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 writing does Nikki notice on the door?

SOLUTION: Answer: Axxon N

PROBLEM: In 1984, Tre Styles lives with his divorced single mother, Reva in Inglewood, California. After Tre gets in a fight at school, his teacher informs Reva that Tre is highly intelligent but has a volatile temper and lacks respect. Worried about Tre's future, Reva sends him to live in the Crenshaw neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles with his father, Furious Styles, from whom she hopes Tre will learn valuable life lessons. In Crenshaw, Tre reunites with his friends, Darrin "Doughboy" Baker, Doughboy's maternal half-brother Ricky, and Chris, their mutual friend. That night, Tre hears his father shooting at a burglar who tried to steal from the house. Two policemen arrive an hour later, and while the white officer is civil, the black officer treats Furious with disrespect and contempt. The next day, Tre and his friends go out with Chris who shows them a dead body. While there, a group of older Crip gang members steal Ricky's football and Doughboy aggressively tries to get it back but is easily defeated. While the boys walk away, one of the members gives Ricky back his ball and a frustrated Doughboy says he is going with Chris to the store. Later in the day, Furious spends quality time with Tre, taking him to the seaside for fishing and telling the boy more about his life story, including the time that he even went to Vietnam in hopes of making his boy proud of him. He concludes by advising Tre to not ever join the army, stating that the black man has no place in the army. While returning home, they see Doughboy and Chris getting arrested for stealing something at the store, while Ricky and Tre look on.The film then jumps forward to seven years later. At a backyard party, Doughboy is now a Crip and is celebrating his recent release from jail, along with most of his friends, including Chris, who is now in a wheelchair from a gunshot wound, and new friends Dooky and Monster, also Crips. Ricky, now a star running back for Crenshaw High School, lives with his mother Brenda, girlfriend Shanice, and their infant son. Tre has grown into a mature and responsible teenager, works at a clothing store at the local mall, and hopes to attend college with his girlfriend, Brandi.Furious takes Tre and Ricky to Compton to talk about the dangers of decreasing property values in the black community. That night, during a local street racing gathering, Ricky is provoked by Ferris, a member of the Bloods. In response, Doughboy brandishes his handgun, leading to a brief argument between the two gangs. While the two gangs were done arguing, Ferris shoots his gun in the air to signal everyone to leave. While Tre talks about leaving Los Angeles, he and Ricky are pulled over by the police. The lead officer, the same one who was disrespectful to Furious seven years earlier, deliberately intimidates and threatens Tre with his gun, knowing he can't do anything. Distraught, Tre goes to Brandi's house, where he finally breaks down. After she consoles him, they have sex for the first time.The next day, Ricky has a fight with Doughboy, with Brenda quickly taking Ricky's side and berating Doughboy. While Ricky and Tre walk to a nearby store, they see Ferris and his gang driving around the neighborhood and to avoid them, cut through back alleys and separate. Ferris's car closes in on Ricky, and one of Ferris's gang members guns Ricky down, killing him. Both Tre and Doughboy's gang catch up to the location of the shooting. Helpless, Tre and Doughboy carry Ricky's lifeless body back home. When Brenda and Shanice find out that Ricky is dead, they hysterically blame Doughboy, who unsuccessfully tries to comfort them. That night, Brenda sobs over Ricky's SAT results, discovering he scored just enough to qualify for the USC scholarship he wanted.The remaining boys vow vengeance on Ferris and his group. Furious finds Tre preparing to take Furious's revolver, but convinces Tre to abandon his plans for revenge. However, Brandi and Furious catch Tre sneaking out of his bedroom window to join Doughboy. That night, as the gang drives around the city, Tre asks to be let out of the car and returns home, realizing that his father was right to keep him from falling into a cycle of violence. When Tre gets back, Furious is waiting for him; they look at each other without saying a word, and then Furious retreats to his bedroom. Doughboy finds Ferris's gang at a local fast food restaurant, and Monster opens fire on them, killing one and wounding the other two. Doughboy gets out and personally executes the other wounded gang member and Ferris, avenging Ricky's death.The next day, Doughboy visits Tre, now understanding Tre's reasons for abandoning the gang. Doughboy knows that he will soon face retaliation for Ferris' death, and accepts the consequences of his crime-ridden life. He plaintively questions why America "don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on in the hood". He sorrowfully says that he has no brothers left now after Ricky's death, but is embraced by Tre, who says to Doughboy "You still got one brother left."The epilogue reveals that Doughboy saw Ricky buried the next day and was murdered two weeks later. Tre and Brandi resume their relationship, and go on to attend Morehouse and Spelman Colleges in Atlanta, respectively. This closes the film., Question: Where does Furious take Tre for fishing?

SOLUTION: Answer: The seaside

PROBLEM: On November 4, 1979, Iranian activists storm the United States embassy in Tehran in retaliation for President Jimmy Carter giving the Shah asylum in the U.S. during the Iranian Revolution. 60 of the embassy staff are taken as hostages, but six avoid capture and hide in the home of Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor. With the escapees' situation kept secret, the U.S. State Department begins to explore options for exfiltrating them from Iran. Tony Mendez, a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency exfiltration specialist, is brought in for consultation. He criticizes the proposals, but is at a loss when asked for an alternative. While on the phone with his son, he is inspired by watching Battle for the Planet of the Apes and begins plans for creating a cover story for the escapees: that they are Canadian filmmakers who happened to be in Iran scouting exotic locations for a similar science-fiction film.Mendez contacts John Chambers, a Hollywood make-up artist who had previously crafted disguises for the CIA. Chambers puts Mendez in touch with film producer Lester Siegel. Together, they set up a phony film production company, publicize their plans, and successfully establish the pretense of developing Argo, a "science fantasy adventure" in the style of Star Wars, to lend credibility to the cover story. Meanwhile, the escapees grow frantic inside the ambassador's residence. The revolutionaries reassemble embassy photographs shredded before the takeover and learn that some personnel have escaped.Posing as a producer for Argo, Mendez enters Iran under the fake name Kevin Harkins and links up with the six escapees. He provides them with Canadian passports and fake identities to prepare them to get through security at the airport. Although afraid to trust Mendez's scheme, they reluctantly go along with it, knowing that he is risking his own life too. A scouting visit to the bazaar to maintain their cover story takes a bad turn, but their Iranian culture contact gets them away from the hostile crowd.Mendez is told that the operation has been cancelled to avoid conflicting with a planned military rescue of the hostages. He pushes ahead, forcing his boss Jack O'Donnell to hastily re-obtain authorization for the mission to get tickets on a Swissair flight. Tension rises at the airport, where the escapees' flight reservations are confirmed at the last minute, and a guard's call to the supposed production company in Hollywood is answered at the last second. The group boards the plane, which takes off just as the Revolutionary Guards at the airport uncover the ruse and try to stop them.To protect the hostages remaining in Tehran from retaliation, all U.S. involvement in the rescue is suppressed and full credit is given to the Canadian government and its ambassador (who left Iran with his wife under their own credentials as the operation was underway). The ambassador's Iranian housekeeper, who had known about the Americans and lied to the revolutionaries to protect them, escaped to Iraq. Mendez is awarded the Intelligence Star, but due to the mission's classified nature, he would not be able to officially receive the medal until the details were publicized in 1997. All the hostages were freed on January 20, 1981. The film ends with Carter's speech about the crisis and the Canadian Caper., Question: Who contacts John Chambers?

SOLUTION:
Answer: Mendez