Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Endgame, Vol. 1: The Problem of Civilization

  • ISBN13: 9781583227305
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Greece isn't the only country drowning in debt. The Debt Supercycleâ€"when the easily managed, decades-long growth of debt results in a massive sovereign debt and credit crisisâ€"is affecting developed countries around the world, including the United States. For these countries, there are only two options, and neither is goodâ€"restructure the debt or reduce it through austerity measures. Endgame details the Debt Supercycle and the sovereign debt crisis, and shows that, while there are no good choices, the worst choice would be to ignore the deleveraging resulting from the credit crisis. The book:
  • Reveals why the world economy is in for an extended period of sluggis! h growth, high unemployment, and volatile markets punctuated by persistent recessions
  • Reviews global markets, trends in population, government policies, and currencies

Around the world, countries are faced with difficult choices. Endgame provides a framework for making those choices.

Q&A with Authors John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper

Author John Mauldin
What is the debt supercycle?
Over a period of about sixty years, debt levels grew faster than incomes. This increase in debt became particularly pronounced in the 1980s, 90s a! nd finally went parabolic after the Federal Reserve lowere! d intere st rates to 1% after the Nasdaq crash. The increase in debt was not just a US phenomenon. As interest rates fell structurally with the fall in inflation from 1982 onwards, people took on more debt because it became more manageable. However, by 2008 the burden of debt became too much to bear and the debt supercycle came to an end. People started deleveraging and banks started collapsing due to low levels of capital and large losses from loans people couldn't pay back.

How does the sovereign debt crisis play into this?
The rapid contraction in debt levels due to default and deleveraging lead to a fall in economic activity as people started saving and cutting spending. Governments immediately stepped in and backed bank debt with explicit guarantees. Governments also started borrowing and spending to transfer money to the private sector, for example via unemployment insurance. So in a very real sense, private borrowing was replaced wit! h public borrowing. Debt was added onto more debt. Rather than free itself of debt, the system now has more debt. The sovereign debt crisis is the recognition that most of this debt will not be paid back, and governments are making promises to pay debt and other obligations, for example general spending and pensions, that they simply lack the ability to fulfill.

What is the impact of the end of the debt supercycle?
Author Jonathan Tepper
The end of the debt supercycle and the beginning of the sovereign debt crisis present problems and challenges for investors and governments. Governments will need to either 1) inflate, 2) default or 3) d! evalue, which is similar to inflate. That is the way governme! nts have historically dealt with too much debt. Some countries will experience deflation and others inflation, depending on what choices governments make. Currently governments have only bad and worse choices. Let's hope they can choose wisely.

What do you predict for the next ten years?
Central banks globally have shown a predisposition to print money to solve problems. We forsee rising inflation in many parts of the world, reductions in real income as people lose purchasing power due to higher food and fuel prices and more macroeconomic volatility. Some countries that do not control their own money supply or are running pegs may experience deflation as they are forced to delever and cannot increase the money supply to counteract the weight of deleveraging.

You cite the events in Greece as an example of a country continuing to run massive deficits. Is there an example of a country making a better choice?
The UK is making some of the right steps to control spending, but even the UK could be more draconian. In nominal and real terms, government spending in aggregate will not be cut in the UK. Also, Iceland has made positive steps by defaulting on its debt effectively. Default is a good way to cure too much debt.
Endgame is acclaimed biographer Frank Brady’s decades-in-the-making tracing of the meteoric ascentâ€"and confounding descentâ€"of enigmatic genius Bobby Fischer.  Only Brady, who met Fischer when the prodigy was only 10 and shared with him some of his most dramatic triumphs, could have written this book, which has much to say about the nature of American celebrity and the distorting effects of fame.  Drawing from Fischer family archives, recently released FBI files, and Bobby’s own emails, this account is unique in that it limns Fischer’s entire lifeâ€"an odyssey that took the Brooklyn-raised chess champion from a! n impoverished childhood to the covers of Time, Life an! d New sweek to recognition as “the most famous man in the world” to notorious recluse.
 
At first all one noticed was how gifted Fischer was.  Possessing a 181 I.Q. and remarkable powers of concentration, Bobby memorized hundreds of chess books in several languages, and he was only 13 when he became the youngest chess master in U.S. history.   But his strange behavior started early.  In 1972, at the historic Cold War showdown in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he faced Soviet champion Boris Spassky, Fischer made headlines with hundreds of petty demands that nearly ended the competition.
 
It was merely a prelude to what was to come.
 
Arriving back in the United States to a hero’s welcome, Bobby was mobbed wherever he wentâ€"a figure as exotic and improbable as any American pop culture had yet produced.  No player of a mere “board game” had ever ascended to such heights.  Commercial sponsorship offers poured in, ultimately topping $10 mil! lionâ€"but Bobby demurred.  Instead, he began tithing his limited money to an apocalyptic religion and devouring anti-Semitic literature. 
 
After years of poverty and a stint living on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, Bobby remerged in 1992 to play Spassky in a multi-million dollar rematchâ€"but the experience only deepened a paranoia that had formed years earlier when he came to believe that the Soviets wanted him dead for taking away “their” title.  When the dust settled, Bobby was a wanted manâ€"transformed into an international fugitive because of his decision to play in Montenegro despite U.S. sanctions.  Fearing for his life, traveling with bodyguards, and wearing a long leather coat to ward off knife attacks, Bobby lived the life of a celebrity fugitive â€" one drawn increasingly to the bizarre.  Mafiosi, Nazis, odd attempts to breed an heir who could perpetuate his chess-genius DNAâ€"all are woven into his late-life tapestry.
 
And yet, as B! rady shows, the most notable irony of Bobby Fischer’s strang! e descen t â€" which had reached full plummet by 2005 when he turned down yet another multi-million dollar paydayâ€"is that despite his incomprehensible behavior, there were many who remained fiercely loyal to him.  Why that was so is at least partly the subject of this bookâ€"one that at last answers the question: “Who was Bobby Fischer?”Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2011: There may be no one more qualified than Frank Brady to write the definitive biography of Bobby Fischer. Brady's Profile of a Prodigy (originally published in 1969) chronicled the chess icon's early years, a selection of 90 games, and (in later editions) his 1972 World Championship match with Boris Spassky. With Endgame, published two years after Fischer's death, Brady's on-and-off proximity to Fischer lends new depth to the latter's full and twisted life story. Though Fischer's pinnacle artistry on the chessboard may often be discussed in the same br! eath with his eventual paranoia and outspoken anti-Semitism, the particular turns and travels of his post-World Championship years (half his life) lend his story most of its vexing oddity: the niggling insistence on seemingly arbitrary conditions for his matches, the years on the lam after flagrantly disregarding U.S. economic sanctions, his incarceration in Japan, his eventual citizenship and quiet demise in Iceland. All told, Fischer's life was like none other, and told through the lens of Brady's personal familiarity and access to new source material, results in an utterly engaging read. --Jason Kirk

Guest Reviewer: Dick Cavett

Dick Cavett is the host of ! “The Dick Cavett Show”---which aired on ABC from 1968 to 1! 975 and on public television from 1977 to 1982---Dick Cavett is the author, most recently, of Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets. The co-author of Cavett (1974) and Eye on Cavett (1983), he has also appeared on Broadway in Otherwise Engaged and Into the Woods, and as narrator in The Rocky Horror Show, and has made guest appearances in movies and on TV shows including Forrest Gump and The Simpsons. His column appears in the Opinionator blog on The New York Times website. Mr. Cavett lives in New York City and Montauk, N.Y.

Even if you don’t give a damn about chess, or Bobby Fischer, you’ll find yourself engrossed by Frank Brady‘s book about Fischer, which reads like a novel.

The facts of Bobby’s life (I knew him from several memorable appearances on “The Dick Cavett Show” on both sides of the Big Tournament) are presented in page-turne! r fashion. Poor Bobby was blessed and cursed by his genius, and his story has the arc of a Greek tragedy---with a grim touch of mad King Lear at the end.

The brain power and concentrated days and nights Bobby spent studying the game left much of him undeveloped, unable to join conversations on other subjects. Later in his life, unhappy with his limited knowledge of things beyond the chess board, he compensated with massive study---applying that same hard-butt dedication to other fields: politics, classics, religion, philosophy and more. He found a hide-away nook in a Reykjavic bookstore---barred from his homeland, Iceland had welcomed him back---where he read in marathon sessions. (After he was recognized, he never went back to his cozy cul de sac.)

In Brady’s telling the high drama of the Spassky match quickens the pulse; the contest that made America a chess-crazed land was seen by more people than the Superbowl. People skipped school and played sick ! in vast numbers, glued to watching Shelby Lyman explain what w! as happe ning. The fanaticism was worldwide. The match was seen as a Cold War event, with the time out of mind chess-ruling Russian bear vanquished.

Arguably the best known man on the planet at his triumphant peak, Bobby is later seen in this account riding buses in Los Angeles, able to pay his rent in a dump of an apartment only because his mother sent him her social-security checks. The details of all this are stranger than fiction, as is nearly everything in the life of this much-rewarded, much-tortured genius.

I liked him immensely, knowing only the tall, broad-shouldered, athletically strong and handsome six-foot-something articulate and yes, witty, youth that Bobby was before the evil times set in, with deranged anti-Semitic outbursts and other mental strangeness preceding his too early end at age 64.

I can’t ever forget the moment on the show when in amiable conversation I asked him what, in chess, corresponded to the thrill in another sort of event;! like, say, hitting a homer in baseball. He said it was the moment when you “break the other guy’s ego.” There was a shocked murmur from the audience and the quote went around the world.

Frank Brady’s Endgame is one of those books that makes you want your dinner guests to go the hell home so you can get back to it.

The long-awaited companion piece to Derrick Jensen's immensely popular and highly acclaimed works A Language Older Than Words and The Culture of Make Believe. Accepting the increasingly widespread belief that industrialized culture inevitably erodes the natural world, Endgame sets out to explore how this relationship impels us towards a revolutionary and as-yet undiscovered shift in strategy. Building on a series of simple but increasingly provocative premises, Jensen leaves us hoping for what may be inevitable: a return to agrarian communal life via the disintegration of civilization itself.

The End of Days: Armageddon and Prophecies of the Return (The Earth Chronicles)

  • ISBN13: 9780061239212
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
WHEN A BURNED-OUT FORMER NEW YORK CITY COP NAMED JERICHO THWARTSA HIT ON A MYSTERIOUS AND FOREBODING STRANGER, ALL HELL BREAKSLOOSE. WHILE INVESTIGATING THE CRIME, HE FINDS HIMSELF THERELUCTANT SAVIOUR OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND TERRIFIED CHRISTINE YORK,WHOSE DESTINY INVOLVES DEATH, THE DEVIL AND THE FATE OF MANKIND.After a two-year hiatus that included recovery from heart surgery, Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to the big screen in November 1999 with End of Days, a Thanksgiving turkey if ever there was one. Overcooked and bloated with stuffing, this ludicrous thriller attached itself to the end-of-the-millennium furor that kicked in a year too early. A prologue begins in 1979 with panic in the Vatica! n when a comet signals the birth of a child who will, 20 years later, become the chosen bride of Satan, destined to conceive the devil's spawn between 11 p.m. and midnight on December 31, 1999. It's hard to decide who has the more thankless role--Robin Tunney as Satan's would-be bride, or Schwarzenegger as Jericho Cane, the burned-out alcoholic bodyguard assigned to protect the girl from Satan, billed as "The Man" and played with cheesy menace (and an inconsistent variety of metaphysical manifestations) by Gabriel Byrne.

With kitschy character names like Jericho and Chicago (Arnie's partner, played by Kevin Pollack) and lapses in logic that any 5-year-old could spot, End of Days is a loud, aggravating movie that would be entertaining if it were intended as comedy. But Schwarzenegger and director Peter Hyams approach the story as an earnest tale of redemption and tested faith, delivering a ridiculous climax full of special effects and devoid of dramatic impac! t. You're left instead to savor the verbal and physical sparri! ng betwe en Satan and Jericho, resulting in the most thorough pummeling Schwarzenegger's ever endured onscreen. Of course he eventually gets his payback, just in time for New Year's Eve. Perhaps he was touched by an angel. --Jeff Shannon

Lydia Lozen Magruderâ€"the great-granddaughter of a female Apache war-shamanâ€"has seen visions of the End since childhood. She has constructed a massive ranch-fortress in the American Southwest, stocked with everything necessary to rebuild civilization.

Now her visions are coming true. John Stone, once a baseball star and now a famous gonzo journalist, stumbled across a plan to blast humanity back to the stone age. Then he vanished. Lydia’s only hope of tracking him down lies with her stubborn, globe-trotting daughter, Kate, Stone’s former lover.

Kate is about to step right into the plotters’ crosshairs. Stone has been captured by a pair of twin Middle Eastern princesses, hell-bent on torturing him until he reveals ! all he knows.

Meanwhile, a Russian general obsessed with nuclear Armageddon has also disappeared...as have eight or more of his Russian subs, armed with nuclear-tipped missiles.

The world is armed for self-destruction.

Who will survive?

All hell breaks loose when Arnold Schwarzenegger battles the ultimate evil in this chilling supernatural action thriller. When Jericho (Schwarzenegger), a burned-out former New York City cop is assigned to security detail for a mysterious stranger (Gabriel Byrne), he thwarts an incredible assassination attempt. During the ensuing investigation, he and his partner (Kevin Pollak) save the life of the beautiful and terrified Christine York (Robin Tunney), whose destiny involves death, the devil and the fate of mankind. Now it's up to Jericho to save the girl, the world and his own soul as he comes face to face with his most powerful enemy ever!After a two-year hiatus that included recovery from heart surgery, Arnol! d Schwarzenegger returned to the big screen in November 1999 w! ith E nd of Days, a Thanksgiving turkey if ever there was one. Overcooked and bloated with stuffing, this ludicrous thriller attached itself to the end-of-the-millennium furor that kicked in a year too early. A prologue begins in 1979 with panic in the Vatican when a comet signals the birth of a child who will, 20 years later, become the chosen bride of Satan, destined to conceive the devil's spawn between 11 p.m. and midnight on December 31, 1999. It's hard to decide who has the more thankless role--Robin Tunney as Satan's would-be bride, or Schwarzenegger as Jericho Cane, the burned-out alcoholic bodyguard assigned to protect the girl from Satan, billed as "The Man" and played with cheesy menace (and an inconsistent variety of metaphysical manifestations) by Gabriel Byrne.

With kitschy character names like Jericho and Chicago (Arnie's partner, played by Kevin Pollack) and lapses in logic that any 5-year-old could spot, End of Days is a loud, aggravating movie! that would be entertaining if it were intended as comedy. But Schwarzenegger and director Peter Hyams approach the story as an earnest tale of redemption and tested faith, delivering a ridiculous climax full of special effects and devoid of dramatic impact. You're left instead to savor the verbal and physical sparring between Satan and Jericho, resulting in the most thorough pummeling Schwarzenegger's ever endured onscreen. Of course he eventually gets his payback, just in time for New Year's Eve. Perhaps he was touched by an angel. --Jeff Shannon

Why is it that our current twenty-first century A.D. is so similar to the twenty-first century B.C.?
Is history destined to repeat itself? Will biblical prophecies come true, and if so, when?

It has been more than three decades since Zecharia Sitchin's trailblazing book The 12th Planet brought to life the Sumerian civilization and its record of the Anunnakiâ€"the extraterr! estrials who fashioned man and gave mankind civilization and r! eligion. In this new volume, Sitchin shows that the End is anchored in the events of the Beginning, and once you learn of this Beginning, it is possible to foretell the Future.

In The End of Days, a masterwork that required thirty years of additional research, Sitchin presents compelling new evidence that the Past is the Futureâ€"that mankind and its planet Earth are subject to a predetermined cyclical Celestial Time.

In an age when religious fanaticism and a clash of civilizations raise the specter of a nuclear Armageddon, Zecharia Sitchin shatters perceptions and uses history to reveal what is to come at The End of Days.


French Connection Women's Holiday Crochet Top, Blue, 2

  • Slash neck
  • Short sleeves
FRENCH CONNECTION/FRENCH CONNECTION 2 - DVD MovieHoliday crochet top

Code Name - The Cleaner

  • The laughs fly like bullets in this action comedy about a man with amnesia who can't remember whether he's a super spy.or a janitor.Jake Rogers (Cedric the Entertainer) just woke up in a hotel room next to a dead CIA agent and a briefcase full of money. Things go from bad to worse when his blonde bombshell wife (Nicollette Sheridan) arrives to inform him that he's a Special Forces Operative entan
The laughs fly like bullets in this action comedy about a man with amnesia who can't remember whether he's a super spy...or a janitor. Jake Rogers (Cedric the Entertainer) just woke up in a hotel room next to a dead CIA agent and a briefcase full of money. Things go from bad to worse when his blonde bombshell wife (Nicollette Sheridan) arrives to inform him that he's a Special Forces Operative entangled in a high-level Government conspiracy. But nothing seems to add up as Jake digs deeper into the ca! se. Teaming up with another beauty from a past he can't remember (Lucy Liu), this custodian of comedy needs to get a clue before the bad guys take him out with the trash!Code Name: The Cleaner squeaks by in living up to the reputation of its star, Cedric the Entertainer. The movie does entertain, but just barely and pretty much only because of the skill we've come to expect from Cedric as an entertainer. In another actor's hands, this freewheeling spy spoof could easily have turned into a schizophrenic dud. The movie still has a little split-personality problem between its aspirations to be a tense, Bourne Identity-like thriller or out-and-out comic caper. Fortunately, the entertainer in him gives Cedric the credibility to juggle both genres with only a few dropped balls. When Cedric, as ordinary Joe (maybe) Jake Rodgers, wakes up in a hotel room with amnesia, a dead FBI agent, and a bag stuffed with cash, at least two people show unusual interest in a ! prized missing microchip, the money, and him -- in that order.! Nicolle tte Sheridan is a bit too desperate in claiming to be his housewife as she whisks him "home" to their huge mansion. Showing the first shades of skepticism (and comic brilliance), the still-amnesiac Jake wonders, "I'm rich, I live in a big house and I'm married to a white woman. Am I Lionel Richie?" He also wonders if the gun-toting, butt-kicking Lucy Liu really is his mistress, as she claims to be. It all seems to good to be true. But the bad guys who just want the microchip don't care, and the genuine thriller mayhem and laugh riot gags that fly by don't give Jake much time to think that maybe he is just an ordinary janitor who has wrong-manned his way into a massive spy vs. spy cliche. There are a couple of fantastically funny supporting roles for additional distraction. DeRay Davis steals the spotlight as Jake's wannabe-rapper janitor pal, and Niecy Nash (of Reno 911! fame) also chomps hard on the scenery as a sex-crazed security guard. Food Network fans will get a! n unintended chuckle from seeing Mark Dacascos, the suave and sybaritic "Kitchen Stadium Chairman" from Iron Chef America playing head cheese of the bad guy contingent. In all, it's not worth the audience spending too much time thinking all this through either, especially when Cedric's doing his thing (the clog dance and grandma-spanking scenes are highlights). Maybe someday they'll let Cedric off the thinking leash altogether -- perhaps in Code Name: The Entertainer? --Ted Fry

Erin Brockovich

  • Widescreen
A real woman. A real story. A real triumph. Julia Roberts stars as Erin Brockovich, a feisty young mother who fought for justice any way she knew how. Desperate for a job to support herself and her three children, she convinces attorney Ed Masry (Albert Finney) to hire her, and promptly stumbles upon a monumental law case against a giant corporation. Now, Erin's determined to take on this powerful adversary even though no law firm has dared to do it before. And while Ed doesn't want anything to do with the case, Erin won't take "no" for an answer. So the two begin an incredible and sometimes hilarious fight that will bring a small town to its feet and a huge company to its knees.Much will be made of Julia Roberts's wardrobe in Erin Brockovich--a brash parade of daring hemlines and Wonderbra confidence. Roberts is unabashedly sexy in the title role of this fact-based comedy-d! rama, but she and director Steven Soderbergh are far too intelligent to rely solely on high heels and cleavage. Susannah Grant's brassy screenplay fuels this winning combination of star, director, and material, firing on all pistons with maximum efficiency. With Ed Lachman, his noted cinematographer from The Limey, Soderbergh tackles this A-list project with the fervor of an independent, combining a no-frills look with kinetic panache and the same brisk editorial style he used in the justly celebrated Out of Sight.

Broke and desperate, the twice-divorced single mom Erin bosses her way into a clerical job with attorney Ed Masry (Albert Finney), who's indebted to Erin after failing to win her traffic-injury case. Erin is soon focused on suspicious connections between a mighty power company, its abuse of toxic chromium, and the poisoned water supply of Hinkley, California, where locals have suffered a legacy of death and disease. Matching the dramatic potency! of Norma Rae and Silkwood, Erin Brockovich filte rs cold facts through warm humanity, especially in Erin's rapport with dying victims and her relationship with George (superbly played by Aaron Eckhart), a Harley-riding neighbor who offers more devotion than Erin's ever known. Surely some of these details have been embellished for dramatic effect, but the factual basis of Erin Brockovich adds a boost of satisfaction, proving that greed, neglect, and corporate arrogance are no match against a passionate crusader. (Trivia note: The real Erin Brockovich appears briefly as a diner waitress.) --Jeff Shannon

Victorinox Men's Dry Tech Half Zip Baselayer Shirt, Dark Empire Blue, X-Large

  • Moisture wicking tech knit
  • Articulated elbows for active fit
Long sleeve base layer knit with moisture wicking technology

After the Wedding

  • AFTER THE WEDDING (DVD MOVIE)
Far from home, Jacob (Casino Royale villain, Mads Mikkelsen), runs a struggling orphanage in one India’s poorest regions. Desperate to save the orphanage from closure, he returns to Denmark to meet Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard) a wealthy businessman and potential benefactor. What appears to be nothing more than a friendly gesture to attend a wedding sets in motion an increasingly devastating series of surprises, revelations, and confessions that will forever change their lives.Equal parts weepy drama and soap opera, After the Wedding is a beautifully filmed story centering on Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen, Casino Royale), a Danish man working at a orphanage in Bombay. Just when funds have run desperately low, Jorgen (Rolf Lassgård)--a wealthy benefactor--promises to donate millions of dollars to the orphanage. But there's a catch. Jacob must collect the fund! s himself in Copenhagen... and attend the wedding of the eccentric millionaire's daughter. But once Jacob meets the benefactor's wife Helene (played by a radiant Sidse Babett Knudsen), it's obvious to the viewer that the two have a complicated history. It’s also likely that her daughter Anna (Stine Fischer Christensen) most probably is theirs. So why did Jorgen invite Jacob to Anna's wedding? Does he know Jacob is Anna's father? Is something nefarious in the works? The thought-provoking film was Denmark's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2007 Academy Awards. Subtitled in English, the Danish picture is well helmed by director Susanne Bier (Brothers), who manages to keep the film from delving into over the top histrionics. Mikkelsen is particularly good, whether he's channeling his anger at having been shut out of his maybe-daughter's life for the past 20 years, or having to grovel a bit to get Jorgen to donate the funds as promised to his orphanage. The r! elationships here are messy and often uncomfortable. But they ! also rin g true to life. --Jae-Ha Kim

How to Train Your Dragon Book 1

  • ISBN13: 9780316085274
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
A winner with audiences and critics alike, DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon rolls fire-breathing action, epic adventure and laughs into a captivating and original story. Hiccup is a young Viking who defies tradition when he befriends one of his deadliest foes â€" a ferocious dragon he calls Toothless. Together, the unlikely heroes must fight against all odds to save both their worlds in this “wonderful good-time hit!” (Gene Shalit, Today).A winning mixture of adventure, slapstick comedy, and friendship, How to Train Your Dragon rivals Kung Fu Panda as the most engaging and satisfying film DreamWorks Animation has produced. Hiccup (voice by Jay Baruchel) is a ! failure as a Viking: skinny, inquisitive, and inventive, he asks questions and tries out unsuccessful contraptions when he's supposed to be fighting the dragons that attack his village. His father, chief Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), has pretty much given up on his teenage son and apprenticed him to blacksmith Gobber (Craig Ferguson). Worse, Hiccup knows the village loser hasn't a chance of impressing Astrid (America Ferrera), the girl of his dreams and a formidable dragon fighter in her own right. When one of Hiccup's inventions actually works, he hasn't the heart to kill the young dragon he's brought down. He names it Toothless and befriends it, although he's been taught to fear and loathe dragons. Codirectors and cowriters Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, who made Disney's delightful Lilo and Stitch, provide plenty of action, including vertiginous flying sequences, but they balance the pyrotechnics with moments of genuine warmth that make the viewer root for Hic! cup's success. Many DreamWorks films get laughs from sitcom on! e-liners and topical pop culture references; as the humor in Dragon comes from the characters' personalities, it feels less timely and more timeless. Toothless chases the spot of sunlight reflected off Hiccup's hammer like a giant cat with a laser pointer; Hiccup uses his newly found knowledge (and an icky smoked eel) to defeat two small dragons--and impress the other kids. How to Train Your Dragon will be just as enjoyable 10 or 20 years from now as it is today. (Rated PG: suitable for ages 8 and older, violence, some intense action and scary dragons) --Charles SolomonHow To Train Your Dragon
A winner with audiences and critics alike, DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon rolls fire-breathing action, epic adventure and laughs into a captivating and original story. Hiccup is a young Viking who defies tradition when he befriends one of his deadliest foes â€" a ferocious dragon he calls Toothless. Together, the unlikely heroes mu! st fight against all odds to save both their worlds in this “wonderful good-time hit!” (Gene Shalit, Today).

Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon
Hiccup and the Viking gang are back to battle Gobber’s archenemy â€" the legendary BoneKnapper dragon â€" in this full-“scale” action-adventure. Shipwrecked on a mysterious island, the courageous kids devise a plan to capture the cagey creatures…if he even exists!A winning mixture of adventure, slapstick comedy, and friendship, How to Train Your Dragon rivals Kung Fu Panda as the most engaging and satisfying film DreamWorks Animation has produced. Hiccup (voice by Jay Baruchel) is a failure as a Viking: skinny, inquisitive, and inventive, he asks questions and tries out unsuccessful contraptions when he's supposed to be fighting the dragons that attack his village. His father, chief Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), has pretty much given up on his teenage son and apprenticed him to ! blacksmith Gobber (Craig Ferguson). Worse, Hiccup knows the vi! llage lo ser hasn't a chance of impressing Astrid (America Ferrera), the girl of his dreams and a formidable dragon fighter in her own right. When one of Hiccup's inventions actually works, he hasn't the heart to kill the young dragon he's brought down. He names it Toothless and befriends it, although he's been taught to fear and loathe dragons. Codirectors and cowriters Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, who made Disney's delightful Lilo and Stitch, provide plenty of action, including vertiginous flying sequences, but they balance the pyrotechnics with moments of genuine warmth that make the viewer root for Hiccup's success. Many DreamWorks films get laughs from sitcom one-liners and topical pop culture references; as the humor in Dragon comes from the characters' personalities, it feels less timely and more timeless. Toothless chases the spot of sunlight reflected off Hiccup's hammer like a giant cat with a laser pointer; Hiccup uses his newly found knowledge (and an icky smoked eel) ! to defeat two small dragons--and impress the other kids. How to Train Your Dragon will be just as enjoyable 10 or 20 years from now as it is today. (Rated PG: suitable for ages 8 and older, violence, some intense action and scary dragons) --Charles SolomonChronicles the adventures and misadventures of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III as he tries to pass the important initiation test of his Viking clan, the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans, by catching and training a dragon. Now available in paperback!

Cats and Dogs The Revenge of Kitty Galore Figure Set/burger King Toy Set with Codes

  • This is a set of 6 Cats and Dogs figure set featuring all the main characters.
  • These high quality figures have fun features like a twirling newspaper, glowing eyes, bobbleheads, flashing lights and more
  • Each figure has a special code that unlocks online fun and you also get the Cats and Dogs Club BK pamphlet which includes games
  • This set is no longer available at BK so it has become a neat collectible
  • These make great gifts and even cake toppers
In the eternal battle between cats and dogs, one crazed feline has taken things a paw too far. Former elite agent Kitty Galore has gone rogue and plans to unleash a diabolical device designed to not only bring her canine enemies to heel but also to take down her former kitty comrades and make the world her scratching post. Faced with this dire threat, cats and dogs must work together for the first time ever to save th! emselves and their beloved humans from global cat-astrophe. This fantastically fun adventure features the voice talent of Christina Applegate, Michael Clarke Duncan, Neil Patrick Harris, Sean Hayes, James Marsden, Bette Midler and Nick Nolte and stars Chris O'Donnell and Jack McBrayer.A definite improvement over the original 2001 Cats & Dogs, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore is a brand-new story about an underground world of animal intelligence, featuring cat spy agency M.E.O.W.S., a dog intelligence agency, and even a pigeon. They find themselves in the unlikely position of joining forces against renegade M.E.O.W.S. agent Kitty Galore as she seeks revenge against dogs and humans in a plan that will destroy the human race and allow her to rule the world. This 3-D film is a blend of live action, puppetry, and animation, and the combination of better writing and a cast of talented voice artists makes the animal spies in this sequel much more believable t! han in the previous film. Kitty Galore is unlikable to the cor! e and Be tte Midler is absolutely perfect in the role. Neil Patrick Harris is highly effective as Lou, head of the dog agency; James Marsden plays the conflicted police-dog-turned-new-recruit Diggs; Nick Nolte plays fellow canine agent Butch; Christina Applegate is M.E.O.W.S. agent Catherine; and Katt Williams as Seamus does a great pigeon. The unlikely cooperation between canine, feline, and bird leads to an action-adventure that takes the agents from dark back alleys to a cat house run by a cat lady pushing catnip and even a local carnival. The action scenes will hold the interest of most children ages 6 to 12, though many of the adults in the crowd may find them rather on the slow side, and kids and adults alike will chuckle at the silly jokes and slapstick comedy that pop up throughout the film. A notable laugh for the adults in the audience comes in an extended scene that clearly invokes Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. Add in a robot cat, some silly magician ! tricks--including Kitty Galore zipped into a rabbit suit--a squirrel robot that self-destructs after a quick dance, and the requisite 3-D effects and you've got a perfectly adequate action comedy that kids will enjoy and their parents can stomach without too much complaining. --Tami Horiuchi

Features include:

•MPAA Rating: PG
•Format: Blu-Ray
•Runtime: 82 minutes
In the eternal battle between cats and dogs, one crazed feline has taken things a paw too far. Former elite agent Kitty Galore has gone rogue and plans to unleash a diabolical device designed to not only bring her canine enemies to heel but also to take down her former kitty comrades and make the world her scratching post. Faced with this dire threat, cats and dogs must work together for the first time ever to save themselves and their beloved humans from global cat-astrophe. This fantastically fun adventure features the voice talent of Christina Applegate, Michael ! Clarke Duncan, Neil Patrick Harris, Sean Hayes, James Marsden,! Bette M idler and Nick Nolte and stars Chris O'Donnell and Jack McBrayer.A definite improvement over the original 2001 Cats & Dogs, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore is a brand-new story about an underground world of animal intelligence, featuring cat spy agency M.E.O.W.S., a dog intelligence agency, and even a pigeon. They find themselves in the unlikely position of joining forces against renegade M.E.O.W.S. agent Kitty Galore as she seeks revenge against dogs and humans in a plan that will destroy the human race and allow her to rule the world. This 3-D film is a blend of live action, puppetry, and animation, and the combination of better writing and a cast of talented voice artists makes the animal spies in this sequel much more believable than in the previous film. Kitty Galore is unlikable to the core and Bette Midler is absolutely perfect in the role. Neil Patrick Harris is highly effective as Lou, head of the dog agency; James Marsden plays the conflicted! police-dog-turned-new-recruit Diggs; Nick Nolte plays fellow canine agent Butch; Christina Applegate is M.E.O.W.S. agent Catherine; and Katt Williams as Seamus does a great pigeon. The unlikely cooperation between canine, feline, and bird leads to an action-adventure that takes the agents from dark back alleys to a cat house run by a cat lady pushing catnip and even a local carnival. The action scenes will hold the interest of most children ages 6 to 12, though many of the adults in the crowd may find them rather on the slow side, and kids and adults alike will chuckle at the silly jokes and slapstick comedy that pop up throughout the film. A notable laugh for the adults in the audience comes in an extended scene that clearly invokes Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. Add in a robot cat, some silly magician tricks--including Kitty Galore zipped into a rabbit suit--a squirrel robot that self-destructs after a quick dance, and the requisite 3-D effects and y! ou've got a perfectly adequate action comedy that kids will en! joy and their parents can stomach without too much complaining. --Tami HoriuchiIn the age-old battle between cats and dogs, one crazed feline has taken things a paw too far. Kitty Galore, formerly an agent for cat spy organization MEOWS, has gone rogue and hatched a diabolical plan to not only bring her canine enemies to heel, but also take down her former kitty comrades and make the world her scratching post. Faced with this unprecedented threat, cats and dogs will be forced to join forces for the first time in history in an unlikely alliance to save themselves - and their humans.These Cats and Dogs figures make a great gift for any fan of the movie. They also make interesting and fun cake toppers.

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