within the ode. The nightingale is also the object of empathy and praise within the poem. However, the nightingale and the discussion of the nightingale is not simply about the bird or the song, but about human experience in general. This is not to say that the song is a simple metaphor, but it is a complex image that is formed through the interaction of the conflicting voices of praise and questioning. On this theme, David Perkins summarizes the way "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn" perform this when he says, "we are dealing with a talent, indeed an entire approach to poetry, in which symbol, however necessary, may possibly not satisfy as the principal concern of poetry, any more than it could with Shakespeare, but is rather an element in the poetry and drama of human reactions". However, there is a difference between an urn and a nightingale in that the nightingale is not an eternal entity. Furthermore, in creating any aspect of the nightingale immortal during the poem the narrator separates any union that he can have with the nightingale.
The nightingale's song within the poem is connected to the art of music in a way that the urn in "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is connected to the art of sculpture. As such, the nightingale would represent an enchanting presence and, unlike the urn, is directly connected to nature. As natural music, the song is for beauty and lacks a message of truth. Keats follows Coleridge's belief, as found in "The Nightingale", in separating from the world by losing himself in the bird's song. Although Keats favours a female nightingale over Coleridge's masculine bird, both reject the traditional depiction of the nightingale as related to the tragedy of Philomela. Their songbird is a happy nightingale that lacks the melancholic feel of previous poetic depictions. The bird is only a voice within the poem, but it is a voice that compels the narrator to join with in and forget the sorrows of the world. However, there is tension in that the narrator holds Keats's guilt regarding the death of Tom Keats, his brother. The song's conclusion represents the result of trying to escape into the realm of fancy.
Like Percy Bysshe Shelley's "To a Skylark", Keats's narrator listens to a bird song, but listening to the song within "Ode to a Nightingale" is almost painful and similar to death. The narrator seeks to be with the nightingale and abandons his sense of vision in order to embrace the sound in an attempt to share in the darkness with the bird. As the poem ends, the trance caused by the nightingale is broken and the narrator is left wondering if it was a real vision or just a dream. The poem's reliance on the process of sleeping is common to Keats's poems, and "Ode to a Nightingale" shares many of the same themes as Keats' "Sleep and Poetry" and "Eve of St. Agnes". This further separates the image of the nightingale's song from its closest comparative image, the urn as represented in "Ode on a Grecian Urn". The nightingale is distant and mysterious, and even disappears at the end of the poem. The dream image emphasizes the shadowiness and elusiveness of the poem. These elements make it impossible for there to be a complete self-identification with the nightingale, but it also allows for self-awareness to permeate throughout the poem, albeit in an altered state.
Midway through the poem, there is a split between the two actions of the poem: the first attempts to identify with the nightingale and its song, and the second discusses the convergence of the past with the future while experiencing the present. This second theme is reminiscent of Keats's view of human progression through the Mansion of Many Apartments and how man develops from experiencing and wanting only pleasure to understanding truth as a mixture of both pleasure and pain. The Elysian fields and the nightingale's song in the first half of the poem represent the pleasurable moments that overwhelm the individual like a drug. However, the experience does not last forever, and the body is left desiring it until the narrator feels helpless without the pleasure. Instead of embracing the coming truth, the narrator clings to poetry to hide from the loss of pleasure. Poetry does not bring about the pleasure that the narrator original asks for, but it does liberate him from his desire for only pleasure.
Responding to this emphasis on pleasure, Albert Guerard, Jr. argues that the poem contains a "longing not for art but a free reverie of any kind. The form of the poem is that of progression by association, so that the movement of feeling is at the mercy of words evoked by chance, such words as "fade" and "forlorn", the very words that, like a bell, toll the dreamer back to his sole self." However, Fogle points out that the terms Guerard emphasizes are "associational translations" and that Guerard misunderstands Keats's aesthetic. After all, the acceptance of the loss of pleasure by the end of the poem is an acceptance of life and, in turn, of death. Death was a constant theme that permeated aspects of Keats poetry because he was exposed to death of his family members throughout his life. Within the poem, there are many images of death. The nightingale experiences a sort of death and even the god Apollo experiences death, but his death reveals his own divine state. As Perkins explains, "But, of course, the nightingale is not thought to be literally dying. The point is that the deity or the nightingale can sing without dying. But, as the ode makes clear, man cannot—or at least not in a visionary way."
With this theme of a loss of pleasure and inevitable death, the poem, according to Claude Finney, describes "the inadequacy of the romantic escape from the world of reality to the world of ideal beauty". Earl Wasserman essentially agrees with Finney, but he extended his summation of the poem to incorporate the themes of Keats's Mansion of Many Apartments when he says, "the core of the poem is the search for the mystery, the unsuccessful quest for light within its darkness" and this "leads only to an increasing darkness, or a growing recognition of how impenetrable the mystery is to mortals." With these views in mind, the poem recalls Keats's earlier view of pleasure and an optimistic view of poetry found within his earlier poems, especially "Sleep and Poetry", and rejects them. This loss of pleasure and incorporation of death imagery lends the poem a dark air, which connects "Ode to a Nightingale" with Keats' other poems that discuss the demonic nature of poetic imagination, including "Lamia". In the poem, Keats imagines the loss of the physical world and sees himself dead—he uses an abrupt, almost brutal word for it—as a "sod" over which the nightingale sings. The contrast between the immortal nightingale and mortal man, sitting in his garden, is made all the more acute by an effort of the imagination.
Reception.
Contemporary critics of Keats enjoyed the poem, and it was heavily quoted in their reviews. An anonymous review of Keats's poetry that ran in the August and October 1820 "Scots Magazine" stated: "Amongst the minor poems we prefer the 'Ode to the Nightingale'. Indeed, we are inclined to prefer it beyond every other poem in the book; but let the reader judge. The third and seventh stanzas have a charm for us which we should find it difficult to explain. We have read this ode over and over again, and every time with increased delight." At the same time, Leigh Hunt wrote a review of Keats's poem for the 2 August and 9 August 1820 "The Indicator": "As a specimen of the Poems, which are all lyrical, we must indulge ourselves in quoting entire the 'Ode to a Nightingale'. There is that mixture in it of real melancholy and imaginative relief, which poetry alone presents us in her 'charmed cup,' and which some over-rational critics have undertaken to find wrong because it is not true. It does not follow that what is not true to them, is not true to others. If the relief is real, the mixture is good and sufficing."
John Scott, in an anonymous review for the September 1820 edition of "The London Magazine", argued for the greatness of Keats's poetry as exemplified by poems including "Ode to a Nightingale":
The injustice which has been done to our author's works, in estimating their poetical merit, rendered us doubly anxious, on opening his last volume, to find it likely to seize fast hold of general sympathy, and thus turn an overwhelming power against the paltry traducers of talent, more eminently promising in many respects, than any the present age has been called upon to encourage. We have not found it to be quite all that we wished in this respect—and it would have been very extraordinary if we had, for our wishes went far beyond reasonable expectations. But we have found it of a nature to present to common understandings the poetical power with which the author's mind is gifted, in a more tangible and intelligible shape than that in which it has appeared in any of his former compositions. It is, therefore, calculated to throw shame on the lying, vulgar spirit, in which this young worshipper in the temple of the Muses has been cried-down; whatever questions may still leave to be settled as to the kind and degree of his poetical merits. Take for instance, as proof of the justice of our praise, the following passage from an Ode to the Nightingale:--it is distinct, noble, pathetic, and true: the thoughts have all chords of direct communication with naturally-constituted hearts: the echoes of the strain linger bout the depths of human bosoms.
In a review for the 21 January 1835 "London Journal", Hunt claimed that while Keats wrote the poem, "The poet had then his mortal illness upon him, and knew it. Never was the voice of death sweeter." David Moir, in 1851, used "The Eve of St Agnes" to claim, "We have here a specimen of descriptive power luxuriously rich and original; but the following lines, from the 'Ode to a Nightingale,' flow from a far more profound fountain of inspiration."
At the end of the 19th century, Robert Bridges's analysis of the poem became a dominant view and would influence later interpretations of the poem. Bridges, in 1895, declared that the poem was the best of Keats's odes but he thought that the poem contained too much artificial language. In particular, he emphasised the use of the word "forlorn" and the last stanza as being examples of Keats's artificial language. In "Two odes of Keats's" (1897), William C Wilkinson suggested that "Ode to a Nightingale" is deeply flawed because it contains too many "incoherent musings" that failed to supply a standard of logic that would allow the reader to understand the relationship between the poet and the bird. However, Herbert Grierson, arguing in 1928, believed "Nightingale" to be superior to "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode on Melancholy", and "Ode to Psyche", arguing the exact opposite of Wilkinson as he stated that "Nightingale", along with "To Autumn", showed a greater amount of logical thought and more aptly presented the cases they were intended to make.
20th-century criticism.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Rudyard Kipling referred to lines 69 and 70, alongside three lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan", when he claimed of poetry: "In all the millions permitted there are no more than five—five little lines—of which one can say, 'These are the magic. These are the vision. The rest is only Poetry.'" In 1906, Alexander Mackie argued: "The nightingale and the lark for long monopolised poetic idolatry—a privilege they enjoyed solely on account of their pre-eminence as song birds. Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale" and Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark" are two of the glories of English literature; but both were written by men who had no claim to special or exact knowledge of ornithology as such." Sidney Colvin, in 1920, argued, "Throughout this ode Keats's genius is at its height. Imagination cannot be more rich and satisfying, felicity of phrase and cadence cannot be more absolute, than in the several contrasted stanzas calling for the draft of southern vintage […] To praise the art of a passage like that in the fourth stanza […] to praise or comment on a stroke of art like this is to throw doubt on the reader's power to perceive it for himself."
Bridges' view of "Ode to a Nightingale" was taken up by H. W. Garrod in his 1926 analysis of Keats's poems. As Albert Gerard would argue later in 1944, Garrod believed that the problem within Keats's poem was his emphasis on the rhythm and the language instead of the main ideas of the poem. When describing the fourth stanza of the poem, Maurice Ridley, in 1933, claimed, "And so comes the stanza, with that remarkable piece of imagination at the end which feels the light as blown by the breezes, one of those characteristic sudden flashes with which Keats fires the most ordinary material." He later declared of the seventh stanza: "And now for the great stanza in which the imagination is fanned to yet whiter heat, the stanza that would, I suppose, by common consent be taken, along with "Kubla Khan", as offering us the distilled sorceries of 'Romanticism'". He concluded on the stanza that "I do not believe that any reader who has watched Keats at work on the more exquisitely finished of the stanzas in "The Eve of St. Agnes", and seen this craftsman slowly elaborating and refining, will ever believe that this perfect stanza was achieved with the easy fluency with which, in the draft we have, it was obviously written down." In 1936, F. R. Leavis wrote, "One remembers the poem both as recording, and as being for the reader, an indulgence." Following Leavis, Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, in a 1938 essay, saw the poem as "a very rich poem. It contains some complications which we must not gloss over if we are to appreciate the depth and significance of the issues engaged." Brooks would later argue in "The Well-Wrought Urn" (1947) that the poem was thematically unified while contradicting many of the negative criticisms lodged against the poem.
Richard Fogle responded to the critical attack on Keats's emphasis on rhyme and language put forth by Garrod, Gerard, and others in 1953. His argument was similar to Brooks: that the poem was thematically coherent and that there is a poet within the poem that is different from Keats the writer of the poem. As such, Keats consciously chose the shift in the themes of the poem and the contrasts within the poem represent the pain felt when comparing the real world to an ideal world found within the imagination. Fogle also responded directly to the claims made by Leavis: "I find Mr. Leavis too austere, but he points out a quality which Keats plainly sought for. His profusion and prodigality is, however, modified by a principle of sobriety." It is possible that Fogle's statements were a defense of Romanticism as a group that was both respectable in terms of thought and poetic ability. Wasserman, following in 1953, claimed that "Of all Keats' poems, it is probably the 'Ode to a Nightingale' that has most tormented the critic [...] in any reading of the 'Ode to a Nightingale' the turmoil will not down. Forces contend wildly within the poem, not only without resolution, but without possibility of resolution; and the reader comes away from his experience with the sense that he has been in 'a wild Abyss'". He then explained, "It is this turbulence, I suspect, that has led Allen Tate to believe the ode 'at least tries to say everything that poetry can say.' But I propose it is the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' that succeeds in saying what poetry can say, and that the other ode attempts to say all that the "poet" can."
Later critical responses.
Although the poem was defended by a few critics, E. C. Pettet returned to the argument that the poem lacked a structure and emphasized the word "forlorn" as evidence of his view. In his 1957 work, Pettet did praise the poem as he declared, "The "Ode to a Nightingale" has a special interest in that most of us would probably regard it as the most richly representative of all Keats's poems. Two reasons for this quality are immediately apparent: there is its matchless evocation of that late spring and early summer season […] and there is its exceptional degree of 'distillation', of concentrated recollection". David Perkins felt the need to defend the use of the word "forlorn" and claimed that it described the feeling from the impossibility of not being able to live in the world of the imagination. When praising the poem in 1959, Perkins claimed, "Although the "Ode to a Nightingale" ranges more widely than the "Ode on a Grecian Urn," the poem can also be regarded as the exploration or testing out of a symbol, and, compared with the urn as a symbol, the nightingale would seem to have both limitations and advantages." Walter Jackson Bate also made a similar defense of the word "forlorn" by claiming that the world described by describing the impossibility of reaching that land. When describing the poem compared to the rest of English poetry, Bate argued in 1963, "Ode to a Nightingale" is among "the greatest lyrics in English" and the only one written with such speed: "We are free to doubt whether any poem in English of comparable length and quality has been composed so quickly." In 1968, Robert Gittins stated, "It may not be wrong to regard ["Ode on Indolence" and "Ode on Melancholy"] as Keats's earlier essays in this [ode] form, and the great "Nightingale" and "Grecian Urn" as his more finished and later works."
From the late 1960s onward, many of the Yale School of critics describe the poem as a reworking of John Milton's poetic diction, but, they argued, that poem revealed that Keats lacked the ability of Milton as a poet. The critics, Harold Bloom (1965), Leslie Brisman (1973), Paul Fry (1980), John Hollander (1981) and Cynthia Chase (1985), all focused on the poem with Milton as a progenitor to "Ode to a Nightingale" while ignoring other possibilities, including Shakespeare who was emphasised as being the source of many of Keats's phrases. Responding to the claims about Milton and Keats's shortcomings, critics like R. S. White (1981) and Willard Spiegelman (1983) used the Shakespearean echoes to argue for a multiplicity of sources for the poem to claim that Keats was not trying to respond just to Milton or escape from his shadow. Instead, "Ode to a Nightingale" was an original poem, as White claimed, "The poem is richly saturated in Shakespeare, yet the assimilations are so profound that the Ode is finally original, and wholly Keatsian". Similarly, Spiegelman claimed that Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" had "flavored and ripened the later poem". This was followed in 1986 by Jonathan Bate claiming that Keats was "left enriched by the voice of Shakespeare, the 'immortal bird'".
Focusing on the quality of the poem, Stuart Sperry, argued in 1973, "'Ode to a Nightingale' is the supreme expression in all Keats's poetry of the impulse to imaginative escape that flies in the face of the knowledge of human limitation, the impulse fully expressed in 'Away! away! for I "will" fly to thee.'" Wolf Hirst, in 1981, described the poem as "justly celebrated" and claimed that "Since this movement into an eternal realm of song is one of the most magnificent in literature, the poet's return to actuality is all the more shattering." Helen Vendler continued the earlier view that the poem was artificial but added that the poem was an attempt to be aesthetic and spontaneous that was later dropped. In 1983, she argued, "In its absence of conclusiveness and its abandonment to reverie, the poem appeals to readers who prize it as the most personal, the most apparently spontaneous, the most immediately beautiful, and the most confessional of Keats's odes. I believe that the 'events' of the ode, as it unfolds in time, have more logic, however, than is usually granted them, and that they are best seen in relation to Keats's pursuit of the idea of music as a nonrepresentational art."
In a review of contemporary criticism of "Ode to a Nightingale" in 1998, James O'Rouke claimed that "To judge from the volume, the variety, and the polemical force of the modern critical responses engendered, there have been few moments in English poetic history as baffling as Keats's repetition of the word 'forlorn'". When referring to the reliance of the ideas of John Dryden and William Hazlitt within the poem, Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, in 1999, argued "whose notion of poetry as a 'movement' from personal consciousness to an awareness of suffering humanity it perfectly illustrates."
In fiction.
F. Scott Fitzgerald took the title of his novel "Tender is the Night" from the 35th line of the ode.
According to Ildikó de Papp Carrington, Keats' wording, "when, sick for home, / She stood in tears amid the alien corn", seems to be echoed in by Alice Munro's "Save the Reaper" (1998), the end of which reads: "Eve would lie down [...] with nothing in her head but the rustle of the deep tall corn which might have stopped growing now but still made its live noise after dark" (book version).
The Dutch folk band The Black Atlantic took the name of their 2012 EP "Darkling I listen" from the start line 51.
The poem is quoted in Chapter 1 of P. G. Wodehouse's novel "Full Moon" (1947): "'Coming here? Freddie?'.A numbness seemed to be paining his sense, as though of hemlock he had drunk."
Part of the poem is quoted in an episode of "Penny Dreadful", when Lucifer appears to Vanessa Ives to tempt her, and quotes the poem in his conversation.
The poem inspired Tennessee Williams to name his first play "Not About Nightingales".
In music.
"Ode to a Nightingale" is the subject matter for Ben Moore's piece, "Darkling, I listen," a song-cycle written for baritone in 2010, commissioned by Bruce and Suzie Kovner. This song-cycle uses the entirety of the work with the cycles' eight songs based on the eight stanzas of the poem. Nearly all the songs in the cycle have preludes, interludes and postludes, possibly hinting at a Schumann-like effect, where the piano is the main voice and the sung part merely adds decoration.
There is also a very fine setting by Hamilton Harty, set for soprano and orchestra. It was first performed at the Cardiff Festival in 1907, and later magnificently recorded by Heather Harper.


Tyranny Rex


Garfield Gets Real

Garfield Gets Real (also known as Garfield 3D in some regions) is a 2007 American CGI movie starring Garfield. It was produced by Paws, Inc. in cooperation with Davis Entertainment, and The Animation Picture Company and distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. It was written by Garfield's creator Jim Davis, who started working on the script in the autumn of 1996. This was the first fully animated Garfield production since the last "Garfield and Friends" TV episode aired in 1994, and the first to be written by Davis since the 1991 television special "Garfield Gets a Life". The DVD was shipped to stores on June 19, 2007. Gregg Berger, an actor from the original series, reprises his role of Odie, but Garfield was voiced by veteran voice actor Frank Welker, since the original actor Lorenzo Music died in 2001 and Jon is voiced by Wally Wingert, as Thom Huge retired that same year.
Although the film received unfavorable reviews, it performed moderately well at the box office, spawning two sequels: "Garfield's Fun Fest" (2008) and "Garfield's Pet Force" (2009).
Plot.
Garfield lives with canine Odie and Jon in what appears to be a suburban town inhabited by cartoon characters. Garfield and the gang work at Comic studios with other comic characters. The comic strip is made in Comic Strip World and sent to "The Real World" where it is made in newspaper.
Garfield is tired of the old jokes his friends crack and is bored with life in Comic Strip World and longs to go to The Real World. The Comic Strip requires a bone for Odie, but he does not want to give back the bone and looks for a place to hide it. But he accidentally makes the bone go through the screen in the studio and it is sucked into the Real World.
Eli explains to the comic characters that the screen separates Comic Strip World and The Real World with no way back. Garfield sees his chance and goes through the screen without anyone noticing. Later on, the comic characters realize Garfield is in the real world and Eli blocks the patch in the screen that separates the real world by taping special tape on it, so no one can gain access to the real world. However, Odie jumps onto the screen trying to get his bone which is on the screen but actually is in the real world and gets sucked into the real world as well.
Garfield tries to throw Odie back to Comic Strip World, but fails to do so. Odie gets his bone back and he and Garfield go find some dinner. Garfield meets Shecky and as they chat, Odie is chased by a gang of Chihuahuas who want his bone. To save Odie, Garfield grabs the bone and runs through a hole in a tree which is small for the Chihuahua's fat owner to get through.
Shecky gets dinner by annoying the people who live in a building and the people start throwing food at Shecky. After dinner, Shecky brings Garfield and Odie to their new home, an abandoned hotel called Hotel Muncie. The next day, Garfield realizes that his comic will be canceled unless he returns to the comic. Garfield finds an article in the newspaper asking people to try out and replace Garfield. Garfield and Odie head for the place where they are doing try-outs and try to impress the judges, but fail and the judges are more impressed in Hale and Hardy, a muscular cat and equally muscular dog. The judges give Garfield one more chance: If Garfield does not make it back to the paper in 24 hours, Hale and Hardy will replace them. Garfield has an idea of building a big tunnel that can go through the screen and shares the idea with his friends back in Comic Strip World. Later that night, Hale and Hardy tie Garfield, Odie and Shecky up and set the hotel on fire. Billy Bear, Wally and Jon go save the three friends, but the entire hotel is on fire and all the exits are blocked. Luckily, Shecky finds a fire-proof trash cart and Jon, Wally, Odie, Garfield and Shecky jump in and Billy Bear is about to push the cart when Odie realizes his bone is missing and finds it lying on a chandelier. Odie jumps onto the chandelier. Garfield grabs Odie's paw on the second floor and tries to pull him onto the cart, but Odie pulls Garfield onto the chandelier instead. Just then, the chandelier is going to collapse. Garfield grabs Jon's hand and the entire cart is flung into the air, and the chandelier collapses, causing the cart to fall to the ground with the chandelier on it. The cart crashes out of the hotel and the 6 are flung into the big tunnel and the door of the tunnel closes and the tunnel disappears and is transported back to Comic Strip World. The comic characters celebrate the return of Garfield at the end of the film.
Cast.
Cameos.
Similar to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and future films like "Wreck-It Ralph", "The Lego Movie", and "Ready Player One," "Garfield Gets Real" has cameo appearances by other comic strip characters:
Snoopy of "Peanuts" fame is mentioned.
Reception.
Box office.
The film was only released theatrically in Turkey. The film started at second in its opening weekend, grossing $592,974 from 130 theaters, with an average of $4,561 per theater. The film stayed second in its sophomore weekend, falling 34.1% to $390,688, before dropping down to third in its third weekend, decreasing 30.9% to $269,798. The film fell down to fifth in its fourth weekend, decreasing 40.8% to $159,768.
Critical reception.
The film received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics. Brian Costello awarded the film 2 out of 5 stars, criticizing the juvenile humor, but writing, "this movie is best for younger children and fans of the Garfield comic strip".
Video game.
A video game based on the film, "Garfield Gets Real", was released in the United States in July 2009 and received negative reviews.
Sequels.
The success of the film spawned a franchise consisting of two sequels, "Garfield's Fun Fest" and "Garfield's Pet Force".


The Lark Ascending

The Lark Ascending is a poem of 122 lines by the English poet George Meredith about the song of the skylark. Siegfried Sassoon called it matchless of its kind, "a sustained lyric which never for a moment falls short of the effect aimed at, soars up and up with the song it imitates, and unites inspired spontaneity with a demonstration of effortless technical ingenuity... one has only to read the poem a few times to become aware of its perfection".
The poem inspired the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams to write a musical work of the same name, which is now more widely known than the poem.
Poem.
Meredith's poem "The Lark Ascending" (1881) is a hymn or paean to the skylark and his song, written in rhyming tetrameter couplets in two long continuous sections. It first appeared in "The Fortnightly Review" for May 1881, at a time when (as Meredith wrote in March 1881 to Cotter Morison) he was afflicted by "the dreadful curse of Verse". It was then included in his volume "Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth", which first appeared in an unsatisfactory edition in June 1883, and a month later was reprinted by Macmillan at the author's expense in a second issue with corrections. Siegfried Sassoon in his commentary on the 1883 "Poems" ("one of the landmarks of 19th-Century poetry") observed, "to write of such a poem is to be reminded of its incomparable aloofness from the ploddings of the journeyman critic".
It is a pastoral, devotional in feeling. The poem describes how "the press of hurried notes" run repeating, changing, trilling and ringing, and bring to our inner being a song of mirth and light like a fountain piercing the "shining tops of day". The joyfulness, purity and unrestrained delight of the "starry voice ascending" awakens "the best in us to him akin". The lark's song is the wine which lifts us with him in the golden cup, the valley of this world: the lark the woods and brooks, the creatures and the human line, the dance and the marriage of life within it. The hearts of men shall feel them better, shall feel them celestially, "as long as you crave nothing but the song". The poet's voice becomes choric.
The human voice (the song proceeds) cannot express so sweetly what is inmost. Unlike the skylark, Man has not such a "song seraphically free/Of taint of personality". In the lark's song, the human "millions rejoice/For giving their one spirit voice". Yet there are those revered human lives, made substantial by trials and in loving the earth, which though themselves unsinging yet come forth as a song worthy to greet heaven. It rises in that pure song into the highest heavens and is maintained there, so that our soul rises with theirs "through self-forgetfulness divine", filling the skies, showering the world "from human stores", soaring nearer towards silence.
Consciously or unconsciously, Meredith's theme expands upon the sonnet "False Poets and True" by Thomas Hood (1799-1845), addressed to William Wordsworth, and is of course in debt to Shelley's Ode "To a Skylark".


Wario World

Wario World is a 3D platform game developed by Treasure and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. The game's plot centers on Wario and his quest to regain his treasure and his castle from Black Jewel, an evil gem.
The game was fairly well received by reviewers, who praised the game's fun gameplay while criticizing its short length. The game has sold over 142,000 copies in Japan and over 256,000 copies in the United States. In 2004, the game was re-released as a Player's Choice title.
Gameplay.
"Wario World"s gameplay centers mainly on combating enemies, although it requires some platform navigation similar to "Super Mario 64" and "Super Mario Sunshine". The controls are simple, and are only used to jump, run, dash, perform fighting moves, and use the "Hyper Suction" ability to collect nearby coins. The level designs are platform-based with combat elements, and have an overall linear design. The levels contain trapdoors, which lead to special platforming or puzzle-oriented challenges. Throughout the game, small forest sprites known as "Spritelings" give Wario advice if they are rescued from imprisonment.
During combat, Wario can grab enemies and either spin them around, throw them, or piledrive them into the ground. Enemies drop coins when defeated, and tend to regenerate if the area is left and returned to later. The coins are used to purchase items, such as life-restoring garlic, and to return to life. If Wario does not have enough money to return to life, the game is over. A new feature in "Wario World" are the spherical "glue globes", in which Wario is stuck to if he touches it, allowing the player to reach otherwise inaccessible areas. Along the way, Wario can re-collect his lost treasures, which are hidden in treasure chests, and collect pieces of golden Wario statues, which increases Wario's life meter by one half. In order to advance in the game, the player must collect a certain amount of red diamonds in each level. If the player collects all the treasure in the various levels, minigames from the Game Boy Advance title "" are unlocked, and they can be played by using the GameCube – Game Boy Advance link cable.
Plot.
The game begins with Wario enjoying his newly built castle, which is filled with treasures that he has collected from earlier adventures. An evil gem called Black Jewel, hidden amongst Wario's treasure collection, suddenly awakens and takes over Wario's castle. Black Jewel turns Wario's treasure into monsters, and transforms the castle into four worlds called Excitement Central, Spooktastic World, Thrillsville and Sparkle Land, each consisting of two levels and a boss fight. A central area allows access to the different worlds, as well as to the Treasure Square, where the Huge Treasure Box inside of which Black Jewel is hiding can be found. Wario proceeds through the areas controlled by Black Jewel, recovering his treasure and rescuing Spritelings (the creatures had sealed Black Jewel away in the past), then obtains the key to the Huge Treasure Box and engages Black Jewel in a battle. Wario's subsequent victory allows him to regain control of his castle.
During the game's ending, Wario's new castle quality depends on the number of Spritelings rescued. The worst-case scenario sees Wario with nothing but a campsite with his throne in a dark jungle, but if all 40 Spritelings were rescued, Wario is given a palace even grander than his previous one.
Development.
"Wario World" was shown at E3 2002 as a technical demo. At the next E3 in 2003, it was shown with levels of gameplay polish and tweaking, which the previous E3 demo was lacking. On August 22, 2002, at Nintendo's Gamer's Summit, "Wario World"s North American release date was set to November 11, 2002. The game was later going to be released on May 26, 2003, but was further delayed by one month till June 23.
It was uncertain who was developing "Wario World", until April 22, 2003, when Nintendo of America revealed that Treasure was developing the game. After the successful development collaboration Treasure and Nintendo shared with the Nintendo 64 title, "Sin and Punishment", the two companies wanted to work together again. The R&D1 team wanted to continue their co-development juncture with a 3D installment of the "Wario" franchise. "Wario World"s music was composed by Norio Hanzawa and Minako Hamano. Wario was voiced by Charles Martinet, who also voices Mario and Luigi in the "Mario" series.
Reception.
"Wario World" was a commercial success, selling over 142,000 copies in Japan. In 2004, the game was re-released alongside "" and "F-Zero GX" as part of the Player's Choice line, a selection of games with high sales sold for a reduced price.
"Wario World" received fairly positive reviews. The US version of "Play" magazine gave the game a perfect score, and the reviewer commented that "Wario World" "pays off every second [he is] holding the controller, and that, to [him], is greatness". "Nintendo Power" said that the game was "tons of fun". "GamePro" stated that "Wario World" "stays addictive by weight of sheer design innovation". The American-based publication "Game Informer" praised the game for including "droves of awesome boss battles". Matt Casamassina of IGN declared that "Wario World" had "some great control mechanics and inventive level work". "Electronic Gaming Monthly"s Greg Ford said, ""Wario" ["World"] delivers a great time while it lasts and is well worth checking out. Just don't expect a Mario-quality adventure". Worthplaying gave the game 9 out 10, stating that "Treasure has done itself proud with this title, and Wario himself can lift his head up high. At least in my book, he's got at least one game that's better than Mario's."
"Wario World" received criticism for its length, with some reviewers stating that the game was shorter than the average console title. Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer compared "Wario World" to "Luigi's Mansion", a game also criticized for its length, and said that the game was like "Luigi's Mansion" "all over again". GameSpy stated that "Wario World" "offers little above and beyond the standard 3D platform romp, and what is offered turns out to be very short and repetitive". GameSpot commented that "the final product is too short and simplistic to hold your attention for more than a day".


Dynamo Duck

Dynamo Duck () was the main character in the children's series "The Adventures of Dynamo Duck", which aired on television in the early 1990s.
Overview.
The origin of the series lies with the French film maker Jean Tourane. During the 1960s, he filmed for a children's television series "Saturnin le canard" about the duckling Saturnin who had all kinds of adventures. The series was produced using real animals, dressed up with sunglasses, hats, etcetera, inside a miniature world. The series, first produced in 1964 (according to the Internet Movie Database) was shown on French television.
Years later, the footage was bought by the American producer Nathan Sassover. Originally, clips of it were used as bumpers leading into and out of commercials on the Fox Kids network. Later, Sassover had the different pieces of film edited in a new way and hired writers to create new characters and storylines to produce a "James Bond"-style show in a series of two-minute shorts. Again a small duck was the main character, fighting crimes of the evil Dr. Mortek (a monkey) and other assorted villains. The animals wander around on miniature sets with scale models of trucks and other vehicles. The duck, this time going by the name of "Dynamo Duck", was driving around in a miniature Jaguar.
What makes this series unique prior to the advent of computer animation was the way the mouth movements of the animals, specifically the ducks, with the precise dialog dubbed in gives the appearance of the animals speaking. The principal duckling was voiced-over by Dan Castellaneta, using a terse, clipped style parodying "The Untouchables"' Robert Stack. The first season aired in 1991 on Fox Kids. The shorts aired once a week during the Fox Kids' Saturday morning line-up in between the half-hour programs. Where it appeared on the schedule wasn't announced and aired at inconsistent times. Even the promo for the series narrated by Dynamo says "Saturday mornings on FOX", but no specific time ever revealed. For fans to follow and collect the series, it was often necessary to record the entire morning line-up so as not to miss it. At the end of every show, Dynamo Duck said "We take care of our animals, and so should you!". The second season of Dynamo Duck is widely regarded as vastly inferior to the first that relied more heavily on reuse of footage, and recycled storylines. Dynamo's voice-over was modified in a manner similar to Don Adams' "Get Smart" role of Maxwell Smart. There are over 100 shorts in the series.
Later, in the mid-1990s, the series had a brief afterlife airing overnights on the now defunct Network One (N1). The episodes were five minutes in length, including end credits. Many of which were expansions of their two-minute counterparts from Fox Kids. Some combined two two-minute shorts to make a five-minute double episode with bridges either at the beginning, middle or end of each story, or a combination thereof. Due to the limited number of indie and low-powered stations that carried Network One, the series aired nearly unnoticed except by night owls.
The scoring was provided by a number of composers often multiple people on the same shorts, including:
Thomas Chase,
Steve Rucker,
Nathan Sassover,
Paul Menichini,
Misho Segal,
Peter Frampton,
"et al."
The characters and their roles.
Dynamo Duck is the top secret agent of D.U.X., which stands for "Dynamic Undercover Excellence". Dynamo's nemesis, Dr. Mortek, is the leader of S.K.U.Z., which is "Sleazy Killers, Usurpers, and Zealots". It was also referred to as the "Society of Killers, Usurpers and Zealots". Many other crime and espionage organizations were known by their acronyms. Such as H.O.A.X. ("the Horrible Organization Against Excellence"), S.N.O.B. ("the Secret Nefarious Order of Blowhards"), Y.A.H.O.O. ("Yokels Against Happiness, Optimism and Order"), G.O.O.F.U.S. ("Goons On the Orders to Foul Up Society"), T.O.X.I.C. ("Totally Obnoxious, Extremely Insidious Criminals"), W.H.O.M. ("Wiley Horrendous Obnoxious Maniacs"), L.U.S.H. ("Low, Underhanded Sot-faced Hitmen"), and S.N.O.R.E. ("Slumbering Nemesis Of Righteousness Everywhere"). The Loonies are a religious cult living like medieval knights. Loonies is not an acronym. Many of the agents working for these organizations were, but not limited to, weasels.


The Serpent Warriors

The Serpent Warriors (also known as The Golden Viper) is a 1987 American-Hong Kong crime-horror film directed by John Howard and Niels Rasmussen starring Clint Walker, Eartha Kitt, Christopher Mitchum, Anne Lockhart, Kathleen Lu, Yuen Kao, and Anita Merritt.
Plot.
A zoologist is called to a construction site that has snakes that was once was the ancient site of a snake-worshiping cult.
Production.
Filming locations.
"The Serpent Warriors" was filmed in Nevada and Taiwan.
Reception.
Critical response.
Paul Freitag-Fey of the "Daily Grindhouse" wrote in his review: "In other words, "Serpent Warriors" is exactly the mess of a movie that you’d expect from a film created by three different sources each with their own plot and characters." He could not figure out how Eartha Kitt was cast in the film as "it’s a bit puzzling that her film career was so… varied."


Loamhedge

Loamhedge is a fantasy novel by Brian Jacques, published in 2003. It is the 16th book in the "Redwall" series.
Plot summary.
One day while Abruc the otter and his son Stugg are out foraging for food, they find two badgers; an old one, dead, and a giant one who is barely clinging to life. The otters take the giant back to their colony, where he is revived and reveals himself to be called Lonna Bowstripe. He is told that his attacker was most likely the pirate Raga Bol, whose ship has been lost, and his crew of sea-rats, who are moving inland. Lonna vows to hunt down and kill the entire crew. Armed with his bow and arrows, he sets out to exact his revenge.
Meanwhile, at Redwall Abbey, there is a young hare maid named Martha Braebuck, who is totally incapable of walking, thus restricting her to a wheelchair. She is wheeled around by her very hyperactive brother Hortwill Braebuck (Horty) and his friends, Springald and Fenna. While napping in front of the tapestry of Martin the Warrior, Martin and Sister Amyl appear to Martha in a dream, and she is told that the secret to make her able to walk can be found within the ancient walls of Loamhedge Abbey and that two individuals are coming that can help her.
As it so happens, the two in question are Bragoon and Sarobando, two lifelong friends who ran away from the Abbey as Dibbuns. They survive by tricking small vermin bands and taking their food. This time, it's the gang of the weasel Burrad, whose numbers are at about 13. After Bragoon enters the camp (and Skrodd accidentally kills Burrad) they tell the gang that they must leave Mossflower Woods and never return. Skrodd has other plans, however, and convinces the gang to head to Redwall, where there is a rumour of a magical sword. One night, Skrodd is killed by the rat Dargle, who gets decapitated during Skrodd's death throes. The bodies are discovered by a young fox named Little Redd (Later named Badredd), who convinces the gang he was the one who had killed Dargle. They continue on to Redwall, though no one really takes the fox seriously.
Bragoon and Sarobando arrive at the Abbey during the Summer festival and are told Martha's sad story and where the cure can be found. They decide to set out to Loamhedge, but not before Horty's group asks if they can go too. When Abbot Carrul refuses, the trio create a distraction and escape the Abbey. Though they wind up being captured by Darrats, they are rescued by Bragoon and Saro, who are not too entirely pleased to see them. Since they are already fairly far from the Abbey and could risk recapture, however, they are allowed to join the quest.
Meanwhile, Badredd's group has arrived at Redwall and hold it under siege by slipping in through the east wall gate. Realizing he could do with some more troops, Badredd sends Flinky and Crinktail out to recruit some new vermin. The two stoats unwittingly run into Raga Bol and his crew, who take over management of besieging the Abbey.
Elsewhere, the group of questers scale the tall cliffs leading to Loamhedge and enter a cave to avoid the rain. There they find Lonna and exchange stories. Lonna encounters Martin the Warrior's spirit during the night, telling him the whereabouts of Raga Bol. Lonna sets out, and the gang from Redwall continue up the cliff face and keep walking to the ancient Abbey.
At Redwall, Raga Bol continues to try to break into the Abbey. After an escapade of using a ladder to scale one of the windows, one sea rat manages to enter the Abbey and is about to kill Carrul when Martha suddenly lunges out of her chair and pushes him away, realising she now has the ability to stand and all she needed was will power.
Badredd's group managed to escape the Abbey during the battle, and Bol sends a rat named Blowfly after them. Instead of finding the escapees, Blowfly encounters Lonna, who asks him where the Abbey is and then kills him. When Lonna arrives at Redwall, he manages to kill many sea rats, and due to the efforts of the now mobile Martha, gets inside of the main building and is able to snipe out the crew from there. In a last-ditch attempt to kill the badger, Raga Bol tricks Lonna into coming out to the open where a group of spear throwers wait to slay him. Things go wrong when Lonna seizes Bol and uses him as a living shield against the spears. Then he goes on a rampage and kills every last rat.
In the meantime, the five travellers find a stream but get ambushed by reptiles. Sarobando sneaks out and gets Log-a-log Briggy to help them get out of the ambush. They soon find themselves in another wasteland and get lost. When Horty finds a dormouse named Toobledum and his pet lizard Bubbub, Toobledum shows them the way to Loamhedge. The expedition to find Loamhedge has finally arrived at the dead Abbey, but all the things in Abbess Sylvaticus' grave have rotted away to nothing or turned into dust. Rather than return empty pawed, Bragoon and Saro tell the young ones to wait outside while they write their own cure, essentially saying that one just needs faith in oneself. On the way back, the group encounters the Abyss and are attacked by Kharanjul the Wearet and his army of painted rats. In an attempt to allow Horty, Fenna, and Springald to get to safety, Sarobando and Bragoon hold off the oncoming forces, eventually pushing the bridge over the edge of the abyss. Though they won the battle, the duo is badly injured, and they die shortly after.
Ten seasons after they return to the Abbey, we find that Springald has become Abbey Recorder, Fenna has become Abbess, Horty has joined the Long Patrol at Salamandastron, adding the nom de guerre 'Longblade' to his name, Lonna has become ruler of Salamandastron, and Martha sings and dances on the walls every season in memory of the two who left to try to find her a cure.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. It uses material from the Redwall Wiki article Loamhedge.


White Squall (film)

White Squall is a 1996 American disaster survival film directed by Ridley Scott. It is a coming of age film in which a group of high school and college age teenagers sign up for several months of training aboard a sail ship, a brigantine, and travel around half the globe when suddenly they are challenged by a severe storm. The film stars Jeff Bridges in the role of the captain, called "Skipper", his wife, played by Caroline Goodall, and a supporting cast portraying a group of nearly a dozen student sailors.
The film was based on the 1962 book "The Last Voyage of the Albatross" by Charles Gieg Jr. and Felix Sutton.
Plot.
The film is based on the fate of the brigantine "Albatross", which sank 2 May 1961, allegedly because of a white squall. The film relates the ill-fated school sailing trip led by Dr. Christopher B. Sheldon (Jeff Bridges), whom the boys call "Skipper". He is tough and teaches them discipline. He forms a close connection with all-American Chuck Gieg (Scott Wolf), troubled rich kid Frank Beaumont (Jeremy Sisto), shy Gil Martin (Ryan Phillippe) and bad-boy Dean Preston (Eric Michael Cole). On the first days, it is discovered that one of the student crew members, Gil Martin, suffers from acrophobia and does not even try to rescue Chuck, who nearly chokes to death when he becomes entangled in some rigging after slipping from one of the masts. After Chuck is saved by Skipper Sheldon, Gil is ordered to climb the ropes, which he ultimately cannot do, and is assigned to alternative limited duty while on board.
Frank’s snobby attitude causes him to bump heads with most of the boys, especially Dean, while Gil opens up to Chuck about his troubled home life one night in their bunks, which Frank listens to and identifies with it as well.
After many misadventures on land and on the boat, the boys begin to take Skipper’s teachings seriously and begin acting like real shipmates, with Chuck, Frank, Gil and Dean becoming strong friends.
Eventually, the brigantine puts into shore and the boys take their leave on the island. Frank's wealthy father and mother give him a surprise visit while the crew is in port. Frank is upset that the visit seems poorly timed by his overbearing parents, and he becomes separated from the boys and their festivities when his parents require him to go out to "steak dinner" with them. The father and son end up in a fist fight and become further estranged by the visit and the fight. Frank gets drunk and comes to the party and has to be escorted out by Chuck, Gil and Dean.
After a night of festivities, the crew set out to sea again on the next day. When the brigantine encounters a school of dolphins, Frank, still angry at his father, vents his fury by shooting one of the dolphins with a harpoon. Skipper demands Frank at least put the animal out of its misery, but he can't bring himself to, so Skipper kills it, then tells Frank he's been expelled from the program and puts him ashore at the next port. The day he leaves, Frank apologizes to Skipper for the incident on the boat and is given a farewell by Gil, who gets the courage to climb up the ropes to ring the bell for Frank, which symbolizes ‘Where we go one, we go all’.
Soon after, while at sea, the brigantine encounters a freakish "white squall" storm. The vessel is battered by the seas, and the boys try to use what the Skipper has taught them to survive the horrific ordeal. Most of them succeed in abandoning the vessel, but Gil, Dean, the Skipper's wife and the cook all drown.
When the survivors are rescued and reach land, the Skipper is put on trial, with Frank's powerful parents leading the call for his license to be revoked. Eventually, the Skipper refuses to allow anyone else to be blamed for the disaster, and accepts responsibility, but his former students all stand up for him, and Frank turns against his bullying parents to support the Skipper, as all the boys embrace him. The end credits explain that in reality six people died in total (four students) and dedicates the film to them.
Production.
Part of the film was shot using a horizon tank in Malta, with a full-sized mock-up of the ship, the "Eye of the Wind", used to depict the "Albatross" in scenes shot mainly in the Caribbean. Maurice Jarre was originally scheduled to compose the original score, but was replaced by Hans Zimmer's protégé Jeff Rona. Zimmer was set to replace Jarre but failed to commit due to time difficulties. The song in the end credits is "Valparaiso" by Sting.
Reception.
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 58% based on 36 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Though it gets occasionally bogged down by touchy-feely sentiment, "White Squall" benefits greatly from Jeff Bridges' assured lead performance and Ridley Scott's visceral, exciting direction". "White Squall", like Scott's previous film, "", was a box office disappointment.
Roger Ebert gave it three stars. In his review he said "I enjoyed the movie for the sheer physical exuberance of its adventure."
Decades after "White Squall"'s release, believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory have developed an affinity for the film because its original trailer happens to emphasize several phrases ("Where we go one, we go all," "Anonymous," and "The calm before the storm") which feature prominently in the conspiracy's lore.


Vampire Bats (film)

Vampire Bats is a 2005 adventure-horror film directed by Eric Bross and starring Lucy Lawless. The film is a sequel to the 2005 film "Locusts" also starring Lawless.
Mill Creek Entertainment announced the movie on DVD.
Plot.
In a Louisiana city, near a bayou, a plague of genetically mutated bats begin to kill the people, then Dr. Maddy Rierdon and her students from colleges work together to kill the bats before the whole city is destroyed.
The film begins with an abandoned house, inhabited by a group of vampire bats, which seem to be mutations of the local population.
Later, in the forests nearby, people begin to find many dead corpses of deer and local animals, with multiple bites on their bodies and their blood completely drained. While the corpses are studied, one student from the class of Physician/Doctor Maddy Rierdon (Lucy Lawless) gets chased in the forest by something that knocks him down and kills him. When he is found, his blood has been drained. Police suspect two of his friends of being the killers and put them under arrest. The case attracts Maddy's attention, as she wants to prove her students' innocence. She soon finds out that her dead student must have been killed by something that moves in a pack and is very fast.
At night, two more fishermen are attacked and killed while fishing on their boat. The next morning, police find the drained bodies and, with Maddy's presence at the scene, they are able to recognize some excreta of bats. They then change their opinion and started to believe that bats were the cause of these deaths. The police send out many agents to search around the city for signs of the vampire bats.
After several negative events, including a teenage girl who gets bitten by a bat during sleep and acquires rabies, and a party on board a ship, which is attacked by the bats, Maddy begins to think that the bats have mutated somehow, which she reports to group of agents she is working with. She states that the bats could have been affected by some artificial environmental impacts. To verify her statement, she arrives at the river where the fishermen were killed to set a trap with the help of some of her students. They successfully capture some bats using nets, and Maddy realizes that this population of vampire bats has developed eight upper-jaw fangs instead of two, which makes them hungrier for blood and able to drink more blood every time they bite. They bring the other trapped bats back to the lab, where Maddy informs the police of this mutation. Suggestions are given as how to exterminate these killer bats, and one of them is to spray poisons over the captured bats and release them after sticking GPS locators onto their bodies, letting them fly back to their habitats; the bats will infect each other by licking and grooming. The plan works successfully, but it only kills a small group of them. The other groups remain unaffecteded. Meanwhile, one more student is killed in the pool by the bats. Maddy rushes to find a solution while learning that the bats' mutation is an indirect result of toxic waste that contaminated the local water source, creating mutations in the deer that the bats feed on, thus making the bats too mutants.
Meanwhile another group of bats is found in a church (yet still not the whole population). Maddy's students accidentally find out that the bats are attracted to loudspeakers or anything that emits sounds similarly, as they mistake those sounds as reflected ultrasounds. They decide to set a trap in the underground basement of their school, intending to lure the bats in and heat them to death by sending in all the heat from the school's exhausts. As the plan commences, the bats are lured to the area by loudspeakers. A problem is encountered as Maddy is attacked in the underground by one of the policeman, who turns out to be an agent working for the company which has been contaminating the water sources and is therefore responsible for the bats' mutation. He tries to kill Maddy in order to eliminate witnesses of his company's work, but Maddy knocks him out instead and escapes when the bats fly into the underground; they devour the agent just before they get heated to death.
Three months later, Maddy is married and sitting with her children in front of the house where they eliminated the first population of the vampire bats. She suddenly looks nervous and seems to be scared by something, but she quickly turns back to play with her kids.


Death on a Factory Farm

Death on a Factory Farm is a 2009 television documentary film concerning the animal rights abuses at the Wiles hog farm, and the subsequent investigation and trial.
Synopsis.
"Death on a Factory Farm" follows the undercover investigation of Wiles Hog Farm by the animal rights group The Humane Farming Association (HFA), and the resulting court case against it. The organization received a tip from an employee at the farm that animals were being abused, including a claim that hogs were being hung by chains and strangled to death as a form of euthanasia. HFA then turned to an undercover investigator using the name "Pete". The investigator wore a hidden camera while he worked undercover as a farmhand at Wiles.
Over the course of six weeks, the investigator secretly filmed numerous incriminating scenes, including piglets being tossed into crates from across a room, impregnated sows held in pens impeded their ability to move, an unhealthy piglet being hit against a wall to euthanize it, and a sick sow being hung by a chain from a forklift until it choked to death. Having obtained this evidence, Pete concluded the investigation and quit the job at the farm.
HFA brought Pete's footage to the Wayne County Sheriff's Department, which then raided the farm. Prosecutors filed ten criminal charges of animal cruelty against the farm's owners, and a farm employee who participated in hanging the sow.
In the subsequent trial, the prosecutors and the defense fought about the legality and morality of these practices, described by the presiding judge as "distasteful and offensive". However, the judge defended these practices as the reality of producing pork for consumption.