Wences

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelina_Jolie

http://www.miraval.com/  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_Miraval,_Correns-Var 

http://www.cybill.com/

Shepherd has revealed her sexual curiosity and desire in various interviews about having a physical relationship with a woman. In 2006, in an interview about The L Word she said more than once that she was "turned on" by the woman-woman sex scenes: "If you look at what we know about men, women and our sexuality, a great majority of people are bisexual. So what's wrong with that?"

She also said in an interview: "I have wondered about lesbianism ... At various times in my life I wanted to be open to the possibility of having a woman as a lover. I am not actively pursuing it but it is not over yet." She has confessed to having a longtime crush on Salma Hayek and admits to having fantasized about her.

http://www.coreyhaim.us/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/03/10/GA2010031001470.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyIQjWJGsHc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt6cCfAZeZ0&feature=related

On August 8, 1962, Monroe was interred in a crypt at Corridor of Memories #24, at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

 is Paramount's Vista-Vision comedy film starring Danny Kaye (in his best-known performance). It is a classic, high-energy musical spoof of the dashing adventure films in Hollywood's Golden Age of Swashbucklers (many of which starred Errol Flynn). From the writing/directing/producing team of Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, the musical costume comedy set in medieval times features some of motion picture history's best comedic wordplay, in its story revolving around mistaken identity. It blends numerous genres together: musical, adventure-swashbuckler, comedy (screwball), and live-action cartoon.

Kaye stars as acrobat Hubert Hawkins, one of the "Merry Men" of The Black Fox (Edward Ashley), a Robin Hood-esque or Zorro-like hero/outlaw who wishes to ensure that the rightful royal heir to the throne (a baby with a purple pimpernel birthmark on its behind) is put there instead of a usurper. Adept at impersonation, Hawkins winds up pretending to be Giacomo (John Carradine) - the new court jester of the royal usurper King Roderick the First (Cecil Parker), in order to enter Roderick's palace. Complications arise when it's revealed that unbeknownst to Hawkins, Giacomo is also a skilled assassin, hired by the scheming Sir Ravenhurst (Basil Rathbone) to kill Roderick and acquire the throne for himself.

Complicating matters even further is the film's romantic sub-plot. Hawkins is hypnotized (by a finger snap) into wooing the King's daughter - Princess Gwendolyn (Angela Lansbury) by her evil-eyed lady in waiting Griselda (Mildred Natwick), as she is being forced by her father into a politically-important marriage with grim Sir Griswold of the North (Robert Middleton).

 Cool Hand Luke  is the moving character study of a non-conformist, anti-hero loner who bullheadedly resists authority and the Establishment. One of the film's posters carried a tagline related to the character's rebelliousness: "The man...and the motion picture that simply do not conform." With this vivid film, director Stuart Rosenberg made one of the key films of the 1960s, a decade in which protest against established powers was a key theme. One line of the film's dialogue from Strother Martin is often quoted: "What we've got here is...failure to communicate."

This superb, crowd-pleasing film was based upon a screenplay co-authored by ex-convict Donn Pearce (and Frank R. Pierson), from Pearce's own novel of the same name. The main character Luke (played by Paul Newman) was inspired by real-life convicted safecracker Donald Graham Garrison. Telly Savalas was originally considered for the role, and Bette Davis was also considered for the part of Luke's mother. The chain-gang prison film (e.g., I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)) has a long history in American films, and this one also provided entertaining performances, especially with Paul Newman in one of his best roles as masochistic Luke, after playing similar anti-heroes in The Hustler (1961) and Hud (1963). Other stars who played convicts in the chain gang in smaller roles included Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton, Ralph Waite, Wayne Rogers, Joe Don Baker, and Anthony Zerbe.

Rich religious symbolism, references and imagery are deeply embedded within the narrative, with some critics arguing that Luke represents a modern-day, messianic Christ figure who ministers to a group of disciples and refuses to give up under oppression. The film's theme - of an outsider-protagonist who transforms the occupants of a Southern chain gang institution and tragically sacrifices himself at the end - resembles the anti-hero character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Actor (Paul Newman, who lost to Rod Steiger in In the Heat of the Night (1967)), Best Supporting Actor (George Kennedy in a break-out role), Best Adapted Screenplay (Donn Pearce and Frank R. Pierson), and Best Original Music Score (Lalo Schifrin) and won only for Best Supporting Actor.

In Francis Ford Coppola's thriller:

**the technical brilliance of the opening sequence in which an alleged adulterous couple (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest) (heard saying "He's not hurting anyone" - "Neither are we") in a crowded Union Square in San Francisco are under surveillance by wire-tapping expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) ** the mesmerizing sequence in which Harry repeatedly replays and discloses the hidden dialogue on the audio tapes ("He'd kill us if he got the chance") - similar to a photographic scene in Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966) - and 'thinks' he knows what will transpire ** Harry's guilt-plagued obsession to follow the couple to the Jack Tar Hotel on Sunday at 3 o'clock (Room 773) for a startling murderous revelation ** the devastating ending as Harry sits amidst his destroyed apartment after receiving a phone call: "We'll be listening to you" - playing his melancholy-sounding saxophone with the camera encircling him

 

The Conversation (1974) is the slowly-gripping, bleak study of electronic surveillance and threat of new technologies that is examined through the private, internalized life of a lonely and detached expert 'bugger.' The conspiracy thriller is an effective character study that exposes the emerging conscience of an estranged eavesdropper whose work once resulted in the death of three people:

Harry Caul...an invader of privacy. The best in the business. He can record any conversation between two people anywhere. So far, three people are dead because of him.

The timely, low-budget cinematic masterpiece of the 1970s was written, produced and released by director Francis Ford Coppola before and during the Wategate era (and between his two Godfather films) - a time of heightened concern over the violation of civil liberties. Its claustrophobic themes of the destruction of privacy, alienation, guilt, voyeurism, justified paranoia, unprincipled corporate power and personal responsibility effectively responded to growing, ominous 20th century threats of eavesdropping to personal liberties.

The haunted surveillance expert, who pursues a case (seemingly of marital infidelity) that demonstrates his rarified human emotion, discovers that he has become the victim of his own technological profession and intrigue by film's end. [His last name, 'caul', literally means the protective, embryonic membrane that sometimes covers the head of a child at birth.]

After his phenomenal success with The Godfather (1972), Coppola's technically-brilliant, absorbing film was a critically-acclaimed work, but it failed at the box-office. In the 1974 Oscar competition, The Conversation competed for Best Picture with Coppola's own sequel The Godfather, Part II (1974). It had a total of three award nominations (without any wins): Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound (Walter Murch and Arthur Rochester). Notably, there were two against-type roles of young stars from Lucas'American Graffiti (1973): the philandering/murderous role of a socialite by Cindy Williams, and the duplicitous role of a corporate executive assistant by Harrison Ford.

The marvelous sound work on the film was deserving of an Oscar for Best Sound for its effective sound-mixing of interdependent elements: taped conversations, muffled voices, background and other mechanically-generated noises, musical/piano accompaniment (Harry Caul's signature theme) and other ambient sounds. The film has some similarities to director Michelangelo Antonioni's provocative Blow-Up (1966), Brian DePalma's thriller Blow Out (1981), Tony Scott's Enemy of the State (1998), and Gore Verbinski's The Ring (2002). And the bloody scene in the bathroom paid homage to Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).

In New Wave film-maker Jean-Luc Godard's unrated European import - a marriage drama:

the opening scene with an exploitative extended view of a fully nude Brigitte Bardot (as unsatisfied and bored wife Camille Javal) lying face down in bed with her screenwriter husband Paul (Michel Piccoli) - the scene, shot with a colored filter, was ordered by Italian producer Carlo Ponti, to capitalize on her immense popularity, although it desexualized the sex kitten with her questioning dialogue about her own objectified body parts: "Do you like my breasts ... my ankles ... my knees ... my thighs?"

In director Robert Zemeckis' space exploration film:

**the stunning opening sequence - a long, zooming pull back shot from the planet Earth past other planets and the end of our solar system (accompanied by TV and radio transmissions on the soundtrack that stretch back in time) - culminating as a bright dot of reflected 'sun'-light in the eye of nine year-old Ellie Arroway (later Jodie Foster) who dreams of alien contact **also the scene when Ellie travels to Vega and is so moved by her experience that she breathes reverentially: "Some celestial event. No - no words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should've sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful... I had no idea... I had no idea..." **the scene of Ellie's testimony about her experience ("I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever...a vision of the universe")

In director Richard Fleischer's courtroom drama loosely based on the famous 1924 murder trial of Leopold and Loeb:

a Clarence Darrow-like Jonathan Wilk (Orson Welles) and his spellbinding three-day (10 minutes in the film, and considered the longest true monologue in film history) argument against capital punishment: "They say you can only get justice by shedding their last drop of blood. Isn't a lifetime behind prison bars enough for this mad act?...You hang these boys, it will mean that in this land of ours, a court of law could not help but bow down to public opinion"

In director Neil Jordan's stylish fantasy horror film that updated the folklore fable/fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood:

*the troubled dreams of a pubescent, almost 13 years old Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) on the verge of sexual awakening, wearing her sister's lipstick (and symbolically Little Red Riding Hood), that express her fearful anxieties about men and approaching womanhood and sexuality *the scene of her "killing" off her older sister Alice (Georgia Slowe) in the woods by wolves during a revenge-dream *matronly Granny's (Angela Lansbury) cautionary fairy tales and advice ("Once upon a time...") about wolves while knitting a red protective cloak for Rosaleen: "Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple, and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle," and "Oh, they're nice as pie until they've had their way with you. But once the bloom is gone... oh, the beast comes out" - and her advice to not stray from the path *Rosaleen's meeting of a handsome and tempting Huntsman (Micha Bergese) on her way to Granny's house - who transforms into a wolf with its snout forcing its way out through his gaping mouth, and encourages her to rid herself of her shawl *the scene of a pregnant witchy forest woman (Dawn Archibald) cursing everyone at a 19th century wedding party and horrifically transforming the newlyweds and their families into long-snouted werewolves *one of Granny's tales in which a young woman's missing husband (Stephen Rea) appears many years later in her log cabin and rips open his face to expose his "hairy" insides in another werewolf transformation scene *the final scene of a lone wolf crashing into Rosaleen's real waking-life bedroom window as she screams
Rosaleen dreams her sister is attacked and eaten by a pack of wolves in the woods. In a fairytale village, Rosaleen attends her sister’s funeral with Granny. Later, as they travel through the woods to Granny’s house, she is warned to keep to the path otherwise she’ll meet her sister’s fate.
That evening, Granny knits Rosaleen a red cape and warns her never to trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle. Granny tells the story of a woman in the village who married a travelling man. On their wedding night, he answers the ‘call of nature’, and never comes back. The bride sees a pack of wolves howling outside and believes they have killed him. She remarries, but her former husband returns, turns into a wolf and tries to attack her, but is killed by her second husband who arrives home just in time.
The next day Rosaleen flirts with a village boy and later on he asks her to walk with him on Sunday. That night she hears her parents having sex. The next morning, she asks her mother if her father hurts her, but her mother tells her that if there is a beast in men, it meets its match in women. In the chuchyard, Granny tells her a story of how a priest’s bastard, born feet first on Christmas day with eyebrows that meet in the middle, is predestined to meet the devil in the woods.
After church, Rosaleen and the boy go for a walk into the woods and he tries to kiss her. Unsure at first, she is goaded into kissing him, but then runs off into the woods, challenging him to catch her. She soon loses him and roams alone in the wood. On the way back to the village the boy discovers a wolf has killed a cow. Rosaleen’s father is furious she’s not with him and exchanges blows with the boy’s father, but then Rosaleen reappears.
The men form a hunting party to search for the wolf. As they wait for the men to return, Rosaleen tells her mother a story of how a betrayed, pregnant valley woman (a witch) turns her former aristocratic lover, his new bride and the wedding party into wolves. Rosaleen’s father returns, carrying a severed hand that was originally the forepaw of the deceased wolf. He believes it was the wolf-man that killed his eldest daughter.
The next day, Rosaleen heads off alone to her Granny’s through the woods. She carries a knife to protect her and a basket of food and drink for her Granny. She meets a huntsman whose eyebrows meet in the middle. She agrees to have a picnic lunch with him. He shows her his compass and wagers that he can reach Granny’s house before her. She has to promise to kiss him if he wins. When he arrives first, Granny immediately realises he is a werewolf. She burns his hand defending herself, but he decapitates her. Rosaleen sees blood outside and guesses the fate of her grandmother. She finds the huntsman in Granny’s chair and asks him where she is. He pretends she’s just outside, but then her broken glasses fall from his lap and she notices Granny’s hair burning in the fire. She tries to stab him but fails. He tells he to take off her clothes and put them in the fire. She shoots him with his gun, but misses. She kisses him (because he won his bet) but then shoots him, injuring his shoulder, and causing him to turn into a wolf. When he whimpers with pain, she tells him a story about a wounded female werewolf who in human form seeks help from a priest. He takes pity on her, bandages her wound, and she returns to the world below.
When a search party arrives at Granny’s house looking for Rosaleen, all they find is a wolf wearing her crucifix. Realising that the wolf must be her daughter, Rosaleen’s mother stops them from shooting her. Rosaleen the wolf runs into the night with the other wolves. They run into the real world and crash through the sleeping girl’s (Rosaleen’s) window. She wakes and screams.

The tender love affair between housewife Sally Hyde (Jane Fonda) and embittered and partially paralyzed, wheelchair-bound war veteran Luke Martin (Jon Voight) while she was working as a volunteer at a veteran's hospital, and her subsequent violent breakup with returning husband-vet Bob (Bruce Dern) (Sally: "It happened. I needed somebody. I was lonely..." Bob: "Bulls--t...if it's over with us, it's over...What I'm saying ISSSS! I do not belong in this house. And they're saying that I don't belong over there"); also Luke's "there's a choice to be made here" speech to high school students, in Hal Ashby's definitive, Oscar-winning anti-war Vietnam film.

The well-choreographed, Atlantic City pool contest-competition with trick shots between resurrected "Fast Eddie" Felson (Paul Newman in an Oscar-winning role - his first) and hot-shot Vincent Lauria (Tom Cruise); Felson's words of advice: "Sometimes if you lose, you win," and "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned"; and the final anti-climactic scene of the older and cagier Felson shooting a powerful break shot while confidently retorting to Vincent: "Hey, I'm back!", in Martin Scorsese's sequel to the original film The Hustler (1961).

The life-inspiring scene in which three seniors: Art Selwyn (Oscar-winning Don Ameche), Ben Luckett (Wilford Brimley), and Joe Finley (Hume Cronyn) are rejuvenated to life after swimming in the cocoon-filled swimming pool and exude vitality and spunk toward their wives and fellow retirement home residents; also Art's amazing solo break-dancing scene at a disco dance club - ending with his salute to the appreciative younger audience; the sexy scene in the swiming pool in which gorgeous Kitty (Tahnee Welch, Raquel Welch's daughter) demonstrated how alien Antareans express their affection ("we show ourselves...it's very fulfilling") - without touching - to charter boat operator Jack Bonner (Steve Guttenberg); the sad scene of the death of Bernie Lefkowitz's (Jack Gilford) wife Rosie (Herta Ware) after which he carried her limp body over to the non-functioning life-giving pool near the Florida retirement community to vainly revive her; also the goodbye scene of Ben telling his grandson David (Barret Oliver) goodbye while standing knee-deep in water - and what he would miss on Earth (grandsons, fishing holes, hotdogs, baseball games, etc.) by going away forever to another planet, but also what he would gain ("When we get where we're going, we'll never be sick, we won't get any older, and we won't ever die"); and the scene of the boat-load of seniors being transported upward into a departing Antarean spaceship for the unknown planet in the finale, in Ron Howard's sci-fi fantasy.

The many insults and attempts by corrupt real estate salesman and hotel manager Hammer (Groucho Marx) at courting wealthy widow Mrs. Potter (Margaret Dumont): ("Are you sure your husband's dead?...Tonight, when the moon is sneaking around the clouds, I'll be sneaking around you"); also the crazy scene between two adjoining hotel rooms, and the famous "viaduct"/"Why a Duck?" routine between con man Chico (Chico Marx) and Hammer with a wet blueprint: (Hammer: "Now here is a little peninsula and here is a viaduct leading over to the mainland." Chico: "Why a duck?"); the rigged land auction scene led by Hammer ("You can have any kind of a home you want to. You can even get stucco. Oh, how you can get stucco") during which Chico does most of the bidding; and the "I Want My Shirt" scene after the brothers have played tic-tac-toe on Detective Hennessey's (Basil Ruysdael) undershirt, in the Marx Brothers' first film.

The discovery in a northern Mexico desert during a sandstorm of a collection of vintage fighter aircraft from World War II, the scene of the lights/power going out section by section in Indiana, the moment at a railroad crossing when electrician Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) signals a second vehicle to pass his truck - and the UFO unexpectedly rises and bathes him in brilliant light, young Barry's (Cary Guffey) view of the swirling clouds, his exclamation "toys" when his playthings are brought to life, and the opening of his door to an orangish light-show; the encounter of "the third kind" when everything goes haywire in the house and a mesmerized Barry is abducted by aliens, the recurring mental images of a huge mountain, the pattern of musical sound waves in five tones that signals communication; the scene of the dazzling hovering and the first sight of the arrival and landing at Devils Tower (Wyoming) of an immense, circular, revolving alien 'mother-ship' in the presence of newsmen and scientists; and the finale in which the doors open, humans who have been missing emerge, and Roy is chosen or 'adopted' and taken into the 'mother-ship' craft, and one of the aliens says farewell with hand signals to UN scientist Claude Lacombe (Francois Truffaut), in Steven Spielberg's memorable sci-fi film.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) is director/writer Steven Spielberg's first film after the enormously successful blockbuster Jaws (1975). Appearing in the late 1970s, it was a soulful, beguiling, magical, and benevolent look at 'close encounters.' Although the film appeared during the post-Watergate period and exhibited an obvious distaste for government intervention, its optimistic, loving portrayal of alien encounters was unusual, and set it apart from most science-fiction alien-encounter films of an earlier era. The film's proposed original title was to be "Watch the Skies," the closing words from the science-fiction classic The Thing From Another World (1951). One of the film's posters declared: "We are not alone."

The transcendent film followed the odyssey of various characters, including an obsessed, middle-class power lineman named Roy Neary (Dreyfuss, who had earlier appeared in Spielberg's Jaws, but was offered the part only after tough-actor Steve McQueen declined) and a distraught mother named Gillian (Dillon), and her young son Barry (Guffey), as they are inexplicably lured to a volcano-like mountain in Wyoming, to experience a spectacular, extra-terrestrial encounter. As a high school junior, Spielberg's first feature film, shot in 8 mm, was Firelight (1964) - the inspirational precursor to this film, about a town terrorized by UFOs.

The film was shot in various locales worldwide: at Devils Tower in Wyoming, Alabama, California, Mexico, and India. Spielberg also had cast notable director Francois Truffaut in the film in a major role (modeled after French UFO expert Jacques Vallee). The film resembled, in part, aspects of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959), and various portions and themes of Close Encounters would be repeated in Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

The screenplay (finished by Spielberg from an original script by Paul Schrader) was based upon the book, The UFO Experience (1972), written by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who served as the film's technical advisor (and appeared in a bit cameo part during the final scene). The highly personal, expensive project of Spielberg's was first released for Columbia Studios in 1977 - then, a re-edited theatrical Special Edition, authorized by the director himself, was released three years later in 1980, with some tightening of the original version [cutting the scene in which Roy Neary throws dirt into his family's house to recreate his vision of the mountainous mound] and some additional scenes - mostly footage of Neary's entrance into the interior of the giant spacecraft at the film's conclusion. Spielberg also released a 'director's cut' version in 1998, and a 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition in 2007.

This awe-inspiring film is one of the most dazzling UFO science fiction films ever made, although it has pre-digital special effects. Douglas Trumbell's visual and special effects of the Mother Ship are spectacular, ushering in - with Lucas' Star Wars (1977) of the same year - a flood of Hollywood films featuring special effects. It was Columbia Pictures' biggest grossing film up to that time, and helped to usher in the era of the blockbuster sci-fi/fantasy film.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences nominated it for eight awards: Best Supporting Actress (Melinda Dillon), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, and Best Cinematography. Its sole award was for Best Cinematography by cameraman Vilmos Zsigmond, but it was also honored with a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing.

Publicity for the film distinguished the varying levels of encounters with aliens:

CLOSE ENCOUNTER
of the First Kind
Sighting of a UFO

CLOSE ENCOUNTER
of the Second Kind
Physical Evidence
(of an Alien Landing)

CLOSE ENCOUNTER
of the Third Kind
Contact (with Aliens)

WE ARE NOT ALONE

The opening scene is the first of over a half dozen set-pieces of 'close encounters,' all seemingly unconnected events, that provide clues, which ultimately culminate in the extraordinary climax of the film. There are numerous 'sightings' and calls from a mothership in outer space, signaled by five-notes. A French UFO expert deciphers a way to replicate the integral five notes (similar to Disney's "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Pinocchio (1940)), and lure the mothership to land on Earth at a volcanic formation - a geographic focal point. Through music, images, and dialogue, the random scenes of the storyline are masterfully coalesced together.

First Close Encounter: Sonora Desert, Mexico

The film begins in darkness following some initial credits - as orchestral sounds build in volume, a brilliant flash of light fills the screen. [Communication, in the form of the interplay between music (sounds) and light (images), plays a significant role in the film.] A jeep arrives, in the present day, at its destination deep in the Sonora Desert, in a sand-swept village in northern Mexico. It is difficult for the waiting Mexican Federales Police to hear the words of the team leader over the howling sandstorm: "Are we the first?...Are we the first to arrive here?"

Shouting over the storm in Mexican, another of the Federales is impossible to understand without an interpreter. A second car arrives, and the newcomers lean into the wind, holding onto their caps. One of the men, identifying himself as a cartographer ("I'm a mapmaker") and not a professional interpreter, David Laughlin (Bob Balaban) is able to "translate French into English and English into French." Laughlin recognizes the French-speaking scientific team leader, Claude Lacombe (French director Francois Truffaut in his American acting debut, playing a role based upon French UFO expert Jacques Vallee) from his appearance at the Montsoreau conference.

Lacombe: How long have you been working on this project?
Laughlin: I've been with the American team from the beginning. In fact, I saw you at the Montsoreau conference which ended well, especially for you. Especially for the French. If it isn't too late - my congratulations.

They are summoned by one of the Americans, shouting and pointing: "They're all there, all of them!" Everyone runs through the sandstorm, which begins subsiding, to a collection of vintage fighter aircraft from World War II - in pristine condition. Lacombe orders the serial numbers of the planes transcribed off their engine blocks. Laughlin is confused: "What the hell is happening here?" One of the mission project leaders (J. Patrick McNamara) explains:

Project Leader: It's that training mission from the Naval Air Station in Ft. Lauderdale...
Laughlin: Who flies crates like these anymore?
Project Leader: No one. These planes were reported missing in 1945. 
Laughlin: But it looks brand new. Where's the pilot? I don't understand. Where's the crew? Hey! How the hell did it get here?

Laughlin poses unanswerable questions, as the leader finds personal effects in the cockpit of one of the planes - sepia photographs and a 1945 calendar from a bar in Pensacola, Florida. The vintage torpedo bombers have charged batteries and full fuel tanks. One after another, the engines of the planes are throttled up and brought to life. Trying to figure out the enigma, Lacombe is brought to a cantina to speak to one of the local Mexicans who was an eyewitness to the inexplicable events that happened the previous night. The old derelict's half-crazed face is brightly sunburned and he sheds tears of joy:

Old Man: El sol salio anoche y me canto!
Translator: He says the sun came out last night. He says it sang to him.

Laughlin gazes up to an unfocused point in space and time as the sand-swept scene shifts to the sweeping viewer of a radar screen at Air Traffic Control, Indianapolis Center.

Second Close Encounter: Indianapolis, Indiana Air Traffic Control Center

Air traffic controllers, almost three thousand miles away from the Mexican desert, keep watch over the skies above Indiana. They monitor pilot's communications, airplane locations, and general aircraft activity to keep the skies safe:

AirEast Pilot (Roy E. Richards): Indianapolis Center, do you have any traffic for AirEast 31?
Air Traffic Controller: AirEast 31, negative. The only traffic I have is a TWA L-1011 in your six o'clock position. Range - fifteen miles. There's an Allegheny DC-9 in your twelve o'clock position, fifty miles. Stand by one. I'll take a look at Broadband.
AirEast Pilot: AirEast 31 has traffic two o'clock, slightly above and descending.
Air Traffic Controller: AirEast 31, Roger. I have a primary target about that position now. I have no known high-altitude traffic. Stand by one. I'll check Low [Altitude]. Over...
AirEast Pilot: AirEast 31. The traffic's not lower than us. He's one o'clock now, still above me and descending.
Air Traffic Controller: AirEast 31. Can you say aircraft type?
AirEast Pilot: Negative, Center. No distinct outline. To tell you the truth, the target is rather brilliant. It has the brightest anti-collision lights I think I've ever seen - alternating white to red. The colors are a little striking.
TWA Pilot: Center, this is TWA 517. Traffic now looks like extra bright landing lights. I thought AirEast had his landing lights on.

As the not-so-routine communications continue, a few of the other Traffic Controllers crowd around the computerized radar screen as an UNK (Unknown) radar blip in the air-position display shows up next to the other two planes. The controllers can hardly comprehend what they are seeing - an imminent air collision. The controller orders evasive action by the AirEast and Allegheny pilots to avoid a catastrophe:

AirEast Pilot: OK Center. AirEast 31. The traffic has turned. He's heading right for my windshield. We're turning right... [A CONFLICT ALERT sounds]
Air Traffic Controller: AirEast 31, descend and maintain flight level three-one-zero. Break, Allegheny triple four. Turn right thirty degrees immediately...
AirEast Pilot: AirEast 31, Roger. The traffic is quite luminous and is exhibiting some non-ballistic motion. Over.
Air Traffic Controller: Roger, AirEast 31. Continue to send at your discretion, over.
AirEast Pilot: OK, Center. Center pilot's discretion is approved. The traffic is approaching head-on...and really moving. Went by us, right now. That was really close.

One of the supervisors leans over the controller's shoulder to document the unidentified flying object, but the two pilots who witnessed the incident decline to report the unusual circumstances:

Supervisor: Ask them if they want to report officially.
Air Traffic Controller: TWA 517, do you want to report a UFO? Over. [No response] TWA 517, do you want to report a UFO? Over.
TWA Pilot: Negative. We don't want to report.
Air Traffic Controller: AirEast 31, do you wish to report a UFO? Over.
AirEast Pilot: Negative. We don't want to report one of those either.
Air Traffic Controller: AirEast 31, do you wish to file a report of any kind to us?
AirEast Pilot: I wouldn't know what kind of report to file, Center.
Air Traffic Controller: AirEast 31, me neither. I'll try to track traffic and destination, over.

Third Close Encounter: Muncie, Indiana

On a summer, star-lit, breezy night in Muncie, Indiana, a young innocent child named Barry Guiler (Cary Guffey) awakens from a dreamy sleep in his country house. The blowing trees outside his window cast moving shadows across his pillow and rustle the curtains. Inexplicably but intentionally, a mechanical toy monkey on his dresser begins moving manically - it noisily clashes its two cymbals together. Barry sits up from the noise and clamor, noticing that other mechanical objects and toys in his room are buzzing and have also sprung into action - his phonograph player begins to spin, the head of a ghoulish monster turns red and the figure moves its outstretched hands, and his play-toy vehicles start cruising around. As the aliens converge, a round beam of light dances on the wall of the stairway - he follows it down as it leads him out to the screen door of the porch. Through the door, he can see more brilliant light, and drifting smoke.

When he hears a sound behind him, the boy turns toward the kitchen - Coke cans drip their contents onto the floor in front of the opened refrigerator. Grocery items (egg cartons, raw meat, carrots, bacon, etc.) are in a messy heap that lead toward the pet-door. With an enchanted look on his face, as if called by an invisible presence that only he senses, Barry irresistibly follows the sounds and is spirited away by the aliens into a field.

Upstairs, Barry's young single mother Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon) is roused from her sleep by an invasion of her son's activated toys and the fact that her television set has been turned on. Thinking it's her son playing a trick on her, she calls out for him: "Barry? Honey?" But when she enters her son's room, he is missing. Still grasping one of the moving toys, she sees a gleeful Barry running from the house toward the woods, giggling and amused as he disappears into the night. She entreats him to stop, fearfully but helplessly calling: "Barry! Barry!"

Fourth Close Encounter: Muncie, Indiana
A Close Encounter of the First Kind

In a Muncie, Indiana suburban home in Middle America, blue-collar lineman Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) is playing with a toy train set in the center of his family's living room. [A music box plays Jiminy Cricket's theme song: "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Disney's Pinocchio (1940).] The television is playing the four-hour movie,The Ten Commandments (1956) - because of its length, Roy is going to allow his children to see only half of it: "I told them they'd watch only five." His wife Ronnie (Teri Garr) answers a phone call from foreman Earl, who asks for Roy - one of his power company technicians:

Neary, listen to me now, get over to the Gilmore substation. We have lost the power up and down the line. There's a drain on the primary voltage. [The lights go out.] We've lost half the transformers at the Kennedy substation.

Lights throughout town begin to go dark as the progressive power failure spreads quickly across the power grid. Soon, the entire area has been engulfed in darkness. All the alarms blink as Roy briskly enters the Department of Water and Power substation to investigate the source of the power drain. Reports are flowing in about the massive power-cut: "Crystal Lake is dark...Tolono is completely gone." One of the technicians recommends a strategy to deal with the failing system: "Let it all fail. Let it all fail. We'll pick up the pieces later after it's fallen." A temporary supervisor thinks that's impossible: "I got reports of vandalism on the line. I got eight 90-megawatt lines down all over." Neary is knowledgeable about the Crystal Lake area: "There's no wind, normal tension for the sag is 15,000 pounds per wire." So he is appointed, without regard to seniority, to go to Crystal Lake because he worked there as a journeyman a few years earlier.

As Neary prepares to leave, another report shows how serious the problems really are: "Got a fresh impedance coming up. It's not an overload. It's a drain. Lines M-Mary ten through M-Mary fifteen. And Municipal Lighting is asking to be cut free." The supervisor replies: "You tell Municipal Lighting we're going to candle power in ten minutes."

Meanwhile, Jillian searches desperately for her son near their home, using a flashlight to guide her way. Distraught, she calls out: "Barry! Barry!"

In a memorable scene (an encounter with a UFO spacecraft), Roy is lost on the road en route to Crystal Lake when sent to investigate a power blackout. He chuckles to himself: "Help, I'm lost." While his face is buried in a roadmap to get his bearings, he sees a set of bright lights approaching from behind his truck. Without looking, he casually waves on the car, and is reprimanded: "You're in the middle of the road, you jack-ass." He proceeds to a railroad crossing and pulls to a screeching stop to once again check his map. Another set of bright lights approaches behind him - they illuminate the interior of his truck with brilliant light. Again, he waves the vehicle past while engrossed in studying his map. But instead of going around, the intense lights rise straight up like a rocket above his truck.

The first indication that something isn't right occurs when his flashlight catches sight of a row of rattling, jiggling mailboxes moving back and forth like they were in an earthquake. Suddenly, his flashlight, radio and other electrical lights shut off. From above, his truck is bathed in blinding, powerful rays of luminescent light. An array of colorful lights overwhelms his sight, and a deep-toned, thunderous, musical vibration envelopes his truck. There is an apparent loss of all gravitational force - the railroad crossing signal rocks back and forth, the electrical system indicators in the cab dashboard go haywire and smoke, and debris flies randomly around the interior of the cab. And then, just as suddenly as it began, the vibrations and rockings of the visitation cease, and the lights blink out. After all the commotion, the stillness is deafening - a lone dog barks off in the distance.

Roy trembles, leans forward, and peers upwards through his windshield, glancing at a gigantic, slow-moving, flying object in the night sky. For an instant, a narrow beam of intense light shines down on a stop light further down the road. He nearly suffers a heart attack when his flashlight suddenly turns back on. His truck's engine, radio, and electrical system instruments all begin functioning again. He tunes in to a flood of reports about fantastic sightings and other UFO encounters:

I don't believe this. It's big as a house. It's crazy, shaped like a barn. It's just off the Tolono Expressway, heading east toward Harper Valley

Trembling, but interested in pursuing the unidentified phenomenon, Roy takes off in pursuit without a second thought. The moon's light casts an ominous shadow of the UFO over his infinitesimally-small truck as he drives through the rural countryside. Excited by his experience, but not knowing the meaning of his new-found obsession, he recklessly races through the night toward Harper Valley.

In another area of the greater Muncie, Indiana landscape, little Barry has wandered away from home and trekked down the center of a remote country road on a hilltop - Crescendo Summit. He comes upon four simple folk in a family - they are peaceful and friendly - inexplicably drawn to watch the skies. The father is whistling in familiar anticipation: "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain." The little stranger timidly waves at them. At that moment, Jill scrambles up from the side of the road and spots Barry - but he is in the path of Neary's fast-moving truck speeding around the bend. Jillian dives and tackles her transfixed son to save him from being hit in the truck's path. Roy races to them after braking and fighting his truck for control - he apologizes: "I'm sorry. I didn't even see him. He was just standing right in the middle of the road."

Fifth Close Encounter: Muncie, Indiana

Unshaken by the incident, Barry breaks free from his mother's arms and dashes out into the hill-top road again - while calling out to the sky: "Hello. Come here...Play with me." As they stand there, a squadron of three rumbling, high-speed, multi-colored vehicles - each with a different configuration of lights - come over the horizon and fly low over the road - the objects gracefully pass over them in a smooth, sweeping motion and vanish around the bend. A smaller, glowing red spot of light, akin to Tinker Bell, trails the other flying objects. Jillian, Roy, and the boy witness three of the alien spacecraft, apparently controlled by intelligent beings. Barry yells after them: "Ice cream!" The old man of the family reverentially opines:

They can fly rings around the moon, but we're years ahead of them on the highway.

The undulating wailing of police car sirens are heard in the distance - Jillian moves off the road just in time - three police cars scream around the bend in pursuit of the colorful objects. Neary is astounded by the evening's events: "This is nuts!" Unconsciously, Roy decides to follow the caravan of police cars in his truck, heading for the OHIO STATE LINE toll booth. The UFO's fly through the toll booth, setting off alarms, closely followed by the police cars and Roy's truck.

The patrol car driver in the lead car is mesmerized by the high-speed caravan of UFO's and their flying lights: "Jesus...Look at that! Look at those suckers. They're glued to the road!" At a hair-pin turn, the objects shoot up and over the guardrail and sail off into the heavens. The first pursuit car follows the objects and goes airborne for a few moments before crashing below. The other vehicles screech to a halt at the guard rail on the cliffside. The fantastic lights in the sky fuse to become one while they recede, and then at a tremendous velocity, they split into three points of light before climbing and disappearing into the cloud cover. The clouds are illuminated by bursts of light from within just before the electrical lights of the city are restored across the horizon.

Returning home at four in the morning, Roy is ecstatic and wakens his sleepy wife, unable to calm down: "Honey, Ronnie. Wake up. You're not gonna believe what I saw!...I never would have believed it. There was this, uh, in the cab, there was this...it was a red whoosh." Sleepily, she tells him that he has been instructed to call the power department immediately: "I think you'd better call them." He is so excited that he cannot find words to explain his experience to her: "You know, those pictures in the National Geographic about the Aurora Borealis. This was better than that." He insistently begs her to get up: "Ronnie, I need you to see something with me. It's really important." He also awakens the kids: "Silvia [Adrienne Campbell], come on. We're going on a little adventure. Toby! [Justin Dreyfuss] Brad! [Shawn Bishop] Come on. Get up. Up!...It's better than Goofy Golf!"

As he bundles everyone into his truck, Ronnie notices that the left side of Roy's face is sunburned and beet red: "Roy, you're sunburned! Look at you!" At the spot on the road on Crescendo Summit where he saw the indescribable objects, Roy tries to describe what he witnessed:

Ronnie: Roy, what did it look like?
Roy: It was like an ice cream cone. 
Ronnie: What flavor?
Roy: Orange. It was orange - and it wasn't like an ice cream cone. It was, it was more like a shell. You know, it was like this. 
Ronnie: Like a taco? Was it like one of those Sara Lee, um, moon-shaped cookies? Those crescent cookies? (trying to be supportive) Don't you think I'm taking this really well? I remember when we used to come to places like this just to look at each other...and snuggle.

After many smaller kisses, Ronnie gets Roy's mind off the skies for a few moments, and they snuggle together. But his life-transforming experience is foremost on his mind.

Sixth Close Encounter: Gobi Desert, Mongolia

Native Mongolians with rifles slung over their shoulders, while leading camels through the desert, witness three white vehicles, marked UN and flying blue UN flags, as they zoom over a sand dune in the Gobi Desert. The vehicles are pursued by two military helicopters, as they are directed toward an amazing sight - a stranded freighter named COTOPAXI lying in the deep sand. Everyone exclaims and asks: "I don't believe it...Why is it here?"

The opening close-up of slyly grinning hoodlum Alex (Malcolm McDowell) with one eye decorated with a false eyelash staring directly at the camera, followed by the pull-back view of him lounging with his 'droogie' friends in a milk bar with white furniture of nude women - accompanied by the voice-over beginning with: "There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs...," the delinquent gang's stylized "ultra-violence" rampages including the fight scene in an old theatre with a rival gang synchronized with music from Rossini's The Thieving Magpie, the scene at novelist Mr. Alexander's (Patrick Magee) futuristic home when the droogs wear masks and deliver brutal kicks to the old man's body during the rape of his wife - rhythmically punctuated with the lyrics of Singin' In The Rain, the persistent use of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Alex's ecstasy: "Oh bliss, bliss and heaven..."; the sped-up, slapstick orgy scene accompanied by the William Tell Overture in Alex's bedroom with two teenage girls that he just met at a record store, the scene of Alex's brutalization of the 'Catlady' (Miriam Karlin) with an enormous penis sculpture/weapon, Alex's "aversion therapy" brainwashing against sex and violence with his eyes painfully held open, and the scene with an almost-nude woman to demonstrate its effectiveness, the use of unique doublespeak slang-dialogue throughout, and Alex's final closeup and line: "I was cured all right," with his fantasy of frolicking in slow-motion on piles of white snow while making love to (or raping?) a nude woman, while two rows of Victorian Londoners sedately applauded, followed by Gene Kelly's original rendition of Singin' in the Rain during the end credits, in Stanley Kubrick's futuristic film adapted from Anthony Burgess' novel.

 A Clockwork Orange (1971) is producer-director-screenwriter Stanley Kubrick's randomly ultra-violent, over-indulgent, graphically-stylized film of the near future. It was a terrifying, gaudy film adaptation of Anthony Burgess' 1962 satiric, futuristic novel of the same name. This was Kubrick's ninth feature film, appearing between 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Barry Lyndon (1975).

The luridly-colorful set designs by John Barry, costume design by Milena Canonero, the synthesized electronic score by Wendy Carlos [sometimes credited as Walter Carlos - her birth name until undergoing a sex-change operation in 1972 to became Wendy], the colorful and innovative cinematography by John Alcott, and the hybrid, jargonistic, pun-filled language of Burgess' novel (called Nadsat - an onomatopoetic, expressive combination of English, Russian, and slang), produce a striking, unforgettable film. Some words are decipherable in their contextual use, or as anglicized, portmanteau, rhymed, or clever transformations or amputations of words. Originally, the rock group The Rolling Stones were considered for the main cast roles of Alex and his droogs, until Kubrick joined the production.

The controversial film's title and other names in the film have meaning. The title alludes to:

a clockwork (mechanical, artificial, robotic) human being (orange - similar to orang-utan, a hairy ape-like creature), and the Cockney phrase from East London, "as queer as a clockwork orange" - indicating something bizarre internally, but appearing natural, human, and normal on the surface

The film's poster and tagline advertised its themes of violence in a police state, teen delinquency, technological control, and dehumanization:

Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven.

Originally rated X, A Clockwork Orange was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Screenplay, but was defeated in each category by William Friedkin's The French Connection (1971). It was one of only two movies rated X on its original release (the other was Midnight Cowboy (1969)) that was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award.

To underline the assaultive nature of the film's content, much of its camera work is deliberately in-out, with few pans or much lateral/horizontal movement. Because of the copy-cat violence that the film was blamed for, Kubrick withdrew it from circulation in Britain about a year after its release. [Shortly after the ban was instituted, a 17-year old Dutch girl was raped in 1973 in Lancashire, at the hands of men singing Singing in the Rain. And a 16-year-old boy had beaten a younger child while wearing Alex's uniform of white overalls, black bowler hat and combat boots. Both were considered 'proof', after the fact, that the film had an influential effect on violence in society.] In preparation for a new 1972 release for US audiences, Kubrick replaced about 30 seconds of footage to get an R-rating, as opposed to the X-rating that the MPAA initially assigned to it. (The replacement footage was for two scenes: the high-speed orgy scene in Alex's bedroom, and the rape scene projected at the Ludovico Medical Center.) In the spring of 2000, an uncut version of the film was re-released to British screens.

The frightening, chilling and tantalizing film (a morality play) raises many thematic questions and presents a thought-provoking parable: How can evil be eradicated in modern society? If the state can deprive an individual of his free will, making him 'a clockwork orange,' what does this say about the nightmarish, behavioral modification technologies of punishment and crime? Do we lose our humanity if we are deprived of the free-will choice between good and evil?

The title of the film plays upon an orange-shaded background. The setting of the film is England in the near future [later in the film, the police wear an emblem of Elizabeth II on their lapels]. In the background, gothic-sounding organ plays Purcell's 'Elegy on the Death of Queen Mary' - a funereal dirge. [The music was played on an electronic organ by pioneering synthesist Wendy (or Walter) Carlos.]

The opening memorable image is an intimate closeup of the blue staring eyes and smirking face of ebullient young punker Alex de Large (Malcolm McDowell), wearing a bowler hat and with one false eyelash (upper and lower) adorning his right eye. His cufflinks and suspenders are ornamentally decorated with a bloody, ripped-out eyeball.

[This menacing closeup is known as the 'Kubrick' stare, with the head tilted down and slightly to the side, with penetrating eyes staring forward from behind the eyebrow line. The same stare was also prominently found in Kubrick's works: Dr. Strangelove, Or: (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968),Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999).]

As the camera zoom pulls back, the anti-hero character with the malevolent, cold stare is shown sitting amidst his kingly court of teenaged gang of "droogs" - Georgie (James Marcus), Dim (Warren Clarke), and Pete (Michael Tarn). The young hoodlums wear oversized, protective cod-pieces to flaunt their sexuality, over their all-white combat suits. [Their names are symbolic: Alex represents the heroic and majestic leader Alexander the Great, but in this case "A-lex" - a man without law or 'a law unto himself.' A-lex literally means 'without law.' The droogs have Russian names, e.g., Dim is probably a shortened version of Dimitri.]

In front of them and also forming a corridor on either side of the camera are grotesque forms of art work in a mood of futuristic nihilism - sculpted, sleek, hygienic white-fiber glass nude furniture and statues of submissive women either kneeling or in a back-bending position on all fours as tables. Colors are absent except for the artificial orlon wigs and pubic hair.

The visually-brilliant film is narrated by Alex, the film's main hero/protagonist:

Alex (voice-over): There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.

In the Korova Milkbar, spiked, hallucinogenic drink concoctions (called "milk-plus") served from the nippled breasts of the coin-operated mannequins are automatically laced with drugs to alter their minds and get them ready for entertainment - a bit of "the old ultra-violence." They are looking forward to a night of sado-sexual escapades (beatings, pillaging, mayhem, break-ins and rape). The teen-aged boys, wearing zoned-out, pathological expressions on their faces and assuming arrogant poses, are preparing to go on a rampage led by Alex.

Visually, they are harshly backlit and project elongated shadows ahead of them as they walk through the darkened streets with billyclubs, wearing white trousers and white suspenders to match, black combat boots and derbies. Every night, they commit stylized but meaningless acts of terrorism including rape ("the old in-out, in-out"), robbery, and mugging.

The youth gang beat up a drunken bum (Paul Farrell) who has sought refuge in a gutter under a pedestrian underpass, while singing "Molly Malone." The "filthy, dirty old drunkie" taunts them and is severely beaten after masochistically bemoaning the state of affairs in the present society - "a stinking world" where the young show no respect for the elderly:

Alex (voice-over): One thing I could never stand was to see a filthy, dirty old drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blerp, blerp in between, as it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to see anyone like that, whatever his age might be, but more especially when he was real old like this one was. (The boys stop and applaud the Tramp's singing)
Tramp: Can you spare some cutter, me brothers? (Alex rams his club into the tramp's stomach) Go on, do me in, you bastard cowards. I don't want to live anyway...not in a stinking world like this.
Alex: Oh...and what's so stinking about it?
Tramp: It's a stinking world because there's no law and order any more. It's a stinking world because it lets the young get onto the old, like you done. Oh...it's no world for an old man any longer. What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon, and men spinning around the earth, and there's not no attention paid to earthly law and order no more.

On the soundtrack, a balletic overture of violins and woodwinds plays, as the camera pans down from a gilded prosceneum above the stage of a derelict, abandoned opera house/casino, a symbol of collapsed civilization. Operatic screams and waltztime music are heard as a young woman struggles during an acrobatically-delivered molestation. On stage, the buxom rape victim or 'devotchka' (Shirley Jaffe) has her clothes torn off by five other mad-faced delinquents from a rival gang. The leader, Billyboy (Richard Connaught) and his gang of droogs wear remnants of old Nazi uniforms:

Alex (in voice-over): It was around by the derelict casino that we came across Billyboy and his four droogs. They were getting ready to perform a little of the old in-out, in-out on a weepy young devotchka they had there.

From the shadows, Alex and his gang observe the preparation for the rape, and then - preferring violence to sex, challenge them to a fight on the rubbish-strewn floor with a youthful, sexual insult: "How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunich jelly thou." The old-fashioned, stylized rumble, a quick-edited succession of violent images performed as a balletic dance, is dazzling - synchronized with the building music from Rossini's The Thieving Magpie (La Gazza Ladra). In slap-stick style, the adolescent gangs flash switchblades, hurl each other through furniture and plate glass windows, and use judo to smash each other about. Bodies fly through the air, leap and somersault; chairs smash heads.

When a police siren alerts them to the arrival of police, Alex and his gang escape - crammed into a stolen sports car - a Durango-95. [The car's model, aka Probe 16, was a concept car produced in the year 1970. Is this an anachronism or not? Does it imply that the film's setting was approximately the same as the time of the film's release? Note: the 95 in the car's title refers to the car's model number - it doesn't refer to the year 1995.] The vehicle is a low-slung, fast, phallic-shaped car headed into the black night of the countryside. Driving at reckless speed in a rush toward the camera (with the sides of the road receding behind them), they play "chicken" with other vehicles, exhilarated by the panic and excitement of forcing other cars and drivers off the road:

Alex (voice-over): The Durango-95 purred away real horrorshow - a nice, warm, vibraty feeling all through your guttiwuts. Soon, it was trees and dark, my brothers, with real country dark. We fillied around for a while with other travellers of the night, playing hogs of the road. Then we headed west, what we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick and good for laughs and lashings of the old ultra-violence.

At an opulent residence welcomingly marked with a lit "HOME" panel sign, the four sneak up toward the door of the ultra-modern home, a monstrosity of futuristic architectural design. The home is the residence of the Alexanders. The elderly husband Frank Alexander (Patrick Magee), a left-leaning writer, taps away at his IBM typewriter in a book-shelved section of the home. His wife Mrs. Alexander (Adrienne Corri), wearing a red pajama suit, reads in a white plastic chair. When the doorbell rings (to the chimed tune of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony!) and she answers, Alex pleads and claims that there has been "a terrible accident" and he must use their phone to call an ambulance: "It's a matter of life and death." She hesitates to let him in, suspicious of night callers. But Mr. Alexander acquiesces to the passionate request and permits entry.

When she unlatches the door, the gang bursts in to bring a nightmarish form of entertainment - they are wearing bizarre comical masks. Alex has a grotesque, phallic-nosed face mask. Dim slings Mrs. Alexander over his shoulder and fondles her. Mr. Alexander is assaulted and kicked on the floor by Alex who ironically punctuates his rhythmic, soft-shoe kick-dance with the lyrics of "Singin' in the Rain." The scene is one of the most disturbing scenes in the film, with its juxtaposition of the familiar lyrics of playful music from a classic film with slapstick comedy, brutality and horrible ultra-violence:

I'm singin' in the rain, Just singin' in the rain...
What a glorious feeling, I'm happy again..
I'm laughing at clouds, so dark up above..
The sun's in my heart, and I'm ready for love.
Let the stormy clouds chase, Everyone from the place
Come on with the rain, I've a smile on my face.
I'll walk down the lane, With a happy refrain
And I'm singin', just singin' in the rain.

The appearance of mirrors in the hallway implies that the rape is metaphorically executed over and over again, and also reflects the mental/psychological state of the victim. Both victims were bound and gagged, with a rubber ball painfully inserted into their mouths and wrapped with long strips of Scotch tape around their heads. Alex overturns the writer's desk, typewriter, and bookshelves. Mr. Alexander is forced to helplessly watch the ugly disrobing and choreographed rape of his own wife. A grown-up 'child,' Alex begins by first attacking her breasts - he first snips off two circles of jumpsuit cloth around them to expose them. In the mode of 'Jack the Ripper', he then slits her entire suit off from her pant leg upward. After unzipping and pulling his own pants down prior to her rape, he mocks the husband: "Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well."

After a long night of "energy expenditure," the group returns to the Korova Milkbar where they are seen sprawling against its black walls:

Alex (voice-over): We were all feeling a bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it having been an evening of some small energy expenditure, O my brothers. So we got rid of the auto and stopped off at the Korova for a nightcap.

At a nearby table where "some sophistos from the TV studios" are "laughing and govoreeting," the woman in the group suddenly has a "burst of singing" with a short section of Schiller's Ode to Joy chorale movement from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. For Alex, it is a moment of pure ecstasy:

Alex (voice-over): And it was like for a moment, O my brothers, some great bird had flown into the milkbar and I felt all the malenky little hairs on my plott standing endwise and the shivers crawling up like slow malenky lizards and then down again. Because I knew what she sang. It was a bit from the glorious Ninth, by Ludwig van.

After Dim blows a raspberry at the singer, Alex smashes him across the legs with his cane for lack of respect ("for being a bastard with no manners") for his favorite, beloved composer. The oafish Dim whines and whimpers and shows dissatisfaction and discontent with Alex's leadership: "I don't like you should do what you done. And I'm not your brother no more and wouldn't want to be...Yarbles, great bolshy yarblockos to you. I'll meet you with chain or nozh or britva any time. Not having you aiming tolchocks at me reasonless. It stands to reason, I won't have it." But Dim backs down and declines to fight and Alex lets the challenge go, for the moment.

He returns home to Municipal Flatblock 18a Linear North, where he lives with his "dadda and mum." In the ground-floor, trashed lobby of the depressing, unkempt building, a huge mural depicting the dignity of labor and noble citizens is defaced with obscene sexual graffiti. The elevator door is broken and Alex must take the stairs. The wall inside his room is decorated with an erotic, spread-eagled female image on one side, and a poster of Beethoven on the other. He puts his loot from the evening into a drawer already filled with stolen watches and wallets. In a second drawer, he checks his pet python. As "the perfect ending" to the "wonderful evening," Alex switches on a cassette tape of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. While musically appreciating his favorite composer and classical piece, he lies back on his bed. His pet python phallically explores the exposed crotch area of the female figure on the wall.

During the drugged reverie of listening to Beethoven in his combination-locked bedroom, Alex moans orgiastically: "Oh bliss, bliss and heaven. Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest spun heaven metal, or like silvery wine flowing in a space ship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied I knew such lovely pictures." Spaced-out pictures from Alex's hallucinogenic, sado-masochistic dreams are flashed in images on-screen [as Alex allegedly masturbates - just out of the viewable frame]:

Quick-cuts of four plastic, tap-dancing bleeding, crucifix Jesuses
A white-dressed woman dropping through the trap-door floor as she is hung by the neck and viewed by leering men from above
A close-up of Alex's face as he laughs maniacally and bares bloody fangs
Exploding rocks or a volcanic eruption
A fiery explosion
A rockslide avalanche crushing primitive Neanderthal men

The next morning, his financially hard-pressed, working-class parents Pee (Philip Stone) and Em (Sheila Raynor) are confused, apologetic, and apparently frightened by their son's devious behavior. Costumed in garish, mod outfits and drinking their morning coffee, they speak about him in the kitchenette of their ugly, knick-nack filled flat:

Pee (father): I wonder, where exactly is it he goes to work of evenings?
Em (mother): Well, like he says, it's mostly odd things he does, helping like, here and there as it might be.

After finally getting up, but feeling "a pain in the gulliver" and missing school, Alex plods around in his underwear and is surprised to discover his middle-aged, pudgy, social worker/probation officer ("Post Corrective Adviser") Mr. Deltoid (Aubrey Morris) in the apartment (he was given the key by Alex's mother on the way to work). A sexually-deviant adult, Deltoid is happy to have found the young boy before he has had a chance to get dressed. After having Alex sit on the bed next to him, he affectionately puts his arm around Alex's bare shoulders and speaks to him in the Nadsat lingo of youth:

...you watch out, little Alex, because next time it's not going to be the Corrective School anymore. Next time, it's going to be the barry place and all my work ruined. If you've no respect for your horrible self, you at least might have some for me who's sweated over you. A big black mark, I tell you, for every one we don't reclaim. A confession of failure for every one of you who ends up in the stripy hole.

As the rapacious and monstrous Deltoid shamelessly paws at Alex, and even makes a forceful grab at Alex's crotch, he informs Alex that he suspects the boy's involvement in the "nastiness" of the previous evening and demands reform:

Deltoid: There was a bit of a nastiness last night, yes. Some very extreme nastiness, yes. A few of a certain Billyboy's friends were ambulanced off late, yes? Your name was mentioned, the word has got thru to me by the usual channels. Certain friends of yours were named also. Oh, nobody can prove anything about anybody as usual, but I'm warning you, little Alex, being a good friend to you as always, the one man in this sore and sick community who wants to save you from yourself. (He forcefully grabs at Alex's crotch. Alex doubles over in pain, squirms away and rises. He drinks from a bedside glass of water, not noticing the pair of false-teeth floating within.) What gets into you all? We study the problem. We've been studying it for damn well near a century, yes, but we get no further with our studies. You've got a good home here, good loving parents, you've got not too bad of a brain. Is it some devil that crawls inside of you?
Alex: Nobody's got anything on me, brother, sir. I've been out of the rookers of the millicents for a long time now.
Deltoid: That's just what worries me. A bit too long to be safe. You're about due now by my reckoning. That's why I'm warning you, little Alex, to keep your handsome young proboscis out of the dirt. Do I make myself clear?
Alex: As an unmuddied lake, sir. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, sir.

In a flashy, mirrored, musical boutique, two teeny-boppers lick phallic-shaped (but droopy) icy lollipops. To the synthesized sounds of the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the stylishly-dressed Alex is filmed in an elaborate, 360 degree tracking shot as he struts through the record store [the soundtrack of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is on display at one of the counters, clearly an inside joke] and scrutinizes young females. After hunting around and inquiring about an order, he asks the pop-sucking little sisters: "A bit cold and pointless, isn't it, my lovely?" and then invites the two young boppers back to his room to listen to music on his elaborate hi-fi system:

What you got back home, little sister, to play your fuzzy warbles on? I bet you got little save pitiful portable picnic players. Come with uncle and hear all proper. Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are invited.

After getting them back to his room, a creatively-filmed high-speed, slapstick orgy scene occurs. The frenetically-paced orgy is staged to the tempo of the "William Tell Overture." Before sexual hijinks, he sprays underarm deodorant at them, and then they frolic in group sex upon his bed. Both teen nymphets undress, dress and undress again. [The scene was shot at twelve times normal film speed (at 2 frames per second). It took an actual 28 minutes to film, but lasts only 40 seconds on screen.]

Alex's mutinous droog gang are waiting for him in the squalid lobby of the apartment building when he comes downstairs. After grumbling about his "giving orders and discipline" and confronting him with his dictatorial treatment, they demand a "mansize crast" to go after the "big, big money":

Alex: Let's get things nice and sparkling clear. This sarcasm, if I may call it such, does not become you, O my little brothers. As I am your droog and leader, I am entitled to know what goes on, eh? Now then, Dim, what does that great big horsy gape of a grin portend?
Georgie: All right, no more picking on Dim, brother. That's part of the new way.
Alex: New way? What's this about a new way? There's been some very large talk behind my sleeping back, and no error.
Georgie: Well, if you must have it, have it then. We go around, shop crasting and the like, coming out with a pitiful rookerful of money each.
Dim: Pitiful rookerful.
Georgie: And there's Will the English, in the Muscleman coffee mesto, saying he can fence anything that any malchick tries to crast. The shiny stuff, the ice, the big, big, big money is available, is what Will the English says.
Dim: Big, big money.
Alex: And what will you do with the big, big, big money? Have you not everything you need? Have you not everything you need? If you need a motor car, you pluck it from the trees. If you need pretty polly, you take it.
Georgie: Brother, you think and talk sometimes like a little child.

To appease the dissidents' bitter disaffection, Alex offers to reconcile with them and suggests first buying them a round of drinks ("moloko-plus") at the Korova milkbar. They walk along the flatblock marina to the bar, in graceful slow-motion (in striking contrast to the high-speed orgy scene previously):

Alex (voice-over): As we walked along the flatblock marina, I was calm on the outside but thinking all the time. So now it was to be Georgie the General, saying what we should do, and what not to do, and Dim as his mindless, grinning bulldog. But, suddenly, I viddied that thinking was for the gloopy ones, and that the oomny ones used like inspiration and what Bog sends. For now it was lovely music that came to my aid. There was a window open, with a stereo on, and I viddied right at once what to do.

The opening, palm-sweating scene of stranded climber Sarah (Michelle Joyner) falling to her death into an abyss when her harness broke while attached to a taut steel cable thousands of feet above an abyss - and there was a vain attempt at a daring rescue by Gabe Walker (Sylvester Stallone); also the breathtaking scenery and helicopter shots, in Renny Harlin's action-thriller.

The appalling scene in which New Jersey video store clerk Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) orders X-rated stock (with really filthy titles like "Cum Clean") over the phone in front of customers at the counter - while a Mom (Connie O'Connor) and her young daughter wish to purchase "Happy Scrappy Hero Pup"; also the ludicrous Star Wars dialogue ("...any independent contractors who were working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when they were destroyed by the Rebels"), and the "I'm 37!?" scene when girlfriend Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti) tells a shocked Dante (Brian O'Halloran) the honest truth about her sexual history (Dante: "...I understood that you had sex with three different guys and that's all you said!...How many?...How many d--ks have you sucked?" and Veronica's reply: "Something like - 36..." and including him made 37), in this low-budget comedy by writer/director Kevin Smith.

The pageantry of the spectacular, triumphant entrance scene of Queen Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor) riding into the Eternal City of Rome on a giant sphinx behind a processional of dancers and chariots, and wearing an elaborate costume, in this expensive, over-budget sumptuous epic by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz.