Word: plot
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...excellent 1963 film version by Donald Pleasance), who is brought to the home of the simple-minded Aston (Robert Shaw) and his conniving brother Mick (Alan Bates). Jenkins begins as the ratty interloper but becomes sympathetic by default as the brothers play their mind games. The plot fits the contours of a standard nightmare: being invited into a place where you are misled and mistreated...
...faith must remain vigilant lest it be desecrated. "Christmas is under attack in such a sustained and strategized manner that there is, no doubt, a war on Christmas," wrote FOX News host John Gibson in his eponymously titled 2005 book, The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse than You Thought...
...there you have it: the war on Christmas is a godless plot cooked up by a cabal of latte-sipping liberals, greedy retail tycoons, bearded ACLU communists and Ban Ki-moon acolytes who secretly gather in Bay Area synagogues to smoke pot, deface Bibles and perform abortions...
...some glimmers of comic imagination. But if Shankman was aiming for The Princess Bride's mix of fantasy, facetiousness and romance, or even the meta-fable sprawl of Stardust, he missed it by a mile. Magic eludes the entire enterprise. Sure, there's potential in the kids-as-sorcerers plot, and game energy in the pan-Anglo cast. (Palmer, from Australia, is a standout as the Paris Hiltonish vixen, much more charming than the original.) And yet the movie doesn't move, because it is defined by Sandler's essentially static, grudging persona...
...Informants are common in drug and other criminal cases. But they pose a special challenge in terrorism cases, where the government cannot afford to wait for the plot to play out before making arrests. As a result, the prosecution relies heavily on the informants - who often have powerful incentives to keep the case going. "Obviously, the model worked to achieve a conviction," says Cipparone, the defense attorney for Shnewer. "But looking at it systemically, I have significant concerns about the payment of informants in this context--informants with these kinds of backgrounds, given this much free reign...