Marion Ross

Rick Riker (Drake Bell) is an unpopular student at Empire High School. He lives with his Uncle Albert (Leslie Nielsen) and Aunt Lucille (Marion Ross). He has one friend and confidant, Trey (Kevin Hart). His crush is the breathtaking, Jill Johnson (Sara Paxton), who hardly notices him, is dating Lance Landers (Ryan Hansen), a bully who torments Rick. During a school field trip at an animal research lab, Rick meets Lou Landers (Christopher McDonald), who coughs up blood because he is terminally ill. Dr. Strom (Brent Spiner), the head researcher at the lab, presents his mutated dragonflies, one of which has escaped and bites Rick, and causes his neck to swell. By the time Rick returns home he is violently ill. Uncle Albert and Aunt Lucille believe Rick is acting strange, so Albert proceeds to talk to Rick about puberty, but Rick passes out from the bite. He wakes up five days later, tries to look up "dragonfly bite" online but is contacted by a stranger instead who wants to speak to him in person, later adding Rick as a friend on Facebook. Meanwhile, Lou Landers is involved in an accident during an experiment at the lab, transforming him into Hourglass, a villainous being who can siphon the life energy from others, killing them. During a science fair at school in which a comically rude and mean-spirited Stephen Hawking (Robert Joy) is present, Rick begins to experience strange physical traits, such as becoming stuck to objects, which creates a number of mishaps during the fair. Fleeing school, he discovers has developed superhuman abilities, such as the ability to walk on walls and superhuman strength, though he repeatedly laments throughout the film that he cannot fly. After testing his abilities, he pushes an elderly woman and her dog out of the way of an out-of-control truck, colliding with the truck himself. He is congratulated by passers-by, though he notices that the elderly woman he shoved out of the way landed into a wood-chipper and crushed, with her dog still on its leash. Rick reveals his secret to his uncle and Trey and the latter offers to become his sidekick, but Rick refuses. He and Uncle Albert have an argument, which spurs a flashback sequence in which a younger Rick and his parents (Robert Hays and Nicole Sullivan) are mugged in an alley and die in a spoof of Batman Begins. With his dying words, his father urges him to sell all his shares in Google but invest heavily in Enron. Later, after seeing Jill and Lance leave in Lance's Porsche Cayman, Rick, who desires a car of his own, goes to a bank, where he is denied a loan. A bank robber then holds up the bank and after Rick fails to stop him, Uncle Albert is shot and hospitalized. Jill visits Rick at the hospital, kisses him in an attempt to cheer him up. Meanwhile Landers accidentally takes his secretary's life energy, killing her. Rick is met by Xavier (Tracy Morgan) at his school for mutants Ala X-Men where he meets Storm, Wolverine, Cyclops, the Invisible Woman and Mrs. Xavier. Rick is told to make a costume by Mrs. Xavier and adopts the identity of the Dragonfly. The first version of the skin-tight Dragonfly costume completely covers his head and face so he can't see or breathe, causing him to panic. The final revision has eye, mouth, and nose openings. He meets the Human Torch but fails to fly. Dragonfly quickly becomes a media sensation, fights and gets badly injured by Hourglass who manages to escape stealing a canister of Cerillium. Jill is attacked by muggers, but Dragonfly saves her. Just after Dragonfly defeats the last of the thugs, Jill tells Dragonfly he saved her life, and shyly asks Dragonfly if she can thank him with a kiss. Just before she can kiss him, Dragonfly slides down, so he has a perfect view down Jill's shirt. Jill lifts him back up, but he goes over the building, leaving Jill alone. Dragonfly tries to kiss Jill again but decides to fight more crime to impress her. Landers plans to construct a machine that will kill 42 thousand people and give him enough life energy to make him immortal. During a Thanksgiving dinner at the Rikers', Landers manages to learn his secret identity. Just as Rick and Jill are about to kiss, the Hourglass appears and murders Aunt Lucille. Uncle Albert recovers, and after a comical funeral, Rick decides to end his superhero career, though Trey and Uncle Albert convince him to find Hourglass, who plans to kill countless innocent people. At an awards ceremony to honor achievements in feminine hygiene, Landers is presented with a Douchebag Of The Year Award. Although Rick goes to the ceremony too, Landers tricks him into thinking that the Dalai Lama is Hourglass, which leads to a brawl in the ceremony hall involving all the attendees, including Buddhist monks, the Pope and Stephen Hawking. During this, Jill discovers that Landers is Hourglass. In a nearby hall there is a superhero convention where a flying machine awaits Hourglass. Landers gets in the convention hall and changes into Hourglass as Rick gets into his Dragonfly costume and fights him. When Hourglass tries to finish off Dragonfly, Jill attempts to intervene and is critically injured. Hourglass flies off with the machine to the rooftop where he activates the machine to steal the life-force from all the attendees of the ceremony and the convention. After Stephen Hawking implores Rick not to give up, using a rationale that Rick points out are the lyrics to Celine Dion's "Taking Chances", he dons the Dragonfly suit, and battles the Hourglass on the rooftop. Dragonfly siphons off some of Hourglass's stolen life-force to heal Jill, but the Hourglass throws a bomb at Dragonfly, with the bomb sticking to Dragonfly's crotch. He back-flips several times, finally managing to stick the bomb to Hourglass. Stuck to his invention, he shouts "Oh, f**k!", with the bomb detonating and killing him. Jill falls off the roof, but Dragonfly jumps off after her. After he grabs her and reveals that he is Rick, Jill tells him that she loves him, and they passionately kiss, and Rick finally grows wings. He flies them away, landing on the rooftop where Uncle Albert and Stephen Hawking await them. While they walk away, Hawking's wheelchair gets stuck and hits the ledge sending Hawking to a free-fall. Rick and Jill fly once more but they are hit by a helicopter.

After the death of her daughter, Aurora struggled to keep her family together, but she has a grandson in jail, a rebellious granddaughter and another grandson living almost on the poverty line. Continuing the story of Aurora Greenway in her latter years. After the death of her daughter, Aurora struggled to keep her family together, but has one grandson in jail, a rebellious granddaughter, and another grandson living just above the poverty line. —R. John Berggren <jberg@nina.pagesz.net> She's back-and as delightfully feisty as ever! The generations grow, but life still spins around Aurora like a cyclone: her rebellious granddaughter wants to run off with Mr. Wrong; a snooty rival has come up with new ways to meddle in Aurora's life; her longtime spinster housekeeper is ready to ditch domestic work for the domestic bliss of matrimony; her great-grandson is like a poison pill; and her shrink is more than eager to cross the line separating client relationships and romantic entanglement. Welcome back Aurora. We've missed you. —Anonymous Determined to keep the promise she made to her late daughter, Aurora Greenway does her best to raise three grandchildren with constant opposition from Emma's best friend Patsy. She visits eldest grandson Tommy in prison, who awaits the possibility of parole, and struggles to break through the hate he harbors since the death of his mother. She also watches younger grandson Teddy struggle to make a living and provide for his budding family. Aurora focuses her hope for a better future towards her youngest Melanie who becomes a rebellious college student whose taste in men is unacceptable by her standards. Aurora comes to terms with the sacrifices she's made for others and ultimately embraces the thought of finding her own happiness. She begins to chronicle her life in an effort to recollect and organize the events that shaped who she is. Through exploring love, experiencing loss, and endearing efforts to bring her family back together, she changes over the years. With help of an old friend, she lays a loved one to rest and finally allows herself to age gracefully into her twilight years. The Evening Star is a touching continuation of a story that shines brightly along with Terms of Endearment. —Keith M. Johnson

A hard-nosed newspaper editor poses as a night school student in order to woo a journalism teacher who cannot stand him. James Gannon, the hardboiled city editor of a newspaper, believes that the only way to learn the business is by way of the School of Hard Knocks, and has a very low regard for college-taught journalism, so he's not pleased when his managing editor orders him to help Erica Stone, a college professor, with her journalism class. Finding himself attracted to her, he pretends to be a student in her class, not revealing he's Gannon, whom she despises. As they bob and weave around their mutual growing attraction, they gain respect for each other's approaches to reporting news, but how will Erica react when she finds out who he really is? —Ed Sutton <esutton@mindspring.com> The New York Evening Chronicle's City Editor James Gannon is a stubborn self-made journalist that has not even concluded high school and believes that the business is to be learned working in a newspaper office and not in college. He also believes that the fact is more important than the why behind the story. When he is invited to be the guest lecturer in the night-school journalism course of E. Stone, he wrongly believes that she is a man and sends a non-polite letter to her explaining the reasons why he does not want to waste his time. However his boss, Lloyd Crowley, gives direct orders to him to attend the class. Instructor Erica Stone reads Gannon's letter for the class and he pretends to be a student to humiliate her to her class. However, they feel both attracted by each other and Erica believes that Gannon has a great potential to be a journalist. When Erica dates the talented Dr. Hugo Pine, Gannon goes to the same restaurant and disputes Erica's attention with Dr. Pine. Gannon and Erica fall in love with each other, but how will Erica react when she learns that her student is the notorious Gannon? —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil James Gannon, the hard-nosed city desk editor of the New York Daily Chronicle, and E.R. (Erica) Stone, a night-school journalism instructor at a local college, get into a philosophical war of words without having met. He believes that newspaper journalism is a trade that can only be learned through on the job training. Additionally, he believes that people who teach journalism probably have not spent a day in their lives working at a newspaper--E.R. Stone included. He, who never graduated from high school, also has disdain for any of his staff who studied journalism at school. As such, he tersely declines her invitation to provide a guest lecture to her class. Their war ratchets up a level when she reads his letter to her class, unaware that he is sitting there at the time, and has come to abide her request as directed by his managing editor. Because of her diatribe against him, he decides to enroll in her class incognito as James Gallagher to show her up. Their war softens, at least from Jim's side, as he can't help but be attracted to her as a person. And Erica, not knowing his true identity, is enthralled with her new pupil, who is the most naturally gifted writer she has ever had in any of her classes. As Jim and Erica get closer personally and professionally, not only is his true identity a major obstacle in their relationship if she ever discovers it, but seemingly so is Dr. Hugo Pine, a Renaissance-man psychology professor at the college whom Jim assumes is her suitor. Jim might ultimately be able to use Hugo's profession and knowledge of Erica for his own benefit in getting closer to her. But learning directly from her of her motivations in life, based on idolizing a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorialist, could give him a clearer picture of who Erica is as a person. —Huggo