Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

Auriel W

Blake Molmen

Dani Shahar

Luis Javier Campos nieto

The terrifyingly prophetic novel of a post-literate future.Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.The classic dystopian novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which, decades on from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.--back cover

I don’t know what to do with these stars anymore. I give stars to books and then I think, ‘god, you give five stars to everything, people will think you are terribly undiscriminating’ – so then I give four stars or even three stars to some books. Then I look back and it turns out that that I’ve given four stars to Of Human Bondage and honestly, how could I possibly have thought it was a good idea to give that book less than five stars? It is the absurdity of human conventions that has us doing such things.Now, that is what is called a segue, from the Italian ‘seguire’ – to follow. For the last thirty years I have studiously avoided reading this book. I have done that because for the last thirty years I have known exactly what this book is about and there just didn’t seem any point in reading it. In high school friends (one of them even became my ex-wife) told me it was a great book about a man condemned to die because he was an outsider. Later I was told that this book was a story about something much like the Azaria Chamberlain case. A case where someone does not react in a way that is considered to be ‘socially appropriate’ and is therefore condemned.But after 30 years of avoiding reading this book I have finally relented and read it. At first I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it. It didn’t really get off to the raciest of starts and the character's voice – it is told in first person – was a bit dull. He is a man who lives entirely in the present, how terribly Buddhist of him – although, really there doesn’t seem to be all that much to him.My opinion of the book began to change at his mother’s funeral. I particularly liked the man who kept falling behind in the march to the cemetery and would take short cuts. Okay, so it is black humour, but Camus was more or less French – so black humour is more or less obligatory.I really hadn’t expected this book to be nearly so funny as it turned out. I’d always been told it was a ponderous philosophical text – and so, to be honest, I was expecting to be bored out of my skull. I wasn’t in the least bit bored.A constant theme in my life at present is that I read ‘classics’ expecting them to be about something and they end up being about something completely different. And given I’ve called this a ‘constant’ theme then you might think I would be less than surprised when a read a new ‘classic’ and it turns out to be completely different to my expectations. I’m a little more upset about this one than some of the others, as I’ve been told about this one before, repeatedly, and by people I’d have taken as ‘reputable sources’ – although, frankly, how well one should trust one’s ex-wife in such matters is moot.I had gotten the distinct impression from all of my previous discussions about this book that the guy ends up dead. In fact, this is not the case – he ends up at the point in his life where he has no idea if he will be freed or not. The Priest who comes to him at the end is actually quite certain that he will be freed. Let’s face it, he is only guilty of having murdered an Arab, and as we have daily evidence, Westerners can murder Arabs with complete impunity. The main point of the book to me is when he realises he is no longer ‘free’. He needs this explained to him – because life up until then had been about ‘getting used to things’ and one can 'get used to just about anything'. But the prison guard helpfully informs him that he is being ‘punished’ and the manifestation of that punishment is the removal of his ‘freedom’. Interestingly, he didn’t notice the difference between his past ‘free’ life and his current ‘unfree’ one. The most interesting part of the book to me was the very end, the conversation with the priest. The religious often make the mistake of thinking that Atheists are one thing – I’ve no idea how they ever came to make this mistake, but make it they do. Given that there are thousands upon thousands of different shades of Christians – from Jesuit Catholics to Anti-Disney Episcopalians – it should be fairly obvious that something like Atheism (without any ‘organised’ church or even system of beliefs) could not be in anyway ‘homogeneous’.I am definitely not the same kind of Atheist as Camus. To Camus there is no truth, the world is essentially absurd and all that exists is the relative truth an individual places on events and ideas. This makes the conversation with the priest fascinatingly interesting. To the priest the prisoner who is facing death is – by necessity – someone who is interested in God. You can play around with ideas like the non-existence of God when it doesn’t seem to matter (life is long and blasphemy can seem fun) – but surely when confronted with the stark truth of the human condition any man would turn away from their disbelief and see the shining light.Not this little black duck. Now, if I was in that cell I would have argued with the priest too – but I would not have argued in the same way that Meursault argues. No, I do not believe in God, but I do believe in truth, and so Camus’ arguments are barred to me.Meursault essentially says, “Look, I’m bored, I’m totally uninterested in the rubbish you are talking – now go away”. Now, this is a reasonable response. What is very interesting is that the priest cannot accept this as an answer. The world is not allowed to have such a person in it – if such a person really did exist then it would be a fundamental challenge to the core beliefs of the priest. So, he has to assume Meursault is either lying to him or is trying to taunt him. But it is much worse – he is absolutely sincere, he is not interested in this ‘truth’.I don’t know that the world is completely meaningless, it is conventional rather than meaningless. That those conventions are arbitrary (decided by the culture we grew up in) doesn’t make them meaningless, it makes them conventional. I don’t think I would like to live in a world where people go up and kill Arabs pretty much at random and with impunity, but then again, we have already established this is precisely the world I do live in. My point is that it would be better if we did adhere to some sort of moral principles and that these should be better principles than ‘he should be killed because he didn’t cry at his mum’s funeral’. Camus is seeking to say that all of our ‘moral principles’ in the end come to be as meaningless as that – we judge on the basis of what we see from the framework of our own limited experience. And look, yes, there is much to this – but this ends up being too easy.The thing I like most about Existentialism, though it isn’t really as evident in this book as it is in the actual philosophy – although this is something that Meursault is supposed to have grown to understand (sorry, just one more sub-clause) even though this wasn’t something I noticed at all while reading the book, was the notion of responsibility. I didn’t think in the end Meursault was all that much more ‘responsible’ for his actions than he had been at the start. But I do think that ‘responsibility’ is a key concept in morality and one that seems increasingly to be ignored.Better by far that we feel responsible for too much in our lives than too little – better by far that we take responsibility for the actions of our governments (say) than to call these governments ‘them’. I’m not advocating believing in The Secret - but that if one must err, better to err on the side of believing you have too much responsibility for how your life has turned out, rather than too little.So, what can I say? I enjoyed this much more than I expected – but I’m still glad I waited before reading it, I really don’t think I would have gotten nearly as much out of it at 15 as I did now.

"Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful?" Estragon's complaint, uttered in the first act of "Waiting for Godot", is the playwright's sly joke at the expense of his own play - or rather at the expense of those in the audience who expect theatre always to consist of events progressing in an apparently purposeful and logical manner towards a decisive climax. In those terms, "Waiting for Godot" - which has been famously described as a play in which "nothing happens, twice"- scarcely seems recognizable as theatre at all. As the great English critic wrote "Waiting for Godot jettisons everything by which we recognize theatre. It arrives at the custom-house, as it were, with no luggage, no passport, and nothing to declare; yet it gets through, as might a pilgrim from Mars."

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 0553213695 / 9780553213690"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes." With it's startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first opening, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote, "Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man."

A mother and her two sons move to a small coast town in California. The town is plagued by bikers and some mysterious deaths. The younger boy makes friends with two other boys who claim to be vampire hunters while the older boy is drawn into the gang of bikers by a beautiful girl. The older boy starts sleeping days and staying out all night while the younger boy starts getting into trouble because of his friends' obsession.

1987 film by Joel Schumacher, Richard Donner

Teenager Sarah is forced by her father and her stepmother to babysit her baby brother Toby while they are outside home. Toby does not stop crying and Sarah wishes that her stepbrother be taken by the Goblin King Jareth. Out of the blue, Toby stops crying and when Sarah looks for him in the cradle, she learns that her wish was granted and the Goblin King Jareth has taken him to his castle in the Goblin City in the middle of a labyrinth. Sarah repents and asks Jareth to give Toby back; but the Goblin King tells her that she has to rescue her brother before midnight. Soon Sarah teams up with some allies. Will they rescue Toby in time?

Jedi Master-in-hiding Luke Skywalker unwillingly attempts to guide young hopeful Rey in the ways of the force, while Leia, former princess turned general, attempts to lead what is left of the Resistance away from the ruthless tyrannical grip of the First Order.

2017 American epic space opera film directed by Rian Johnson

Tim Avery is a cartoonist who loves his dog Odis. Then one day Odis finds a strange green mask. Then Tim puts it on and has a baby with his wife with the mask on. The baby then gets ahold of powers of the mask. Meanwhile Loki (Alan Cumming) must find the mask before Odin gets mad

In the age-old battle between cats and dogs, one crazed feline has taken things a paw too far. Kitty Galore, formerly an agent for cat spy organization M.E.O.W.S., has gone rogue and hatched a diabolical plan to not only bring her canine enemies to heel, but also take down her former kitty comrades and make the world her scratching post. Faced with this unprecedented threat, cats and dogs will be forced to join forces for the first time in history in an unlikely alliance to save themselves, and their humans.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1965. Fourteen-year-old Ponyboy Curtis is the youngest of three orphaned brothers who live on the north side of town, the "wrong side" of the tracks. Sensitive Ponyboy used to have a good relationship with his oldest brother Darrel, but since Darrel became the household caregiver, he is always on Ponyboy's case. Caught in the middle is third brother Sodapop, who dropped out of school to work full time. They all belong to The Greasers, a gang of boys from the north side also from working class families, often broken. Ponyboy's main concern is that any problem they may encounter, especially in their Greaser activities, will lead to the authorities splitting up their family. He also believes Darrel would have outgrown them and become something in his life if it wasn't for his loyalty to the gang, and the need to take care of the family. The rest of the world sees the Greasers as all the same, the face being Dallas Winston, the most volatile one who has just been released from prison, despite each boy having his own specific view of life. Similarly, the world sees the Socs, the Greasers' primary rivals, as all the same, rich spoiled entitled boys with a sense of superiority from the south side of town, despite again each boy being his own person. A connection between the two gangs happens in the form of Ponyboy and Cherry Valance, which doesn't sit well with Cherry's Soc boyfriend, Bob Sheldon. As a result, an incident occurs involving the Socs, Ponyboy and fellow Greaser, sixteen-year-old Johnny Cade, an equally sensitive boy who wants a better life for himself, but seems stuck in a downward spiral with parents who don't give him the time of day. Beyond Ponyboy and Johnny's lives being threatened by that incident, the Greasers and the Socs agree to a rumble to settle things once and for all. Some of the boys realize the rumble will accomplish nothing, with the questions being if they can convince their colleagues of the same, and if not what the consequences will be.

1983 film directed by Francis Ford Coppola

In Jasper National Park, the wolves, Kate and Humphrey, have known each other since puppyhood, but they are on the oppose ends of the Western Pack's social structure with Kate as the energetic Alpha daughter of the pack leader and Humphrey being the good humoured Omega. That social structure forces Kate to accept an arranged marriage with Garth of the Eastern Pack to unite the packs for peace, regardless of Humphrey's hopeless attraction for her. Before that union can occur, Kate and Humphrey are captured by the park's rangers and sent to an Idaho park as part of a wolf repopulation project. Mindful of her duties, Kate is determined to return to Jasper and Humphrey offers to help with the assistance of two odd geese. However, as this disparate pair struggle through the dangers to get home, a growing mutual appreciation of their talents and then a deeper love threatens to disastrously complicate everything if they make it back.

2010 American computer animated comedy drama film

Lem is just an average teenager working on getting the girl and furthering his career at the local planetarium - except that he's an alien. At least to U.S. astronaut Captain Charles T. Baker who lands on Lem's planet hoping for a quick flag plant and a hasty return to earth and his millions of screaming fans. But on this alien planet the media has tagged spacemen as brain-eating, zombie-creating monsters, causing Baker to run for his life and into Lem's house. Now it's up to the green native to get the clumsy astronaut back to his spaceship before military dictator General Grawl and mad scientist Professor Kipple manage to exterminate the Earthly visitor.

A 13-year-old boy wins a computerized house manned by a cyborg maid named PAT. When he and his dad move into the house, he figures that his dad will cease considering re-marrying since the house and PAT can handle all of the cooking and cleaning chores. However, his father soon shows an interest in the computer programmer. This sets the boy into tinkering with PAT's program and setting in motion a too-wife (and mother)-like nagging robot.

Seven disgusting kids but nevertheless of interesting personality are being made of the green mud coming out of garbage can. Once alive their master gives them rules to obey although they think that life is funnier without following stupid regulations like no television or no candy. Naturally this will cause some conflicts.

The world is astounded when Willy Wonka, for years a recluse in his factory, announces that five lucky people will be given a tour of the factory, shown all the secrets of his amazing candy, and one will win a lifetime supply of Wonka chocolate. Nobody wants the prize more than young Charlie, but as his family is so poor that buying even one bar of chocolate is a treat, buying enough bars to find one of the five golden tickets is unlikely in the extreme. But in movieland, magic can happen. Charlie, along with four somewhat odious other children, get the chance of a lifetime and a tour of the factory. Along the way, mild disasters befall each of the odious children, but can Charlie beat the odds and grab the brass ring?

Furious that her late father only willed her his gloomy-looking mansion rather than his millions, Carrigan Crittenden (Cathy Moriarty) is ready to burn the place to the ground when she discovers a map to a treasure hidden in the house. But when she enters the rickety mansion to seek her claim, she is frightened away by a wicked wave of ghosts. Determined to get her hands on this hidden fortune, she hires afterlife therapist Dr. James Harvey (Bill Pullman) to exorcise the ghosts from the mansion. Harvey and his daughter Kat (Christina Ricci) move in, and soon Kat meets Casper (Malachi Pearson), the ghost of a young boy who's "the friendliest ghost you know". But not so friendly are Casper's uncles,- Stretch (Joe Nipote), Fatso (Brad Garrett), and Stinkie (Joe Alaskey) - who are determined to drive all "fleshies" away. Ultimately, it is up to James and Kat to help the ghosts cross over to the other side.

1995 American fantasy film directed by Brad Silberling

American footballer Flash Gordon is thrust into the journey of a lifetime: joined with Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov, the three earthbound space travellers will soon become the first humans to encounter alien life, and try to stop the tyrannical alien warlord Emperor Ming the Merciless from destroying the Earth.

On a wild and rain-swept late-November evening, somewhere at an empty stretch of road outside Ohio's merry Denton, blissfully-affianced, prudish, boringly-innocent young pair Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon) find themselves stranded on their way to visit an ex-tutor. Instead, the couple will inadvertently unearth the cross-dressing Dr. Frank-N-Furter's (Tim Curry's) spooky lair of inexhaustible oddities, just in time to partake in the out-of-this-world mad scientist's proud unveiling of his latest, delightfully extravagant, most daring creation: the ultimate male and the perfect sex symbol: the flaxen-haired Rocky Horror (Peter Hinwood). But, little by little, as the effervescent transgressive force gobbles up whole the unsuspecting visitors of the night, Brad and Janet slowly begin to embrace the potent fascinations of seduction, while an idolized Rocky roams free in the mansion. Who can interrupt man's union with the absolute pleasure?

In the year 2056 - the not so distant future - an epidemic of organ failures devastates the planet. Out of the tragedy, a savior emerges: GeneCo, a biotech company that offers organ transplants, for a price. Those who miss their payments are scheduled for repossession and hunted by villainous Repo Men. In a world where surgery addicts are hooked on painkilling drugs and murder is sanctioned by law, a sheltered young girl searches for the cure to her own rare disease as well as information about her family's mysterious history. After being sucked into the haunting world of GeneCo, she is unable to turn back, as all of her questions will be answered at the wildly anticipated spectacular event: The Genetic Opera.

The body of a young girl (Laura Palmer) is washed up on a beach near the small Washington state town of Twin Peaks. FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is called in to investigate her strange demise only to uncover a web of mystery that ultimately leads him deep into the heart of the surrounding woodland and his very own soul.

American drama television series from 1990–1991

Comedian Eric Andre invites guests who are unfamiliar with his work to his talk show. Expecting a routine interview, the unsuspecting guests are subjected to bizarre, deliberate, surrealist pranks. Eric Andre also hits the streets of New York City to carry out pranks in public.

Hank Hill, a propane gas salesman in the fictional town of Arlen, Texas, is often besieged by the idiosyncrasies of society, but finds some serenity in his home life with his wife, substitute Spanish teacher Peggy, his awkward son Bobby, and his live-in niece-in-law Luanne Platter. Adding flavor were Hank's friends, divorcé military barber Bill Dauterive, paranoid Dale Gribble (with an obsession with government conspiracy theories), and gibberish-spouting Boomhauer.

The irreverent Monty Python comedy troupe present a series of skits which are often surreal, bawdy, uncompromising and/or tasteless, but nearly always hilarious.

Two comedians, average nobodies, and celebrity guest stars perform bizarre low-budget comedy sketches.

American sketch comedy series (2007 - 2010)

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