Room at The Top

Paranoid Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper of Burpelson Air Force Base, he believing that fluoridation of the American water supply is a Soviet plot to poison the U.S. populace, is able to deploy through a back door mechanism a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union without the knowledge of his superiors, including the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Buck Turgidson, and President Merkin Muffley…

The Ballad of Narayama is legendary Japanese director Shohei Imamura’s riveting view of the harsh existence of pre-war rural life in Japan. The 1983 film, set in a rural mountain village is an artful blend of naturalistic drama and dark comedy, highlighting the customs of a people so tied to the land and the cycle of life and death that their customs dictate that when their elderly reach the age of 70, they must leave the village and ascend the mythical Narayama mountain to die, making way for a new life. It is a place where third sons are denied the pleasures of having a wife or any sort of sexual pleasures to keep the population down, unwanted boy children are put to death and girls are sold off for money…..

Five friends go up to a cabin in the woods, where they find unspeakable evil lurking in the forest. They find a tome called the "Necronomicon", Book of the Dead, and the taped translation of the text. Once the tape is played, the evil is released. One by one, the teens are possessed. With only one remaining, it is up to him to survive the night and battle the evil dead.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" - or, rather, a homicidal boy in Stanley Kubrick's eerie 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel. With wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and psychic son Danny (Danny Lloyd) in tow, frustrated writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) takes a job as the winter caretaker at the opulently ominous, mountain-locked Overlook Hotel so that he can write in peace. Before the Overlook is vacated for the Torrances, the manager (Barry Nelson) informs Jack that a previous caretaker went crazy and slaughtered his family; Jack thinks it's no problem, but Danny's "shining" hints otherwise…..

Five friends go up to a cabin in the woods, where they find unspeakable evil lurking in the forest. They find a tome called the "Necronomicon", Book of the Dead, and the taped translation of the text. Once the tape is played, the evil is released. One by one, the teens are possessed. With only one remaining, it is up to him to survive the night and battle the evil dead.

Life is hard in a Welsh mining town and no less so for the Morgan family. Seen through the eyes of the family's youngest, Huw, we learn of the family's trials and tribulations. Family patriarch Gwyllim and his older sons work in the mines, dangerous and unhealthy as it is. Gwyllim has greater hopes for younger son how to honor his hard working parents. Huw who has his own ideas on how to honor his father. Daughter Angharad is the most beautiful girl in the valley and is very much in love with Mr. Gruffydd who isn't sure he can provide her the life she deserves. Times are hard and good men find themselves out of work and exploited by unseen mine owners.

For the first time the Imperial War Museum allows cameras behind the scenes. Revealing the pressures faced and satisfaction felt by experts and volunteers as they work to preserve objects and stories from our wartime past.

Apocalypse Now is one of the great films. Photography, score, acting and direction are without flaw. Coppola never scaled such heights subsequently. It seems the sheer effort to produce such a work extinguished much of his creative spark. Stravinsky frightened himself with the awesome force of his Sacre Du Printemps, and changed directions after, never to match this achievement; Richard Strauss fled into Neo-romanticism after writing the disturbing Elektra and Salome, unable to equal their innovation and power. But these seminal works (Le Sacre, Salome, Elektra, Apocalypse Now) remain as peaks of Art. Like the great classics of literature, each viewing of this film reveals deeper levels of meaning. It's stupid to even apply an arbitrary rating to this work. It would be like writing, "Brothers Karamazov gets 5 out of 5." It cannot be rated.

Little House on the Prairie's fourth season, which premiered on September 12, 1977, proved to be the most successful in the series' run. Season four cracked the Nielsen Top Ten, and became the seventh-highest rated show of the 1977-78 television season, beating out mid-70s favorites such as M*A*S*H, Barney Miller, Soap, and The Love Boat. The most-watched episode in the series' history - the two part hanky-drowner "I'll Be Waving As You Drive Away" - garnered an Emmy nomination for Melissa Sue Anderson's harrowing portrayal of the blinded Mary Ingalls. The cast of Little House on the Prairie was on a roll in a season that, oddly enough, is all about change and a departure from the status quo. The fourth season sees the exit of beloved characters, the end of lingering storylines, the introduction of new friends, and some of the most startling plot developments to hit the series during its ten-year run.

In the fall of 1977, Victor French, who played the Ingalls' grizzled neighbor Mr. Edwards, left Little House to star in the ABC sitcom Carter Country. Strangely, the departure of Mr. Edwards (as well as his wife, postmistress Grace Snider-Edwards, and their adopted children Carl and Alicia), is never addressed. The family is simply gone from Walnut Grove (that is, until Carter Country was canceled and French returned solo). To replace Mr. Edwards, Michael Landon cast brawny Los Angeles Rams football star (and future FTD spokesman) Merlin Olsen as farmer Jonathan Garvey. Jonathan's wife, Alice (Hersha Parady), and young son Andy (Patrick Laborteaux) neatly fill the void left by the Edwards family: Alice serves as the town postmistress and Andy becomes a best friend to Laura (Melissa Gilbert).