TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you will be shown an extract from a movie plot and a question. You need to provide the correct answer for it. Short answers containing words that are present in the passage are preferred.
PROBLEM: The film opens to the sound of a gramophone playing Axxon N, "the longest-running radio play in history". Meanwhile, a young prostitute, identified in the credits as the "Lost Girl", cries while watching television in a hotel room, following an unpleasant encounter with her client. The Lost Girlâs television displays a family of surrealistic anthropomorphic rabbits who speak in cryptic statements and questions. Occasionally, there are laugh track responses within these Rabbit scenes. These three elements become recurring motifs throughout Inland Empire.The main plot follows an actress named Nikki Grace (Dern), who has applied for a comeback role as Sue in a film entitled On High in Blue Tomorrows. The day before the audition, Nikki is visited by an enigmatic old woman (Zabriskie) who says she is her neighbor; she predicts that Nikki will get the role, and recounts two folk tales. One tells of a boy who, sparking a reflection after passing through a doorway, "caused evil to be born." The other tells of a girl who, wandering through an alleyway behind a marketplace, "discovers a palace." The old woman presses Nikki for details on her new film, asking whether the story is about marriage and involves murder. Nikki denies both, but her neighbor disagrees. Disregarding Nikki's offended response, the old woman comments on the confusion of time, claiming that were this tomorrow, Nikki would be sitting on a couch adjacent to them. The film then pans to where the neighbor is pointing, and we see Nikki and two girlfriends sitting on the couch. Her butler (Ian Abercrombie) walks into the living room with a phone call from her agent, announcing that she has won the role. Ecstatic, Nikki and her friends celebrate while her husband Piotrek (Peter J. Lucas) ominously surveys them from atop a nearby staircase.Some time later, Nikki and her co-star Devon Berk (Theroux) receive an interview on a talk show. The host (Ladd) asks them both whether they are having an affair, to which each of them respond negatively. Devon is warned by his entourage that Nikki is out of bounds, due to her husband's power and influence. Later, on the set being built for the film, Nikki and Devon rehearse a scene with the director, Kingsley Stewart (Irons). They are interrupted by a disturbance, but upon investigation Devon finds nothing. Shaken by the event, Kingsley confesses that they are shooting a remake of a German feature entitled 47. Production was abandoned after both leads were murdered, creating rumors of the film being cursed.Immersed in her character, while the film is being shot, "Sue" / Nikki appears to begin an affair with Devon / "Billy". A strange scene follows based on what the old woman had described: Nikki appears in a mysterious alley walking to her car, carrying a bag of groceries, but then she notices a door in the alley marked Axxon N, and enters. It leads her back to soundstage where the earlier rehearsal took place. She witnesses that rehearsal from across the roomââshe herself was what had interrupted it earlier. This time, when Devon seeks to discover who's observing them, she disappears from the rehearsal scene, and flees among the half-built backgrounds and into the house of a character named Smithy (possibly her husband in the film's story, but this is never made clear). Despite the set being merely a wooden facade, Nikki enters to find an illuminated suburban house inside. Devon looks through the windows, but sees only darkness, not hearing her frantic cries of his character's name, "Billy."At this point, the film takes a drastic stylistic turn. Various plotlines and scenes begin to entwine and complement each other. The chronological order is often confused or nonexistent. Inside the house, Nikki sees her husband (whether it's "Smithy" or Piotrek is unclear) in bed. Hiding from him, she enters a different room and encounters a troupe of prostitutes. One of the women advises her to burn a hole through silk with a cigarette and look through the hole. Nikki complies and witnesses several strange happenings, many of which seem to revolve around her, or alternate versions of herself.Prior to these scenes, the woman who plays Billyâs wife tells a policeman that she had been hypnotised to murder someone with a screwdriver, but finds the screwdriver embedded in her own side. A mysterious organization claims to have captives from Inland Empire. A parallel plotline involves Polish circus artists in the present day, as well as Polish prostitutes in ÅÃ³dÅº during the 1930s, who are confronted by strange pimps while murder permeates their city. Nikki, having become one of the group of present-day prostitutes, wanders the streets while her companions ask, "Who is she?" Both Nikki and her prostitutes frequently ask people to look at them and "say whether you've known me before." In a parallel plotline, Sue climbs the dark staircase behind a nightclub to deliver long monologues to an unidentified man touching upon her childhood sexual abuse, disastrous relationships, and retaliations. Her husband Smithy seems to be connected with both the pimps and the organization, and then is hired by a circus from Poland because he is said to be "good with animals." There is much talk of the Phantom, an elusive hypnotist. Convinced sheâs being stalked by a red-lipped man, Sue arms herself with a screwdriver.Finally, Sue walks down Hollywood Boulevard, and is startled to see her doppelgÃ¤nger across the street. Before Sue can investigate, Doris arrives and attempts to kill her, having been hypnotized by The Phantom. Sue is brutally stabbed in the stomach with her own screwdriver, causing her to stagger down the street and eventually collapse next to some homeless people on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. One woman remarks that Sue is dying, then proceeds to debate with another, younger homeless woman about taking a bus to Pomona. Her companion talks at length about a friend named Niko, a prostitute whose blond wig makes her look like a movie star, thus allowing her to walk through the rich district without drawing attention. The older woman comforts Sue by holding a lighter in front of her face until she finally dies, promising her "no more blue tomorrows." Off-camera, Kingsley yells "Cut!" and the camera pans back to show this has merely been a film scene.As the actors and film crew wrap for the next scene, Sue slowly arises, Nikki once more. Kingsley announces that her scenes for the film are complete. In a daze, Nikki wanders off set and into a nearby cinema, where she sees not only On High in Blue Tomorrowsâencompassing some of the subplots of the filmâbut events that are currently occurring. She wanders to the projection room, but finds an apartment building marked "Axxon N". Eventually, Nikki confronts the red-lipped man from earlier, now known to be the Phantom. She shoots him, which causes his face to morph first into a distorted copy of Nikki's own face, and then an even more distorted face bleeding from its mouth.Nikki flees into a nearby roomâRoom 47, which houses the rabbits on television, though she fails to see them. Elsewhere in the building, Nikki finds the Lost Girl, who has been watching and crying all along. The two women kiss, before Nikki fades away into the light along with the rabbits. The Lost Girl runs out of the hotel and into Smithy's house, where she happily embraces a man and child.Nikki is then seen back home, smiling at the old woman from the beginning of the film. The concluding scene takes place at her house, where she sits with many other people, among them Laura Harring, Nastassja Kinski, and Ben Harper. A one-legged woman who was mentioned in Sue's monologue looks around and says, "Sweet!" Niko, the girl with the blonde wig and monkey, can also be seen. The end credits roll over a group of women dancing to Nina Simone's "Sinner Man" while a lumberjack saws a log to the beat., Question: What does Nikki fail to see in room 47?

SOLUTION: Answer: the rabbits

PROBLEM: In Louisiana's Seven Doors Hotel in 1927, a lynch mob murders an artist named Schweick, whom they believe to be a warlock. This opens one of the Seven Doors of Death, allowing the dead to cross into the world of the living. Several decades later, Liza, a young woman from New York, inherits the hotel and plans to re-open it. Her renovation work activates the hell portal, and she contends with increasingly strange incidents. A plumber named Joe investigates flooding in the cellar and a demonic hand gouges out his eye. His body and another are later discovered by a hotel maid, Martha.Liza encounters a blind woman named Emily, who warns that reopening the hotel would be a mistake. Joe's wife Mary-Anne and their daughter Jill arrive at the hospital morgue to claim Joe's corpse. Jill finds her mother lying on the floor unconscious, her face burned by acid. Liza meets with Dr. John McCabe, and receives a phone call informing her of Mary-Anne's death. After the funerals, Liza encounters Emily at the hotel. Emily tells Liza the story of Schweick, and warns her to not enter room 36. When Emily examines Schweick's painting, she begins to bleed and flees the hotel.Liza ignores Emily's advice, and investigates room 36. She discovers an ancient book titled Eibon. She sees Schweick's corpse nailed to the bathroom wall. She flees the room in terror, but is stopped by John. She takes him to room 36 but both the corpse and the book are gone. Liza describes her fearful encounters with Emily, but John insists that Emily is not real. While in town, Liza spots a copy of Eibon in the window of a book store. The shop owner says the book has been there for years, prompting Liza to remark to John that perhaps its all in her head. At the hotel, a worker named Arthur attempts to repair the same leak as Joe, but is killed off-screen by ghouls.Liza's friend Martin visits the public library to find the hotel's blueprints. He is struck by a sudden force and falls from a ladder, resulting in paralysis. Spiders ravage his face and kill him. Martha is cleaning the bathroom in Room 36 when Joe's animated corpse emerges from the bathtub. Joe pushes her head into an exposed nail, killing her and destroying one of her eyes. The walking corpses of Schweik, Joe, Mary-Anne, Martin and Arthur invade Emily's house. She pleads with them to leave her alone, and insists she will not return with Schweik. She commands her guide dog to attack the corpses, but the dog turns on Emily, tearing out her throat.At the hotel, spirits terrorize Liza. John breaks into Emily's house, which appears to have been abandoned for years, and finds Eibon. He returns to the hotel and tells Liza that it is a gateway to Hell. They flee to the hospital, but it has been overrun by zombies. Liza is attacked, but John gets a gun out of his desk and shoots the shambling corpses. Only Harris and Jill are found still alive, but Harris is killed by flying shards of glass. Jill, having shown signs of possession since the funeral, finally attacks Liza. John is forced to kill Jill.Escaping the zombies, John and Liza rush down a set of stairs but find themselves back in the basement of the hotel. They move forward through the flooded labyrinth and stumble into a supernatural wasteland of dust and corpses. No matter which direction they travel, they find themselves back at their starting point. They are ultimately blinded just like Emily, succumb to the darkness, and disappear., Question: Who was the artist that the lynch mob murder?

SOLUTION: Answer: Schweick

PROBLEM: Legendary adventurer Sinbad the Sailor (Kerwin Mathews) and his crew land their ship on the island of Colossa, where they encounter Sokurah the magician (Torin Thatcher) fleeing from a giant cyclops. Though escaping with their lives, Sokurah loses a magic lamp to the creature. Sinbad refuses his desperate pleas to be returned to the island because he is carrying Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) aboard. Sinbad has fallen in love with her, and their coming marriage is meant to secure peace between her father's realm and Sinbad's homeland of Persia.Sinbad and his men confront the Roc.After reaching Bagdad, the wedding is prepared, and Parisa's father (Harold Kasket) arrives as the guest of honor. Sokurah performs his magic at the pre-wedding festivities, but despite his prowess the Caliph of Bagdad (Alec Mango) refuses to grant the magician his return to Colossa. Later that night, Sokurah secretly reduces the princess to diminutive size, enraging her father who then declares war on Bagdad. Sinbad and the Caliph give in to Sokurah, who explains that the eggshell of a Roc needed for the potion to release Parisah from her spell can be found only on Colossa. Sokurah provides Sinbad and his crew with the construction plans for a giant crossbow, if needed, to be used against the island's giant creatures.Sinbad recruits additional sailors for the voyage from among the convicts in the Caliph's prisons. Before they reach Colossa, the cutthroats mutiny and capture Sokurah, Sinbad, and his men. During a violent storm, the sounds of keening demons from an island south of Colossa drives the crew nearly mad, endangering the ship. After the mutineers' leader falls to his death from the Crow's nest, one of them releases Sinbad so he can save the ship.On Colossa, Sinbad, Sokurah, and some of the crew enter the Valley of the Cyclops, where they find the creature's treasure cave. Sinbad and his men are captured after Sokurah regains the magic lamp, but he is also trapped by the Cyclops. With Parisah's aid, Sinbad escapes, blinds the one-eyed creature, and lures it off the edge of a cliff to its death. Sinbad retains custody of the lamp until Parisah is turned back to normal.Sokurah leads Sinbad and his starving men to the nesting place of the giant Rocs, finding an intact egg close to hatching. Sinbad's men crack it open and kill the Roc nestling inside, roasting it. While the men are eating, Parisah enters the magic lamp and befriends the childlike Genie of the lamp, Barani (Richard Eyer), who tells her how to summon him in exchange for her promise for his freedom. The parent Roc returns and slays several of the men. Sinbad manages to retrieve both an eggshell fragment and the lamp, but he is grabbed up by the Roc, who later drops him unconscious in its nest. The magician kills Sinbad's aide Harufa (Alfred Brown) and abducts the princess, taking her to his underground fortress.Sinbad awakes and rubs the magic lamp, summoning Barani, who takes Sinbad to Sokurah's fortress. Barani helps him evade the chained dragon that stands guard. Sinbad reaches Sokurah, who restores the princess to normal. When Sinbad refuses to hand over the lamp, the magician animates a skeleton warrior, which Sinbad battles and destroys. He and Parisah make their way out of the cave, stopping to honor their promise to destroy the lamp, setting Barini free.Leaving the cave, they encounter another cyclops. Sinbad releases the dragon, who fights the cyclops to the death. Sinbad and Parisa make good their escape, and Sokurah orders the dragon to follow and kill them. Sinbad's men, having assembled and armed the giant crossbow, manage to kill the dragon with a giant arrow. As it dies, Sokurah is crushed beneath the collapsing creature. Sinbad, Parisa, and the remaining crew depart for Bagdad to stop the war. They are joined by Barani, now human and Sinbad's new cabin boy, who, before his transformation, magically placed the treasure of the Cyclops in Sinbad's cabin as a wedding gift., Question: Who refuses to Sokurah's return to Colossa?

SOLUTION:
Answer: Caliph of Bagdad